To get homepage to rank highly for a given term, do you only add the term(and variations) to the homepage?
-
If adding the term on all pages then won't the pages start competing with each other in the SERP?
I'm building a site for a client who wants to rank highly for 'Southern California general contractors' and its not clear to me whether to fit these keywords (and variations) only into the homepage or if I should try to fit them into all pages.
-
That's right Kenny - create unique content for each landing page (whether it's based on location, type of service offered etc).
Unless your brand name is 'California Personal Injury Attorney' (99.99% sure it wouldn't be) - then don't add the term to each and every one of your title tags. Add terms/keywords related to that page.
E.g. homepage might be 'California Personal Injury Attorney | ABC Lawyers'
A landing page based on injuries related to traffic accidents might be 'California Auto Accident Attorney | ABC Lawyers' or something similar.
-
I'm with you and I think Brad would agree that duplicate (or even largely duplicate) content would not be the end result behind landing pages dedicated to specific cities. If I were going to use this technique I would include city-specific content for each page.
Also, when you say 'duplicate title tags' do you mean MOSTLY duplicate title tags (ie Home | California Personal Injury Attorney, and About Us | California Personal Injury Attorney)? If so, are these really harmful to rankings?
-
You don't want to create duplicate title tags. It sends a bad signal to search engines, and you ultimately then create multiple pages that compete with each other for the same keywords.
When you're targeting various cities, you also need to exercise some caution. Brad mentioned 'breaking up landing pages depending on locations'. I'm not going to say that's wrong because I'm not sure exactly what he's getting at, but you don't want to create multiple pages with the the same, or largely the same content, where the only difference is the name of the city because this presents a duplicate content issue. And this isn't a 'technical' (honest mistake) duplicate content issue. This is a 'I think I can outsmart the search engines' kind of duplicate content issue.
-
That makes sense Brad, thanks!
So say one of my other clients wants to rank highly for 'California Personal Injury Attorney'. Should I not add 'California Personal Injury Attorney' to the title tag of every page (eg 'Contact Us | California Personal Injury Attorney', 'Home | California Personal Injury Attorney')?
If I did add this keyword to every title tag, would it damage my client's ranking in the SERP?
-
Hi Kenny,
You need to decide which terms you want to rank for which specific pages. E.g. if they are targeting 'Southern California general contractors' on the homepage, then you'll want to use that keyword a few times in the text on the page, title etc. The focus should be on that keyword, without making it look spammy.
However, you wouldn't want to try and target that term on every page on the site, it just doesn't make sense. E.g. you might have other landing pages that target 'welding', 'structural steel', 'maintenance and repairs' etc (I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'general contractor' or what they do). On these pages, the focus should be on different keywords to 'Southern California general contractors'.
You could even break up the landing pages depending on locations. So have 1 for Los Angeles General Contractors, San Diego General Contractors and so on.
This might be a good start point - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization. Just don't try and over optimise in light of Google's recent algorithm changes. Create content that is useful to the consumer and you'll be fine.
Thanks,
Brad
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
-
How to rank for several keywords
Hi there Mozers, So far I have been building my webshop ouibonjour.com over the course of several weeks while studying the awesome educational content here on Moz and other SEO-related sites. I think I have done an OK job so far, and I have managed to rank #1 on several long tail keywords after a couple of weeks. Problem is - there are more long tail keywords I want to rank #1 for as well! **What I have done so far: ** I have taken the strongest keywords that can generate conversion and added them in page titles, title heads, main anvigation titles, in my alt text in images and so forth. The page is not screaming "SEO!" and I am happy with that. Nevertheless, I think the SEO measures here are done in an effective way. If you bothered to click on my page, you can see that the home page has only 5 posts (posts, not pages). They redirect visitors to other important parts of my site, and I change the image and/or the title once every 3 weeks to not keep the page too static. In a /magazine subfolder, I have a blog that ranks pretty good for several keywords, but the content here is not directly related to my products, but rather articles that fits the interests of my potential buyers (lifestyle, culture, etc). **What I need - but not sure how - to do: ** I basically want to rank for way more long tail keywords that relate to my products, but I don't want to continue setting up posts that have these keywords, because the content on the main page will be too heavy on the SEO, and therefore lose value for my visitors. How can I rank for more keywords without having to pepper my site with posts full of these keywords? I do not want to write articles on my blog that focuses on different combinations of long tail keywords neither, because it will get too spammy and make my visitors not return. I need help! I hope I have managed to explain my problem clearly. If there are any Whiteboard Fridays or posts on this subject that I have missed, please link me directly. If not, I would be tremendously happy and appreciative for any tips and tricks 🙂
Technical SEO | | Fernando_0 -
Moving to New Domain - Ranking impact
I understand that when migrating to a new site, even if done perfectly (page level 301s etc) that rankings will drop in the short term and each site will be impacted differently. I picked up the following comment and was wanting to get a few experts thoughts on whether I can quote this to my client: "In our experience, even when 301's are correctly executed, we see a short term fall back (7-30) days and then about a 90% carry through after that period for about 90 days and then back to full strength. "
Technical SEO | | steermoz80 -
Rankings drop in UK and AU but not US
After the last Panda update on Jan. 22 my rankings dropped significantly in the AU and UK but not in the US. We operate in UK and AU and not the US so if anything the rankings should be the opposite (which also obviously would be preferred) Any ideas for why this would occur?
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
Odd Ranking Page - Contact Us
Hi Everyone, So I have a client and when they are logged in the "Contact Us" page ranks as the number 1 page. She sends me screenshots when she is looked in through the corporate Google account, in a panic because of this...I am guessing she is frequently visiting the contact us page while logged in, which is why this is happening but I can't think of any other reason. From a ranking factors perspective there aren't any reasons for this. There are barely any links pointing to this page. I just don't know what to tell her. I can't duplicate it.
Technical SEO | | runnerkik0 -
Optimizing the homepage : should I have a h1 or not?
Hi everyone, I am launching a debate that may seem a bit basic for the most experienced of you 😉 In fact, after completing internships in two different agencies, I had quite opposite views of the optimization process for the homepage: View 1: The home page should be optimized on a keyword and should definitely have a h1. View 2: The home page is a branded page and should not necessarily have an h1 (unlike other pages). Bonus question: assuming that the view 1 is the right one, is it a good idea to put a h1 on the logo (only for the homepage) ? Thank you very much for your help
Technical SEO | | Axel_Janvier0 -
Https Version of Homepage in SERPS
The https version of our homepage appears in Google's SERPs. We have rel canonical on the page pointing to the http version. We have a redirect in our htaccess that sends https to http. I thought this was just a fluke and it would be fixed by the next crawl, but it's been like this for a few weeks now. Not only that, but we're losing rank a bit and I'm afraid there's a correlation. Has this ever happened to anyone?
Technical SEO | | UnderRugSwept0 -
How do I get my keyword rankings to update?
My keyword rankings did not update. It says updates every Thursday and the last update shows as Aug 23 (which was the original update). Any idea why this would happen and how I can get the updated info?
Technical SEO | | pattersonla1 -
Why do I rank so differently in Bing and Yahoo?
Howdy SEOmozers, I've noticed that I rank very differently in Bing and Yahoo compared to Google (and it’s the bad kind of different) for many of the terms that I'm targeting. Can anyone give some advice on how I can put this right or link me to some good resources about the differences in their ranking algorithms? Thanks Paul
Technical SEO | | pauldoffman1