Does google really care if anchor text is the "brand name"?
-
I have read a lot about how it is a good idea to build links with your "brand name" as the anchor text. I am somewhat skeptical about all this. I suspect that the only thing that you need to do is have a wide variety of anchor text, some no follow links, and some links without any anchor text at all or just your URL. IDoes anyone have an opinion on this? Also I am somewhat confused about what a "brand name" is anyway. Obviolusly it applies to words like "Apple Computers" or seomoz but can I "make" my own name, i.e. Paul W. Matthews, into a "brand Name" aulby putting it in the title of my home page and just using it a lot as anchor text? If yes, is this a good idea?
thanks,
Paul
-
Hi Paul,
You ask interesting questions, the answers of which are all subjective really. Yes, a wide variety of anchor text is a good thing. As your site gains history, it will also naturally gain a link profile. Every site's link profile is a little different. Some sites, like "Apple" for instance, probably have much heaviier percentage of branded anchor text than your local family-owned computer store. If you are chugging along and all of a sudden something drastically changes your link profile, this might or might not cause problems with rankings in the SERPs. Some wild fluctuations, even in smaller businesses, can be quite normal, particularly if there was a big news event surrounding their business (perhaps they were acquired by a much larger company) or something of that sort.
You are correct in how you are defining briand names (IMHO). Yes, it absolutely could end up being your name. In fact, I encourage everyone who works and writes online to consider themselves, personally, a "brand" in addition to whatever other businesses they are involved with. This is one thing that makes Google+ so perplexing to me because it totally confuses personal and professional brands (hopefully they'll sort that out soon).
Yes, you absolutely could turn your name into a brand name. It doesn't even take putting it on your site anywhere. I an an in-house SEO for several websites, and one of them, one I built, has "Dana Tan" as it's next most often used anchor text next to its brand "Celebrate Communion." The site is young and tiny, so I assume this will change over time. This came about as a results of my blog commenting where I actually sign with my real name instead of trying to stuff in keywords and be all spammy
That being said, when I'm analyzing reports, I do not consider "Dana Tan" to be a "branded search term" for the site "Celebrate Communion." I do however consider it a branded search term for my SEO blog.
All that being said, yes, it's a very good thing to have branded search. That traffic converts at a higher rate and a much lower cost per conversion (if you are using any paid campaigns) than other traffic because they are predisposed to you. In most cases, branded terms will be the majority of your anchor text, with, hopefully, a wide range of other terms filling in the rest.
Hope that helps, and I apologize for the spacing issues in my response. My Mac doesn't like to double space in SEOMoz.
Dana
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How do I set a link as a "do follow"?
I have a page from a state agency linking to my website. They have good PA and DA. How do I tell google to "do follow"? It is already showing up as linked to my site, I just want to make sure I'm getting the SEO juice! 🙂
Link Building | | Kuhliff0 -
Why personal change coach not ranking for his own name, exact match
The term is tim hallbom The new website is TimHallbom.com I was under the impression that someone could take over rank for their own name. Let me know what we're doing wrong. Thanks.
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
Should anchor text be local or global keyword?
One of my clients' run a hyperlocal marketplace (have different pages for each city) to hire music teachers. When I am doing link building, should I use anchor text as "violin teachers" or "violin teachers in boston". I suggested to use "violin teachers" as this is the primary keyword with high search volume and if we rank for this keyword, we will automatically rank for locality keywords like violin teachers in boston, violin teachers in new york, violin teachers in los angels etc. But, he argues that we are hyper local services, which means we should have city anchor texts like "violin teachers in boston", "violin teachers in new york", "violin teachers in los angels" etc. Am I right? or Is he right? and Why?
Link Building | | Avin1230 -
Google.com showing as backlink provider in Webmaster Tools?
Hi Everyone 🙂 Looking in the 'Links to your site' section of webmaster tools today and my top backlinking domain is google.com which is apparently giving me 113 links. The second top referring site is googleapis.com which apparently isn't even a site when I type it into my browser? Does anyone else get Google.com as a site linking to them? and why would Google be linking to us, where would these links be coming from? Any info appreciated 🙂 Regards
Link Building | | O2C0 -
Why don't some external links "count"?
A car-dealer client advertises through DexKnows, and the entry includes a link to the client's website. That link is not listed as a linking domain through OpenSite Explorer for the client's site. A competing car dealer also advertises through DexKnows, but that link is counted as a linking domain for the competitor. Why the difference? (I'm new and still learning -- linkbuilding appears to be my weakness.) Thank you!
Link Building | | TheOptimizer690 -
How to deal with over-optimised anchor text?
Hi, We took on a client a few months ago, who came to us after seeing a drop in rankings. After cleaning up the site, we concluded that their drop is more than likely down to over-optimised anchor text. The keywords that have mainly been affected are the ones that have a majority of links with the exact anchor text. The links have built using blog networks, articles and there are some comments thrown in for good measure. We have no way of getting them removed. Hmm, links can't hurt you!? So what is the best solution? Has anyone had any success over coming this issue? What sort of time scales are we looking at? Gareth
Link Building | | garethbrown0 -
Vary Anchor Text for your internal links?
Something I had been pondering with all the new updates and signals Google is looking at, and also considering the fact that many website's overdo internal linking and almost everyone uses exact match anchor text for it. So my question is - is it effect or counter-effective to vary your anchor text for internal links? If you think its effective, what is a reasonable proportion for exact anchor text match to varied ones.
Link Building | | Syed10 -
Linking to Google Place page??
I'm wondering if anybody has tried and had success in improving search rankings by creating links to Google Place pages. What say you?
Link Building | | bdiddy0