Why Anchor Text Matters for Website Owners
Why You Still Need Anchor Text Even If Your Website Has a Main Menu
Author: Gordon Barker 01/01/2016
Many website owners reasonably assume that if their key pages are already linked in the main menu, there is no need to add additional links inside their content. After all, those pages are visible, crawlable, and easy for users to reach. In practice, however, the main menu and anchor text inside content serve two very different purposes. One defines structure, while the other defines meaning. Understanding that distinction explains why anchor text remains essential for authority flow, rankings, and modern AI-driven search, even on well-structured websites.
The Main Menu Shows What Exists
Your main menu is a navigation system. Its role is to help users and search engines discover the permanent sections of your site and understand the broad hierarchy. From Google’s perspective, menu links answer a simple question: what pages exist, and how is this site organised at a high level? This is important for crawling and basic structure, but it stops there. Menu links are repeated on every page, appear in the same order, and provide no contextual explanation. Because of this, search engines treat them as structural signals rather than editorial ones. In effect, your menu tells Google that a page exists, but not why it matters.
Anchor Text Explains Relationships Between Ideas
Anchor text inside body content performs a completely different function. When you link within a sentence, you are making an editorial judgement about relevance. You are saying that, at this point in the discussion, another page helps explain, support, or extend the idea being discussed. This is why references to topics such as how websites appear in AI-driven search systems work best when they are woven naturally into an explanation rather than isolated in navigation.
Search engines place far more trust in this kind of contextual linking because it mirrors how humans naturally reference information when they write. Even if a page is already present in the menu, an in-content reference tells Google when and why that page is relevant.
Menus Are Structural, Anchor Text Is Editorial
Search engines deliberately discount menu links as relevance signals. If they did not, websites could manipulate rankings simply by loading navigation with keywords. Instead, Google expects menus to be stable, generic, and functional. It looks elsewhere for meaning, and that meaning comes from in-content links and the anchor text used to introduce them. A useful way to think about this is to compare a website to a book. The table of contents tells you what chapters exist, but the cross-references inside the chapters tell you which ideas connect and which sections truly matter.
Anchor Text Signals When a Page Is Important
Because anchor text is contextual, it helps search engines understand when a page should be surfaced. A page that is only accessible through a menu is treated as generally available. A page that is referenced within relevant content is treated as specifically useful. This distinction influences how authority flows, how relevance is assigned, and how confidently a page can rank for meaningful queries. This is particularly important for service-led content, such as explanations of how professional SEO services support long-term growth, where relevance depends heavily on context rather than labels.
Why This Matters More in AI-Driven Search
Modern search systems no longer just rank pages; they summarise, interpret, and reuse information. AI-driven systems rely heavily on contextual cues to understand how content fits together. Anchor text provides those cues by explaining how one page relates to another in natural language. Pages that are consistently introduced in context are easier for AI systems to reference accurately, while pages that exist only as menu items lack narrative framing. This shift is increasingly visible as search behaviour changes, particularly in the UK, where AI is reshaping SEO strategy and measurement.
Menus Cannot Express Intent
A menu link cannot express intent. It does not tell Google whether a page is informational, explanatory, commercial, or decisive. Anchor text does. When you link naturally within content, you show how a page fits into a reader’s journey, whether it provides background, reassurance, comparison, or next steps. This intent signalling is invisible in navigation but critical in content, especially for competitive queries.
Why Relying on Menus Alone Creates Ranking Ceilings
Websites that rely only on menus often experience a familiar pattern. Pages rank, but not strongly. Content exists, but does not dominate. Growth slows without an obvious technical cause. This happens because search engines do not see enough evidence of internal editorial prioritisation. Anchor text provides that evidence by showing which pages support which ideas and where authority should flow. Even commercial pages such as clear and transparent SEO pricing information perform better when they are referenced naturally rather than pushed aggressively.
Anchor Text Is How a Website Explains Itself
From a search engine’s perspective, a website is not just a collection of URLs; it is a system of ideas. Anchor text is the language that connects those ideas. Menus define structure, while anchor text defines meaning. Both are necessary, but they are not interchangeable. A site with a strong menu but weak anchor text is easy to crawl, but hard to understand.
The Practical Takeaway for Website Owners
You should always have a clear main menu to support navigation and discovery. But if you stop there, your site remains descriptive rather than expressive. Anchor text inside content is what shows Google which pages matter, when they matter, and why they matter. That is why even the best-structured websites still need anchor text.