Will using my Homepage as a KW target improve my Inner page Ranking?
-
Hello your help please!
I have 2 KWs that i have targeted Inner pages for and they have got them to page 2 in SERPs, but now its getting difficult to move them up to page 1.
Will targeting the home page with a higher authority, for the same terms, help or hinder the inner pages current position?
Many Thanks
Ash
-
Thanks for your help Jane!
I will get on to it and make the changes.
Ash
-
Hi Ash,
It's generally advised that you either target a keyword with the home page or with an internal page and not both, so depending on which resource you choose as the one you want ranking, I would target that page and that page alone. This is an old post but it illustrates the point well.
-
Thanks Jane
I have only just change the home page Title as i thought it might help give the internal pages a boost, but from what you say, its only likely to compete with them so i should change these back to more generic KWs on the home page?
On that note, if all my internal pages are targeting all my KWs, what should i target on the home page, previously i used more generic terms like, Personal Finance & Over 50s Insurance?
Ash
-
Hi Ash,
I haven't, but the code for the menu is definitely appearing twice in the source, once under
id="Mmenu" class="show-on-phones SpeedyDropDown"> class="MenuCenter"><a <span="" class="webkit-html-attribute-name">class</a><a <span="" class="webkit-html-attribute-name">="toggleMenu" href="</a>#">Menu <nav <span="" class="webkit-html-attribute-name">class="main-navigation"> nav
id
dnn_MENU2
and once under
<navclass="mega-navigation"><divid="dnn_menu1">I would say that the home page could be a good target for those two keywords, especially given you are prioritising it in key areas like the home page title tag. You have a bit of a keyword cannibalisation issue here right now because you have the internal funeral planning page and the home page essentially targeting the same set of keywords.</divid="dnn_menu1"></navclass="mega-navigation"> </nav>
-
This is always a tough decision. Typically I make my SEO mind take a backseat, and check the usability aspects. Are people utilizing all of the links in the Mega Menu, or is there a point in each section where people stop looking. If the mega menu isn't being used to it's full potential, then you can start looking at ways to improve the usability of those pages.
My favorite example of menu limiting is the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ I believe Distilled worked with them on this. Ted Ulle would often present that people would click far more times into a site than the typical "3" that everyone quotes. He disproved it with several case studies. The way he achieved more clicks is by gamificiation of sorts. If you gave the user enough reinforcement that they were headed in the right direction they would keep clicking up to 6-7 pages in, according to him.
So, if I was analyzing the usability I would determine at what point would a specific visitor enter the site, based on marketing and SEO, and how effective is the website at getting them to the info they need?
I would then examine the home page to determine if I could effectively get someone someplace without the need of a mega menu. You have tons of options to choose from, so it would take analyzing the motivational force with each visitor, and using those sources to encourage a click in deeper.
As for the two menu problems, I do see it in the source when looking at it. You would be better off using a script to change the menu for mobile instead of having two separate menus.
I haven't checked any of this code, but this was a resource I found quickly: http://responsivenavigation.net/
-
HI Jane thanks for your advice the 2 keywords are prepaid funeral plans (19th) & compare funeral plans (8th)
The site is www.over50choices.co.uk
With regards to internal linking structures please see the response i gave Cody - have you come across this before?
Thanks
Ash
-
HI Cody thanks for this, I will check out the IIS Server issue later as i am away from the office for a few days, but with regards to my Internal Links, GWTs actually says that some pages have 1000 internal links and i cant find out why!
The site is built on a DNN CMS platform and somebody said that the internal links were due to the Mega Menu & Mobile menu doubling up the links, but i have never trusted this advice?
If you look at the site in google cache it shows 2 navigation menus?
Its always concerned me that every page appears to be linked to every page...?
How can i resolve this?
Ash
-
Hi Ash,
This can make sense on occasion, but we'd want to look at the specific example to know if this was the right move. Google would prefer to direct users to the most relevant page, which in a high number of circumstances is the internal page rather than the home page.
You can often see internal pages rank well for keywords where they have very few inbound links from third parties, due to the strength of the site as a whole and the site's good internal linking. For instance, there are only 12 unique domains linking to Very's swimsuit page (http://www.very.co.uk/women/swimwear-beachwear/swimsuits/e/b/1769.end), but the page ranks page 1 in the UK for [swimsuits]. Only Debenhams itself links to http://www.debenhams.com/women/swimwear-beachwear/swimsuits, which ranks one place better than Very for the same query.
-
Forget to link the IIS SEO content: http://moz.com/blog/what-every-seo-should-know-about-iis
-
Well, the first thing to consider is the keyword cannibalization: http://moz.com/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization
Optimizing several pages for the same exact keywords can lead to lower rankings across the board. I just tested this with my own site a couple weeks ago, and it produced the same results as before. So, trying to rank your home page and internal pages can cause a problem. This isn't an exact thing, but it is possible.
One thing I did notice about your website is that you are using an IIS based server, which is case sensitive. That means that the server considers a /Health/ page to be separate to a /health/ page. Your website utilizes uppercase URLs in the menu, but still displays the lower case if types in. Are your external links going to the correct style URL? If not, I would suggest fixing this problem. You could be leaking authority.
You also have a tremendous amount of links on every single page. That means that the authority that you pass internally between pages is miniscule, and doesn't provide much value. Checking one of your pages I found over 400. 400 isn't a big deal with a super authoritative website, but with a DA of 27 you will struggle to get internal pages to rank.
Other things to consider on those pages is the page speed and server requests.
-
If your home page has content that is related to the inner page then there is a possibility. With all the Google updates, super relevant in depth content pages related to keywords have the best chance for ranking.
You should also look at the sites ranking on the first page and analyze all the on page and off page factors that are getting them to rank. Compare these factors with your own site and work on them to make it better.
-
We link naturally to the Inner pages with variants of the keywords and continue to link via blog posts varying the key phrases.
Ash
-
What's your internal linking like? Are you linking as often as reasonable to these inner pages with your keyword, or as naturally close to your keyword as you can be?
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
-
Pillar pages and blog pages
Hello, I was watching this video about pillar pages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db3TpDZf_to and tried to apply it to my self but find it impossible to do (but maybe I am looking at it the wrong way). Let's say I want to rank on "Normandy bike tou"r. I created a pillar page about "Normandy bike tour" what would be the topics of the subpages boosting that pillar page. I know that it should be questions people have but in the tourism industry they don't have any, they just want us to make them dream !! I though about doing more general blog pages about things such as : Places to rent a bike in Normandy or in XYZ city ? ( related to biking) Or the landing sites in Normandy ? (not related to biking) Is it the way to do it, what do you recommend ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
When do you use article markup for AMP pages?
Hi all! For a healthcare website we have setup AMP. Google Search Console suggests to use article markup for several pages and I am not sure if this is correct. There are two kind of pages:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DeptAgency
1. News pages
2. Information pages, for example: symptoms alcohol addiction or Binge Eating Disorder There's no doubt the article markup will be correct for the news pages but I am not sure about the information pages. Do you guys suggest to implement article markup on these pages as well or only use this for real news/blog posts? Hope you can help me out. Thank you in advance and happy holidays! Regards, Anouk van de Velde0 -
Question about optimising an inner pages apposed to the homepage
Hi Everyone, I'm currently looking to optimise the inner page of a website opposed to the homepage itself. I was wondering if I should stick to some kind of link distribution? For instance, say my website is about widgets and the url is http://www.widgets.com, I want to optimise for a much easier "blue widgets" term on an inner page with the url: http://www.widgets.com/blue-widgets. Does google discriminate against a website with a higher number of links pointing to an inner page than the homepage? If so, what would you recommend a safe distribution between the two? Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated, Peter.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RoyalBlueCoffee0 -
Will buying a competitor negatively affect keyword ranking?
Hello All; After reading a lot of great info on Moz, I wanted to ask my first question. We are thinking about buying a competitor. It is a smaller ecommerce site that sells a subset of the products we already sell. The main value of the site is good ranking for a small set of keywords. For example, if we acquire this site, we would now have up to 4 listing on page 1 for some targeted keywords. We plan to operate the site separately from our own with its current name and technology. We plan to be transparent with the domain registration info, change the contact info on the new site, etc. Will the fact that both sites are owned by the same company negatively affect keyword rankings? Instead of having 4 listings for some terms will one of our sites be lowered since one company operates both sites? The site we are buying does not have a high MozRank, MozTrust or Domain Authority score. But it does have a domain that has been around for a long time. In addition to the keywords, there is value is using this new site to do marketing tests and experiment a bit. Thanks for any input. Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | paulgerst0 -
Internal page ranking
If I have a domain: Example.com I want this domain to rank for several keywords. I build a page on the domain called Example.com/glasses If I SEO the page Example.com/glasses with backlinks etc... will that URL come up on google or will it simply bring Example.com up on the SERPS. If I have three keywords, should I make a subpage for each page and SEO that page? Will that make the domain rank for all three keywords?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JML11790 -
Do I use a .org or .co.uk domain to help UK rankings?
Hi Guys, I own to good domains one with a .ORG and the other .CO.UK Can anyone advise which one is best to use to help UK rankings? Or does it not make much difference?? Thanks guys Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GAZ090 -
How to Optimize Product Page for Better Ranking in Google?
Today, I was searching for product page SEO on Google for better optimization of product pages and category level pages. I want to introduce about my website structure. Root category: http://www.vistastores.com/outdoor Sub category: http://www.vistastores.com/outdoor-umbrellas End level category: http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas Product page: http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas-california-umbrella-slpt758-f13-red.html I'm doing link building for sub category & end level category page. But, I'm not able to do inbound marketing for product level URLs due to resource problem. But, I have checked that... There are many competitors who are rank well with long trail keyword... I'm selling same product but not ranking well... What is reason behind it? I don't know... Just look at Olefin Red Patio Umbrella search result. I want to rank in top 3 with this kind of long trail keywords... I have made study of following video and article. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/ecommerce-seo-making-product-pages-into-great-content-whiteboard-friday http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/in-search-of-the-perfect-seo-product-page/ I have done all things which were described by them... But, I'm still waiting for good ranking...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
Competitor purchased thousands of hidden links to our website... will it hurt rankings?
A competitor has allegedly purchased a site wide HIDDEN link on a property that links to our website. Would this link hurt our rankings? Requests to the site to remove those links didn't go well -- they state they can legally link to any site they like and are not going to remove those links. Technically speaking, this is what the link looks like in their html: Our Primary Keyword The thousands of hidden links from this website will now vastly outnumber our existing backlinks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nick_Seo_Moz0