How to Fix: Descriptive anchor text

Descriptive anchor text is an important SEO check in the On-Page SEO Essentials category. This is a medium-priority issue. While not urgent, fixing it will improve your overall SEO health.

What is This Check About?

This check verifies that the clickable text of your links actually describes where they lead. “Read our guide to WooCommerce shipping zones” is descriptive anchor text; “click here”, “read more”, and a bare URL are not. Anchor text is one of the oldest and most reliable signals in search — it tells Google what the destination page is about — and it is also a core accessibility feature, because screen-reader users often navigate by pulling up a list of links out of context. When this check fails, your links are giving away that signal and leaving those users stranded on a page full of “click here”.

The good news is that this is one of the cheapest wins in on-page SEO. You are not creating anything new — you are rewording link text you already have so it earns its keep for both the crawler and the reader.

Why Does This Matter for SEO?

Search engines evaluate hundreds of factors when ranking websites. Anchor text matters more than its size suggests because:

• Google uses the anchor text of both internal and external links to understand what the linked page is about
• Descriptive internal anchors strengthen your topical structure and help the right pages rank for the right terms
• Meaningful link text improves usability and accessibility — screen readers announce links out of context, and “click here” tells a blind user nothing
• Clear anchors set accurate expectations, which reduces bounce when the visitor lands exactly where the text promised

How to Check This Issue

You can identify this issue by:

1. Running an SEO audit using the SEO Roadmap tool to flag generic or empty anchor text
2. Scanning your top content for the usual offenders: “click here”, “read more”, “this link”, “here”, and bare pasted URLs
3. Using a screen reader (or the browser’s accessibility tools) to pull up the links list on a page and seeing whether it makes sense with no surrounding text
4. Reviewing internal links on cornerstone pages to check they use keyword-relevant, natural anchor text pointing to the right destinations

How to Fix This in WordPress

Difficulty Level: EASY – This fix is straightforward and can typically be completed by anyone with basic WordPress knowledge.

Estimated Time: varies

Follow these steps to fix this issue:

Step 1: Identify Affected Pages

Run a complete SEO audit to list pages with weak anchor text. The SEO Roadmap tool will show you which URLs need attention. Start with your highest-traffic and cornerstone pages, where the internal links carry the most weight.

Step 2: Access WordPress Settings

Log into your WordPress admin. Most of this work happens in the editor itself:

• Posts / Pages — open each flagged item and edit the link text directly in the block editor
• Appearance → Menus and widgets — check navigation and footer links use clear labels too
• Your theme’s templates for any hardcoded “read more” links on archives and cards

Step 3: Apply the Fix

Rewrite each generic link so the clickable words describe the destination. “Click here to learn about our return policy” becomes “read our return policy“, with the anchor on the words that matter. Keep it natural and honest — do not force an exact-match keyword into every link, and do not point ten different anchors with the same keyword at ten different pages, which just confuses the signal. Aim for anchors a person could read aloud, out of context, and still know where they go.

Step 4: Verify the Fix

After making changes:

1. Clear your WordPress cache if you’re using a caching plugin
2. Re-run the SEO Roadmap audit to confirm the generic anchors are gone
3. Re-check the page’s links list with accessibility tools to confirm each one now stands on its own

The out-of-context test

Here is the single rule I would have any writer on your team internalise, and it settles ninety percent of anchor-text questions: a link’s text should make sense read entirely on its own, with the sentence around it removed. That is not an arbitrary style preference. It is precisely how Google weighs the anchor and exactly how a screen-reader user encounters it — as a standalone label in a list, stripped of the surrounding prose. If the anchor still tells you where you are going with no context, it is doing its job for the search engine, the assistive-technology user, and the skim-reader all at once.

The reason I like this test is that it makes the fix effortless to teach and to check. You do not need to debate keyword density or over-optimisation. You read the link text alone. If it is “here” or “click here”, it fails; rewrite it. If it names the destination, it passes. Bake that into how your team writes from now on and this check simply stops failing on new content — which is a much better outcome than cleaning it up forever after the fact.

Recommended Tools & Plugins

These tools can help you fix and prevent this issue:

• Yoast SEO – Comprehensive SEO plugin with readability and internal-linking guidance
• Rank Math – Feature-rich SEO plugin with content and link analysis
• Google Search Console – Free tool to monitor how your pages perform as your internal linking improves
• SEO Roadmap – Complete SEO audit and action plan tool

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Leaving “click here”, “read more”, and bare URLs as your link text
• Over-optimising by forcing the same exact-match keyword into every anchor, which reads as manipulation
• Writing anchors that promise one thing and lead somewhere else, breaking trust and raising bounce
• Fixing existing posts but never teaching the writing team the rule, so new content keeps failing

Need More Help?

If you’re still having trouble fixing this issue, consider:

• Consulting with a WordPress developer or SEO specialist on an internal-linking strategy
• Checking the WordPress support forums for similar issues
• Reviewing your theme and plugin documentation
• Running a complete site audit with SEO Roadmap for a prioritized action plan

This guide is part of the SEO Roadmap knowledge base – your complete resource for WordPress SEO optimization.