Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Creating New Pages Versus Improving Existing Pages
-
What are some things to consider or things to evaluate when deciding whether you should focus resources on creating new pages (to cover more related topics) versus improving existing pages (adding more useful information, etc.)?
-
Should I create new pages to cover related topics or improve an existing page?
My first consideration would be specificity of your topic. How many key words or phrases are you trying to focus? How much content do you have to offer?
Let's use cough syrup as an example (as I reach for my bottle). If your company name is Nature's Relief and you offer Nature's Cough Syrup as your product then one well presented page would probably be best.
If you are Robitussin and have 5 different cough syrups and brand yourself on "a different syrup for different coughs" then I would definitely recommend a separate page for each product. The first page might target keywords such as "hacking cough" which the next page might work along the lines of cough and nasal decongestant.
A final thought. If you provide Nature's Cough Syrup and are trying to compete with a competitor like Robitussin, then I would try to be creative and offer separate pages focusing on my competitor's key words. You can offer testimonials or examples where your product relieved a hacking cough, targeting the same key word.
In summary, step back and determine what your goals are for the page. First and foremost, how can you present the page to provide the best user experience. The next thought should be why are you making a change?
-
I'd like to offer a hybrid perspective. Quality doesn't actually always win in the end. If you've got a great quality filled page that brings no traffic because it can't compete in it's specific niche, it's sometimes due to the fact that competitors have much more quality content - they're established leaders in a given topic for example. And while more inbound links can sometimes help, or lately social media, sometimes it just requires more content.
Whether it's on-page or additional pages will require evaluation and Magento's suggestion is a good start. But also look at whether the competition is drowning you out for a given page's topic. And if they are doing it with just one page, you could try and go for head to head one-page battling, though you'd most likely be able to leap-frog ahead with a multiple-page approach where the sum-total is more than a competitor's single page. You'd essentially be creating a new "section" devoted to the topic.
Of course that doesn't mean you can scrap the quality issue because Chris's take does have a foundation in truth.
-
Run your webpage on the On Page Report Card. http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-optimization/new It will grade your webpage. Only do this for the web pages that are ranking in the top 50 (or whatever you determine) and decide which ones to improve. It sounds like some of the webpages you have may have some potential with just a little tweaking.
-
Quality over quantity always wins in the end. Make what you have the best you can, then add more quality content on related topics.
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
-
Pages Competing With One Another
Hello, We are ranking for an acronym, which I understand can lead to fickle rankings. However, we have two pages ranking page one - two for the same keyword, but they do so in spite of each other. By this I mean, one page will rank, while the other is nowhere to be found. It seems that the one page (a blog post) is more likely to rank on the weekends while the product page is more likely to rank on the weekdays. I would like the product page to rank all the time, and to target another keyword with the blog post. Would removing the keyword from the blog post allow the product page to rank all the time - or would it lead to no pages ranking during times when the blog post would otherwise be ranking? I should note the blog post has more external links and is not exactly optimized for the keyword, while the product page has more internal links and is optimized for the keyword.
On-Page Optimization | | Tom3_152 -
Category pages, should I noindex them?
Hi there, I have a question about my blog that I hope you guys can answer. Should I no index the category and tag pages of my blog? I understand they are considered as duplicate content, but what if I try to work the keyword of that category? What would you do? I am looking forward to reading your answers 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | lucywrites0 -
Is it better to keep a glossary or terms on one page or break it up into multiple pages?
We have a very large glossary of over 1000 industry terms on our site with links to reference material, embedded video, etc. Is it better for SEO purposes to keep this on one page or should we break it up into multiple pages, a different page for each letter for example? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | KenW0 -
Does homepage SEO exist at all?
hi Just read a Yoast article explaining that the homepage should never be optimized for a specific keyword and should only be optimized for its business or brand name. i have a large site that I'd like to rank (or increase traffic for as I know people get irritated with that term now) for 'Campervan hire'. It has plenty of sub pages going after 'Campervan hire 'location'' for example. it makes sense to me for the homepage keyword - my core keyword - to be 'Campervan hire' and for the homepage to be optimised for this. However, the article I've just read (https://yoast.com/homepage-seo/) suggests a separate page for this keyword. What are your thoughts pls?? thanks
On-Page Optimization | | CamperConnect142 -
How long should I leave an existing web page up after a 301 redirect?
I've been reading through a few of blog posts here on moz and can't seem to find the answer to these two questions: How long should I leave an existing page up after a 301 redirect? The page old page is no longer needed but has pretty high page authority. If I take the old page down—the one that I'm redirecting from—immediately after I set up the 301 redirect, will link juice still be passed to the new page? My second question is, right now, on my index.html page I have both a 301 redirect and a rel canonical tag in the head. They were both put in place to redirect and pass link equity respectively. I did this a couple years back after someone recommended that I do both just to be safe, but from what I've gathered reading the articles here on moz is that your supposed to pick one or the other depending on whether or not it's permanent. Should I remove the rel conanical tag or would it be better to just leave it be?
On-Page Optimization | | ScottMcPherson0 -
Why is my contact us page ranking higher than my home page?
Hello, It doesn't matter what keyword I put into Google (when I'm not signed in and have cleaned down my browsing history) the contact us page ranks higher than the home page. I'm not sure why this is, the home page has a higher page authority, more links and more social media shares, the website is an established one. When I have checked Google Analytics my home page gets more people landing on it than the contact us page. It looks like people are ignoring the contact us page and scrolling down until they find the home page. I'd appreciate any help or advice you might have. Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | mblsolutions2 -
Home page and category page target same keyword
Hi there, Several of our websites have a common problem - our main target keyword for the homepage is also the name of a product category we have within the website. There are seemingly two solutions to this problem, both of which not ideal: Do not target the keyword with the homepage. However, the homepage has the most authority and is our best shot at getting ranked for the main keyword. Reword and "de-optimise" the category page, so it doesn't target the keyword. This doesn't work well from UX point of view as the category needs to describe what it is and enable visitors to navigate to it. Anybody else gone through a similar conundrum? How did you end up going about it? Thanks Julian
On-Page Optimization | | tprg0 -
Page speed tools
Working on reducing page load time, since that is one of the ranking factors that Google uses. I've been using Page Speed FireFox plugin (requires FireBug), which is free. Pretty happy with it but wondering if others have pointers to good tools for this task. Thanks...
On-Page Optimization | | scanlin0