Best Moz article on landing pages?
-
From what I understand, building landing pages to link back to sites is a thing of the past. I am looking for a good article that explains best current landing page practices (post Panda and Penquin). Any suggestions?
-
Hi Courtney,
Reading your question, I'm not quite sure if you are talking about are microsites and doorway pages, or landing pages that target different geographical intent. (I'll assume the later)
It's fine if your client wants to target different geographical areas with specific content. The best practice for this type of thing usually involves:
- Make sure the content lives on your domain (don't create a bunch of microsites)
- Make the content unique and valuable to the specific area you are targeting
- Don't publish the same content just with slightly modifies words (best plumber Houston, best plumber Atlanta, etc) all over the web
If your client wants to publish the same content in different places - ask him/her what they hope to accomplish. Not only does this create duplicate content, but it really doesn't add any value for the end user.
Sounds like your instinct are correct. I don't have a list of articles that act as "proof" that you can show your client, but this article on microsites still holds up pretty well http://moz.com/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites
And the dangers of duplicate content: http://moz.com/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world
Hope this helps! Best of luck.
-
Advantage of Subdomain (Revealed by Experts)
-
A subdomain can point to IP Address (i.e. can have A Record) which can be used to host in the country specific hosting (cloud/blogging platform/shared hosting)
-
It has separate Page Rank, Domain Authority and indexing preferences in Search Engine
-
Easy to Manage
-
-
These are all great tips. Thanks guys. I still am confused on how to build the URL's. Currently they have a subdirectory for each (25) cities they service. They want a "landing page" for each and the company they are working with wants them to build sub-directories...again...
Essentially they are reinventing the wheel and building them a bunch of subdirectories again. What about subdomains? Would this be a better route for building landing pages for the 25 different cities?
-
You try the below when creating country specific or sister sites in different geo locations
1. Pricing Information with the Country Specific Currency
2. Date, Time etc with Country Specific Format
3. Vocabulary and Typography
4. Local Testimonials
5. Local Portfolio
6. the company special focus for the local/geo location if any
7. country specific domain (if not restricted)
8. Meta Tag on the page for the country code and language
9. if possible hosting the site in the local hosting provider (if possible)
10. Ofcourse content should be unique but need not have loads and lots of content.
-
it really depends on the context for the landing pages. In the case of franchisees , they, quite often setup local pages and also have links back to the corporate site from the local site. With regards to the local address part, if you're trying to rank for the local listings then not having the address on the site will have an impact on your local rankings.
-
Am I correct in assuming that the whole linking back to the sister site is the wrong way to do it?
I did suggest already to him that even if he has 5 url's to use, that each needs to be treated like it's own website with unique, engaging content. Will he be penalized with a link back to his main site? I know you don't want to inundate the site with links, but maybe one or two links? Will that hurt?
What about placing an address into the landing page? Will it hurt us significantly to not include a local address in the footer of the site? Since he really doesn't have locations in the areas he is targeting....if that makes any sense....How do you localize the content? Just on page?
-
Based on what you're describing, i would advise the client not to go down that route. The idea for landing pages is to drive targeted traffic for a specific campaign with unique information. I would suggest adding some localized content for each of the pages to impact conversion rates and visitor interaction.The unique content will not only lead to a better conversion rate but can be optimized for geo targeted keyword phrases without being perceived as duplicate by Google.
-
These are great, I will start here. Now how about building them so they are SEO friendly? I read that linking back to sister sites is not a way to do it anymore. My client basically wants to build a lot of pages in different geographic areas, but have the content the same as his main business website (which is a local company). Is he going about this wrong? Would google see this as a bunch of duplicate content with too many links pointing to the main website? I feel like this isn't an approved practice, am I wrong? #newtolandingpages
-
Hi Courtney,
I've referenced a few links below that might be helpful for you.
Conversion Rate Experts - Moz Case Study ( this is a fantastic example of how to build landing pages. Their site has other excellent examples of landing page implementation)
Unbounce Article on Landing Pages
Landing Pages Guides on Hubspot
Cheers,
SEO5
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
-
Page content is not very similar but topic is same: Will Google considers the rel canonical tags?
Hi Moz community, We have multiple pages from our own different sub-domains for same topics. These pages even rank in SERP for related keywords. Now we are planning to show only one of the pages in SERP. We cannot redirect unfortunately. We are planning to use rel canonical tags. But the page content is not same, only 20% is similar and 80% is different but the context is same. If we use rel canonicals, does Google accepts this? If not what should I do? Making header tags similar works? How Google responds if content is not matching? Just ignore or any negative score? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Lost Wikipedia page and dropped heavily in rankings. How many of you aware of and experienced this?
Hi all, We lost of our Wikipedia page for 2nd time and we dropped in rankings 2nd time too. I got confused first time whether Wikipedia was the actual reason as we had couple of major changes in our website. But recently it's been clear that losing Wikipedia page is the culprit as we have no website changes around these days. How many of you aware of this and experienced this? Please share your views. Hope this info will help you. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Meta robots at every page rather than using robots.txt for blocking crawlers? How they'll get indexed if we block crawlers?
Hi all, The suggestion to use meta robots tag rather than robots.txt file is to make sure the pages do not get indexed if their hyperlinks are available anywhere on the internet. I don't understand how the pages will be indexed if the entire site is blocked? Even though there are page links are available, will Google really index those pages? One of our site got blocked from robots file but internal links are available on internet for years which are not been indexed. So technically robots.txt file is quite enough right? Please clarify and guide me if I'm wrong. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Should plural keyword variations get their own targeted pages?
I am in the middle of changing a website from targeting just a single keyword on all pages to instead having each page target its own keyword/phrase. However, I'm a little conflicted on whether or not plural forms and other suffix (-ing) variations are different enough to get their own pages. SERP show different results for each keyword searched. Also, relevancy reports for the keywords score some differently and some the same. Is it best to instead use these as secondary and third level keywords on the same page as the main keyword for a page? See example below: OPTION A (Use each for different pages): Page 1 - Construction Fence Page 2 - Construction Fences Page 3 - Construction Fencing Page 4 - Construction Site Fence Page 5 - Construction Site Fences Page 6 - Construction Site Fencing ... OPTION B (Use as variations on same page): Page 1 - Construction Fence, Construction Fences, Construction Fencing Page 2 - Construction Site Fence, Construction Site Fences, Site Construction Fencing ... Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | pac-cooper0 -
Should you include Website Title in all page title tags?
We recently spent analyzing some of the best SEO software companies on the U.S. market fishing for the best practices in SEO and I saw one thing in common : They all had website titles in all the page title tags separated by " | " Is that the best practice for SEO or is it just for Branding? Interestingly enough, the website titles were completely unrelated to the pages' content or keywords. (Here's my personal opinion on what it looked like: "riding on a bicycle" | Ferrari ) But when I looked up the keywords ... ranked #1 or #2 spots, in some serious competition. (So in the example above, "bicycle" would be in the top spot)
Algorithm Updates | | HMCOE0 -
Double Listings On Page One
I've been noticing a trend over the past month and a half. My sites that use to get more than one page listed in certain SERPs are now being adjusted. It almost looks manual but I know it is most likely a change in the algorithm. Let's say I had a SERP where my site was showing two different sub-pages in a single SERP at #4 and #6 are now having one page being pushed up to #3 but the other page is being pushed back past the first page. I'm not worried about penalizations or loss of value. I have been seeing this accross many of my client's sites. I just wanted to confirm that others were seeing it as well (so I'm not going crazy) and/or if Google has made any announcements or leaks regarding this shift. Maybe it's just my sites coming of age or something but I would love to be able to explain it more knowledgeably than with a "Google might be doing this". BTW - This is not effecting any of my Brand SERPs.
Algorithm Updates | | BenRWoodard0 -
Too many page links?`
Hi there This blog insert was flag suggesting there was too many page links? I cant identify the same problem? Can anyone explain?
Algorithm Updates | | footballfriends0 -
Any ideas why our category pages got de-indexed?
Hi all, I work for evenues, a directory website that provides listings of meeting rooms and event spaces. Things seemed to be chugging along nicely with our link building effort (mostly through guest blogging using a variety of anchor text). Woke up on Monday morning to find that our City pages have been de-indexed. This page: http://www.evenues.com/Meeting-Spaces/Seattle/Washington used to be at the top of page #2 in the SERPs for the keyword "Meeting Rooms in Seattle" I doubt that we got de-indexed because of our link building efforts, as it was only a few blog posts and links from profile pages on community websites. My guess is that when we did a recent 2.0 release of the site, there are now several "filters" or subcategory pages with latitude and longitude parameters in the URL + different page titles based on the categories like: "Meeting Rooms and Event Spaces in Seattle" --Main Page "Meeting Rooms in Seattle" "Classroom Venues in Seattle" "Party Venues in Seattle" There was a bit of pushback when I suggested that we do a rel="canonical" on these babies because ideally we'd like to rank for all 4 queries (Meeting Rooms, Party Venues, Classrooms, in City). These are new changes, and I have a sneaking suspicion this is why we got de-indexed. We're presenting generally the same content. Thoughts?
Algorithm Updates | | eVenuesSEO0