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
-
Highly ranked pages to new domain?
Hi everyone! We are ranked #1 for about 30 product pages at www.oldsite.com/product1 and we are wanting to move about 30 of those pages to a new site www.newsite.com/product1 (new domain and hosting - which we own). What is the best way to do this? I'm confused if you recreate those pages on the new domain vs. ftp move them, 301 re-directs, etc. Looking for the things we must do and the sequence to do it all, etc. Thanks so much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jamesmcd030 -
HELP! How do I get Google to value one page over another (older) page that is ranking?
So I have a tactical question and I need mozzers. I'll use widgets as an example: 1- My company used to sell widgets exclusively and we built thousands of useful, branded unique pages that sell widgets. We have thousands of pages that are ranking for widgets.com/brand-widgets-for-sale. (These pages have been live for almost 2 years) 2- We've shifted our focus to now renting widgets. We have about 100 pages focused on renting the same branded widgets. These pages have unique content and photos and can be found at widgets.com/brand-widgets-for-rent. (These pages have been live for about 2-3 months) The problem is that when someone searches just for the brand name, the "for sale" pages dramatically outrank the "for rent" pages. Instead, I want them to find the "for rent" page. I don't want to redirect traffic from the "for sale" pages because someone might still be interested in buying (although as a company, we are super focused on renting). Solutions? "nofollow" the "for sale" pages with the idea that Google will stop indexing "for sale" and start valuing "for rent" over it? Remove "for sale" from sitemap. Help!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vacatia_SEO0 -
I have 2 keywords I want to target, should I make one page for both keywords or two separate pages?
My team sells sailboats and pontoon boats all over the country. So while they are both boats, the target market is two different types of people... I want to make a landing page for each state so if someone types in "Pontoon Boats for sale in Michigan" or "Pontoon boats for sale in Tennessee," my website will come up. But I also want to come up if someone is searching for sailboats for sale in Michigan or Tennessee (or any other state for that matter). So my question is, should I make 1 page for each state that targets both pontoon boats and sailboats (total of 50 landing pages), or should I make two pages for each state, one targeting pontoon boats and the other sailboats (total of 100 landing pages). My team has seen success targeting each state individually for a single keyword, but have not had a situation like this come up yet.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VanMaster0 -
Website URL Structure - keyword targeting on homepage vs internal pages
I have developed a few websites before where the homepage contains the content for the keywords I was targeting. This has been reasonably successful as I have found it easy enough to get links to the homepage. I am considering a new site in a totally different industry that I am thinking about structuring like this: mybrand.com (not necessarily targeting any keywords) mybrand.com/important-keyword-1/ (definitely want to target) mybrand.com/important-keyword-2 (equally important as 1st keyword) There will be several (30-ish) other pages targeting keywords but they are not as significant as the two mentioned above, more so they are about publishing informative information. The two important keywords are quite different but industry related. My questions are: should I be careful targeting keywords away from the homepage when the homepage gets the most links? Would I be better off building 2 different websites where the keyword content is captured in the homepage? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BGu0 -
Optimized pages ranking lower than homepage with keywords
Ok, I know this question has been out there before, but i don't know how fo search for it specifically enough. I have several keywords that rank higher on my home page. As you know MOZ assigns keywords to whichever page on your site popping up in search first. So even though i have A-grade optimized pages for a particular keyword, that page may not pop up BEFORE the homepage for instance, on searches. In many cases, the homepage is grade "F" for a particular keyword, yet its pulling up first for most of my keywords. I know that my homepage has more rank because it gets the most visits and i'm sure we can't really optimize the homepage for EVERY keyword. What is the best thing to do in this situation? Do i just need to wait for my optimized page to catch up in rank, or is there a trick to optimizing homepage to ALL key words at grade "A" level? Do i need to keep back-linking to my optimized page directly to get the juice up? I created all these great optimized pages for specific keywords, but my homepage which shows "F" grade is the one pulling up 4th or 5th on searches Help??
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DrMcCoy0 -
Will redirecting poor traffic web pages increase web presence
A number of pages on my site have low traffic metrics. I intend to redirect poor performing pages to the most appropriate page with high traffic. Example
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
www.sampledomomain.co.uk/low-traffic-greyshoes
www.sampledomomain.co.uk/low-traffic-greenshoes
www.sampledomomain.co.uk/low-traffic-redshoes all of the above will be redirected to the following page:
www.sampledomomain.co.uk/high-traffic-blackshoes Question
Will carrying out htaccess redirects from the above example influence to web positioning of both www.sampledomomain.co.uk/high-traffic-blackshoes and www.sampledomomain.co.uk Regards Mark0 -
How long before your rankings improved after Penguin?
Those of you that have algorithmic penalties, how long after making changes did you actually see an improvement, or have you ever? I have several sites that tanked after Penguin 2.1 and after doing Link Removal, Diasvaow files and building newer more quality links and adding content, I am STILL not seeing any change in rankings after several months. I have heard from some people it can take up to 6-months for google to even crawl a disavow file. I have also heard no matter what you do it won't matter until Google does another update. I feel like we have made a lot of changes in the right direction, but I don't want to go overboard if nothing is going to matter until another Google Update is done. What are your experiences?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | netviper0 -
Using Webmaster Tools to Redirect Domain to Specific Page on Another Domain
Hey Everyone, we redirected an entire domain to a specific URL on another domain (not the homepage). We used a 301 Redirect, but I'm also wondering if I should use the Google Webmaster Tools "Change of Address" section to redirect. There is no option to redirect the old domain to the specific URL on the new domain within the "Change of Address" section. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak0