‌Branded Name as anchor text for internal pages

I know that I should use various anchor texts for link building. One of the most used types of anchor text for link building should be the branded type. But I have a question, suppose the name of my site and brand is "FAJOE"
Naturally, I will link to the home page with the "FAJOE" as anchor text.
If I want to link to one of my internal pages, which is about a "red car", for example, what anchor text should I use for branded anchor text type?
If your answer is that I should link with the "FAJOE" as anchor text, the problem is that I have already linked to the home page with this anchor text.
Is it not a problem if I give a link to both the home page and one of the internal pages with the brand name?

jootess said:

If I want to link to one of my internal pages, which is about a "red car", for example, what anchor text should I use for branded anchor text type?

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Since that internal page is talking about 'Red Car', then it is obviously you want that page to come in ranking for the keyword 'Red Car'. So ideally you should build links to that page using the keyword 'Red Car'. You can even try some keyword variations like secondary keywords, for example, 'Buy Red Car', 'Cheap Red Car', etc.

For the internal page about a "red car," you can use a variation of your brand name, such as "FAJOE red car page" or "Explore FAJOE's red car section," to maintain the branded anchor text while adding relevance to the linked page.

sageshark said:

Since that internal page is talking about 'Red Car', then it is obviously you want that page to come in ranking for the keyword 'Red Car'. So ideally you should build links to that page using the keyword 'Red Car'. You can even try some keyword variations like secondary keywords, for example, 'Buy Red Car', 'Cheap Red Car', etc.

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But I have read that we should use more Naked URL and branded names so that link building is natural

Yes, you can mix "Red Car" with a variation of your brand name. But don't overdo it. That's why they advise you to always diversify your keyword categories. Of course, this includes naked URLs, brand names, and brand name variations in organic anchor text.

Make sure the keywords you are using are brief and relevant to the page you’re linking to what ever keywords it might me,

RMX said:

Make sure the keywords you are using are brief and relevant to the page you’re linking to whether it's naked URL or branded keywords.

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How can I use keyword relevant, if i use naked URL?

jootess said:

How can I use keyword relevant, if i use naked URL?

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From my point i think you need to diversifiy your anchors usage as you can't use naked URL for all the inks you are going to build.

jootess said:

But I have read that we should use more Naked URL and branded names so that link building is natural

Click to expand...

Don't know where did you read this, but you just can't use naked URL's everywhere. If you have to get a link from a good site you should have a logical and relevant keyword as an anchor text.

jootess said:

I know that I should use various anchor texts for link building. One of the most used types of anchor text for link building should be the branded type. But I have a question, suppose the name of my site and brand is "FAJOE"
Naturally, I will link to the home page with the "FAJOE" as anchor text.
If I want to link to one of my internal pages, which is about a "red car", for example, what anchor text should I use for branded anchor text type?
If your answer is that I should link with the "FAJOE" as anchor text, the problem is that I have already linked to the home page with this anchor text.
Is it not a problem if I give a link to both the home page and one of the internal pages with the brand name?

Click to expand...

There is no need to mix your brand name with backlinks going to individual posts. For homepage links, keep it all about brand anchors, but for links to individual blog posts, just use variations of your main keyword (or LSI keywords).

For a post on red car, you should use modifers like 'red car details', 'all about red cars' etc. No need to add anchors like 'Fajoe's red car'

jootess said:

I know that I should use various anchor texts for link building. One of the most used types of anchor text for link building should be the branded type. But I have a question, suppose the name of my site and brand is "FAJOE"
Naturally, I will link to the home page with the "FAJOE" as anchor text.
If I want to link to one of my internal pages, which is about a "red car", for example, what anchor text should I use for branded anchor text type?
If your answer is that I should link with the "FAJOE" as anchor text, the problem is that I have already linked to the home page with this anchor text.
Is it not a problem if I give a link to both the home page and one of the internal pages with the brand name?

Click to expand...

Branded anchors are over used and imo spammy.

You aren't Walmart. People aren't going to refer to you by brand very often.

When I see 1000's of brand links, followed by 1000's of naked, I know I'm dealing with an SEO'er.

It's highly unnatural.

Brand anchors are only used if you have an ACTUAL brand..

Semrush, ahrefs, walmart, moz.. These are brands.

plumberbob.com is not a brand.

When it's not a brand people link with natural language phrases.

Think about this.

"I bought some salmon at that little fish shop on Blue Street"

This is something someone will say.

vs

"I bought some salmon from Walmart".

They won't describe Walmart as "That big supermarket on Brown Avenue"

But if the fish shop is called "RaFish", they're not likely to say

"I bought some salmon from RaFish".

The other person would probably say "What's RaFish?"

We only use brands when both parties know the brand, or if it's well known in general..

And you'd never want to use brand anchors internally. That's just weird. If your site is plumberbob.com, then Google knows your brand is "plumber bob". You don't need to keep using it on internal anchors. Instead, use natural language anchors that describe the page you're linking to.
External anchors should be the same. brand/naked anchors are stupid and rare in contextual links. Use natural long phrase anchors that describe the page.

Look here - https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/american-values-and-norms-have-split.html

You see how they link? It's not naked/brand.

brand/naked should be used on directories/profiles, but those kind of links are not particularly helpful. Anchors are really easy. People have been overcomplicating them for years.

splishsplash said:

Branded anchors are over used and imo spammy.

You aren't Walmart. People aren't going to refer to you by brand very often.

When I see 1000's of brand links, followed by 1000's of naked, I know I'm dealing with an SEO'er.

It's highly unnatural.

Brand anchors are only used if you have an ACTUAL brand..

Semrush, ahrefs, walmart, moz.. These are brands.

plumberbob.com is not a brand.

When it's not a brand people link with natural language phrases.

Think about this.

"I bought some salmon at that little fish shop on Blue Street"

This is something someone will say.

vs

"I bought some salmon from Walmart".

They won't describe Walmart as "That big supermarket on Brown Avenue"

But if the fish shop is called "RaFish", they're not likely to say

"I bought some salmon from RaFish".

The other person would probably say "What's RaFish?"

We only use brands when both parties know the brand, or if it's well known in general..

And you'd never want to use brand anchors internally. That's just weird. If your site is plumberbob.com, then Google knows your brand is "plumber bob". You don't need to keep using it on internal anchors. Instead, use natural language anchors that describe the page you're linking to.
External anchors should be the same. brand/naked anchors are stupid and rare in contextual links. Use natural long phrase anchors that describe the page.

Look here - https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/american-values-and-norms-have-split.html

You see how they link? It's not naked/brand.

brand/naked should be used on directories/profiles, but those kind of links are not particularly helpful. Anchors are really easy. People have been overcomplicating them for years.

Click to expand...

But I have heard that we should use the naked URLs for normalization.

If you have already linked to your home page with the anchor text "FAJOE" it's better to use a different anchor text for your internal page about the "red car." Instead of using the brand name again, choose a descriptive anchor text like "Explore our red car collection" or "Our featured red car." Using varied anchor text helps diversify your links and provides clearer information to search engines and visitors.

jootess said:

But I have heard that we should use the naked URLs for normalization.

Click to expand...

This is the problem with SEO knowledge on the internet. It's often dated. Things change so rapidly in SEO and old ideas stay in circulation.

What you're referring to as "normalization" is from when Penguine existed (it does not exist now. It was eventually made part of the core algorithm, and now imo it's been completely replaced with more sophisticated machine learning models for determining natural vs unnatural linking patterns)

Originally, you used lots of exacts/partials. Happy days. You blasted your site with exacts and you ranked easily. For a bonus, you'd use EMDs.

Then Penguin came along, and you got penalized for too many exacts, so what people did was blast lots of brand/naked links with weaker sites, so they could use exacts on strong contextuals like pbns.

Now, the name of the game is to look natural. That means, look at how real sites, that attract real links get links.

It's likely Google trained models on seed sites that were manually reviewed and determined as "natural".

From what I can see on the web, brand and naked anchors are not that common in contextual links.

Brand is used sometimes and only with known brands. It doesn't make sense in most cases to refer to a brand that no one knows by brand name. It would be like dropping a name of someone that no one knows. It wouldn't help the conversation. Instead, you'd likely say "My friend who can run marathons in under 3 hours", rather than "Jim Smith". If everyone knows Jim Smith is a marathon runner who can do sub 3 hour marathons, then you'll just say "Jim Smith".

Naked is VERY rare. The only place I often see naked links is in the "sources" or "references" parts of articles. SOMETIMES you see a naked, but go surf the web and see how often articles use full urls as anchors. It's damned ugly and not helpful. Naked links are for profiles/directories, and those types of links aren't something you should be building a lot of.

So it's quite simple for linking. All your active link building should be contextuals. If it makes sense for your site, ie you're a small business, you'd also create business directory listings. Other than that, just contextuals.

Your anchors to your homepage should be, sometimes brand, but more often brand + keywords. So you are "plumberjoe.com", your anchor to the homepage could be "plumberjoe.com is a reliable plumber", or "plumberjoe is a plumber from NYC" etc.

Inner pages, should just be natural language that describes the page.

You don't have to use the branded name for internal links
Find the word that best relates to articles you'd like to link to

You can’t use any other anchor text without the inclusion of the inner page main keyword. Another thing to look out for is that the anchor text you use for the inner page should be short, ideally 2-3 words.