Influencing which page google chooses as the authority for a certain keyword
-
I have spent the last year optimizing my site for a specific keyword that I believed would do well with respect to conversions.
The good news is that my efforts have somewhat succeed. I am now ranking second for a pretty popular keyword, and this effort has definitely increased my traffic.
The bad news is that the target page that shows up for the optimized keywords isn't really the authoritative page on my site for the given keywords. As a result, it is my belief that my bounce rate is increasing and my conversions are decreasing.
To be more specific, let's say I have optimized my site for the keywords "cool widgets". On my site, I am referencing "cool widgets" in key areas such as title, meta keywords etc. I am referencing the above both on my homepage as well as the cool-widgets page.
So, http://www.mysite.com and http://www.mysite.com both contain pretty heavy optimization for "cool widgets". When a user searches "cool widgets", google is displaying mysite.com - however, i'd like it to display mysite.com/cool-widgets like all my competitors.
Is there any advice or light the community can shed on how I might go about correcting this issue? I don't think I want to de-optimize my home page, as I am afraid I might lose that position and not have it replaced with the more relevant target page.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Roy
-
Thanks Reload! Makes sense - I will get to work on some of your suggestions.
-
WHat Roy said and you may have tried too hard with your "cool widgets" page. Be sure you haven't over optimized the desired page. Good luck
-
Hi Royboy,
It's a common issue with SEO, as we don't have the precise control the PPC guys do over our desired landing pages.
First step would be to optimise your internal links, make sure /cool-widgets is very well interlinked from within your own site.
Next build external links into that page. After awhile you may get both pages listed in one SERP, #win. Then you can re-target your home page to a more relevant competitive keyword.
Depending on your external link building, it can take several months though, but is worth doing.
In the mean time, put something very obvious on the home page pointing visitors towards /cool-widgets
Let us know how you get on.
Iain - Reload Media
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
-
Is it worth creating a page for misspelled keywords?
I had thought the answer to this was no with the way Google search corrects mispellings. But in Google webmaster tools queries for a page I see the page ranking for a misspelled keyword. And looking at Key Word Finder it tells me the search volume for that keyword is high. But, when I search for the keyword myself it Google it auto corrects the results to the correct spelling. Is it worth creating a page for misspelled keywords?
Keyword Research | | Azam_Khan0 -
Google Adwords traffic shows a different level to Google Trends
Hello I am doing some keyword research support for a client. The keywords that we are looking at Keyword A is 880 LMS and Keyword B is 2900 LMS through Google Adwords. When we look at Google Trends Keyword A is showing much high traffic than keyword B. Does anyone know why this is? Many thanks
Keyword Research | | mblsolutions0 -
How to optimize home page for several keywords
My issue is this. I'm getting a lot of "F" grades for certain keywords to my homepage using MOZ. the thing is I can't add to many keywords to title tag without going over 65 characters. It seems the title tag is most important and even though i have keywords in content and everything else, without title tag keyword its useless. can creating more than one title tag help or will that make things worse with search engines?
Keyword Research | | DrMcCoy0 -
Why is Keyword Tool volume data showing as unavailable? I already linked my Google Analytics account.
Why is Keyword Tool volume data showing as unavailable? I already linked my Google Analytics account.
Keyword Research | | bethkmac0 -
Question on keyword rankings
Hi everyone Within our campaign it says that we rank number 35 for a specific keyword in Google in the Unites States but when we google the specific keyword we come up as number two on the first page. Can you help me understand what the current rank is based on as well as how it's results can be different from our Google search? Thank you.
Keyword Research | | DRTBA0 -
Keywords besides what is in Google Analytics
Hello, For our site thewealthymind(dot)com what keywords do you think I should be targeting, I assume it is not enough just to get keywords from Google Analytics history. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | BobGW0 -
Refining Keyword Research
I am looking to refine my Keyword research process. Currently I use 4 keyword tools to get volume, competition and of course other ideas. From there I try to distill it down to categories and then order on ability to drive traffic and convert. Anyone have something they can share maybe from the excel side, maybe from the tool side... something to help me make this easy and great.
Keyword Research | | EvolveDigitalLabs1 -
Keyword Difficulty: High or Low?
Looked in the FAQ in the Keyword Difficulty tool but it didn't mention whether or not a higher % or lower % is better. I'm assuming that a higher % means that the keyword is more competitive, is that correct?
Keyword Research | | kylesuss0