SEO

Write internal anchor text variations for link building

A prompt for generating natural-sounding anchor text variety for a link campaign, avoiding the over-optimized exact-match pattern that trips spam filters.

Works with Claude / GPT670 uses 4.1

The prompt

seo-anchor-text-variations-link-building
A client is running an outreach-based link-building campaign for their page
targeting "[commercial roof repair contractors]" and has already secured placements
on 12 industry blogs. Their first draft used the exact phrase "commercial roof
repair contractors" as anchor text on 9 of the 12, which is a pattern that reads as
manipulative both to Google and to a human reader scanning the linking article.

TARGET PAGE: [yourdomain.com/services/commercial-roof-repair/]
TARGET KEYWORD: [commercial roof repair contractors]
CONTEXT SENTENCES FROM EACH OF THE 12 LINKING ARTICLES (paste the sentence
surrounding where the link will sit): [paste here]

Approach this the way someone who's seen a Penguin-style anchor text penalty would,
prioritizing pattern variety over keyword density:
1. For each of the 12 context sentences, write anchor text that fits that specific
   sentence grammatically, don't force the same phrase into different sentences
   awkwardly.
2. Distribute anchor types realistically across the 12: aim for roughly 2-3 exact
   match, several partial match or natural variants ("contractors who handle
   commercial roofing repairs"), a few brand or URL anchors ("[Company Name]" or the
   raw URL), and 1-2 generic anchors ("this guide," "their repair process"), since a
   natural backlink profile never skews toward one type.
3. Flag any of the 12 contexts where the surrounding sentence doesn't actually
   support linking to this specific page without sounding forced, and suggest
   linking to a more relevant page on the site instead, or recommend skipping that
   placement, rather than shoehorning an anchor in.
4. Output a table: publication, context sentence, recommended anchor text, anchor
   type, so the client can hand this directly to whoever is doing outreach follow-up.

Nine near-identical exact-match anchors across twelve placements is exactly the pattern that gets flagged, by an algorithm or a manual reviewer looking at unnatural link patterns. This prompt distributes anchor types the way a link profile that grew organically actually looks, and it’s willing to say a placement doesn’t fit rather than force it.