Does google really care if anchor text is the "brand name"?

[diogenes]

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

[danatanseo]

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