Site Customisation - Urgent Input Required!
-
Hello,
We are currently setting up a way of customising a client's site based on PPC campaign. I am wondering whether or not there are any SEO issues we need to be aware of.
Overview
Our client’s site, as accessed by a user through Google Organic, will be the complete site; the same site Googlebot will see.
The site, as accessed by a user through a particular Google Adwords campaign, will return a customised version of the site.
How the Customisation is Happening
The Adwords campaign will be set up to target a particular region, using Adwords’ built-in location targeting.
Its ads will link to pages on the regular site, but each URL will be appended with a URL parameter that will trigger the customisation. A cookie will also be planted in these users’ browsers to ensure that the customisation continues as the user browses from page to page on the site.
The majority of the content will be the same but the site will promote a particular store of the client, one local to the searcher. Other stores won’t be promoted on this customised version of the site.
SEO Thoughts
All pages will have canonical tags on them referencing the original, unmodified version of the page.
I personally can’t see any issue with regard to SEO because we are approaching this in the spirit of helping the user. But with launch on the horizon I am starting to worry slightly and would welcome the feedback from anyone else here – are there any SEO issues that may arise from this?
-
Here's a MOZ staff reply to that exact question
-
Great point! Thank you.
The only other safeguard I can think of doing is to tell Googlebot, via Webmaster Tools, to not crawl any URLs with URL parameter added.
-
Since the pages are mostly the same except for the feature store, your already doing the right thing with the canonical tags. This won't be seen as any type of seo spam.
There's no reason to go the NOINDEX route, which may stop 'link juice' from flowing to the original version (marked with your canonical tags) if someone should happen to link to the special (regional) version of the site.
-
Great, thanks.
I should add that what we are doing is solely for the benefit of their PPC campaign. We aren't interested in any improvement in SEO, but what we are trying to make sure we do is that there is no potential for negative impact on SEO.
To that extent we are thinking of adding a NOINDEX to those customised pages that are created using the URL parameter - just to make sure they are kept out of the index and can't be construed as any SEO spam.
Thoughts?
-
Nope, you've done everything right... I don't see any potential for penalties.
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
-
No Redirects In Place After Transfer To New Site With Same Domain :(
Hi Moz Folks, I'm new here and am loving all the information! Can't wait to dig in more. Folks, I have a situation and would love to hear more about your experiences here and what advice you all have to give. I have a client whose SEO I helped out with about 4-5 years ago. It went well and they had historically been ranking on pages 1-2 for the majority of their targeted keywords. Client and I lost touch over the years, but now we are in process of working together again. What I learned today is that my client redesigned the entire old site without placing any redirects and entirely creating new URL structures (I already hear the gasps of air of those reading this). Long story short - you guessed it - rankings/traffic has dropped and the old pages have fallen out of index. Considering that I was hired to re-do and re-audit the SEO of the site and also considering that the domain had a relative decent standing in the rankings in the past, I'm wondering what exactly I should do of the following options (or please do suggest other options): 1. We have the ability to completely revert back to the old site with all the old keywords and and search optimized URLs. The new site was launched just 2 weeks ago and the owner has said that he is willing to revert back to the old site while we audit the new site and get all of the proper optimizations in place. This would be a great option if it will help us because at least we can get a site up that we know ranked well with Google in the past. 2. 302 redirect the old URLs to the somewhat appropriate page on the new site while - in the meantime - I work on the new site structure and keywords/SEO optimizations. I say 302 because a 301 redirect from the old pages to the new pages may only do me so good because I would plan on changing the keywords/URL structures of the new site anyway. Once finished with the optimizations, I'd then 301 redirect to the new appropriate pages 3. 301 redirect everything from the old site to the somewhat appropriate page on the new site right away. Then, once I've completed all the appropriate optimizations, I'd need to re-301-redirect to the new pages I've created. As you can see, I'm in a bit of a jam. But, considering that the new site was launched just about 2 weeks ago, maybe there's some hope here. Thanks fellow Mozzers! Hopefully that all makes sense. Cheers!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | pfarsaii
Nickname: "P-drama"0 -
Help: Trouble converting customers with new adwords campaign for a new site
I have just launched my brand new e-commerce site www.zenory.co.nz We are wanting to expand global as you can see we have com.au and also .com but due to our min budget we had to start with NZ first for organic search and a min monthly budget on adwords which doesn't come close to what our competitors are paying. Really is it worth paying out our limited budget with adwords? Or should be put that into ranking organic search. While we have only just started our adwords PPC campaign and I think it has only been roughly two weeks - We have had around 18 people sign up, to which we have a 3 step process, however, we are struggling to convert and complete a transaction which customer places credit card details in step 3. Does anyone have any ideas around how we could better optimize or perhaps make any suggestions? Our competitors spend rather large amounts of up to 3000k - 300k per month on adwords, and there is just no competing with that. Any suggestions I would definitely be open to... Thanks alot
Conversion Rate Optimization | | edward-may0 -
Should I add social media icons to homepage of ecommerce site?
... In particular Facebook likes for social proof and credibility? (We have 1.7k likes, more than most competitors). Aimed at the higher end of the market, I've tried to keep the aesthetic a bit more pared down. But, perhaps this needs to be made more prominent?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Coraltoes770 -
What is the best solution to track conversions on local plumbing site (non-mobile)?
What is the best solution to track conversions on our local plumbing site? 95% of leads coming from phone calls, the rest – from the contact form we have on every page. Is there a reliable solutions to track conversion rate for non-mobile local site? As a side note, we have 6 different phone numbers on our site that users can call in order to reach us.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | dinok_ya0 -
Why has my bounce rate gone in to orbit since moving the same content to a new site?!
I moved our site to a wordpress theme over the christmas break. All content is pretty much the same word for word, and I think the new site looks much, much better than the old one. Why then, has our overall bounce rate gone from 7-8%, up to 74%? Bounce rates for some KW focused internal pages have gone from 2-3% to similar 70+% in some cases. Just to confuse things further, I have also changed the name and branding for the site to differentiate us from a competitor and stop the confusion we've experienced at times. But, I can't see how the new logo would cause and extra 65% of visitors to leave straight off! I really don't want to go back to the old name and don't think that's the answer anyhow, but I may have to test it out of sheer desperation. There's only a static holding page for the old site now as a reference point for people searching the old name (not many). So I've attached a screenshot of how it looked below. Also at http://imgur.com/aM5o9. The new site is at flatroofs.co.uk. I have just noticed that by placing the previous 'more information' links a secondary menu in the left widget area rather than on the page, they are less noticeable especially if you scroll down to the bottom of a page, where the only links are in the footer? Again though, if 75% of people are put off this easily something else must be at play! Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Danny. aM5o9.png?1
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Biota0 -
Site Design for SEO & Conversions
This is a Real Estate Website focusing on a local market. What would you change about this site for SEO Purposes? What would you change for Conversion Purposes? What would you change for Visual Appeal and User Experience? Thank you all for your help on this one. http://www.bronxpad.com
Conversion Rate Optimization | | bronxpad0 -
Spam to site with GMail addresses - any way to resolve.
We are noticing more and more spam around: Customer Name: Sylvia Abernathy Customer Email: sylviaa386@gmail.com Customer Phone Number: Service Type Requested: Please Choose From List Service description: We found your weblisting on one of the back pages of Google. Wouldn’t you rather be up front? Our experts in Search Engine Optimization can help you become more visible and more productive. A quick email will get you details. This is from a site around auto and truck service and is an actual cut and paste. My question is twofold: Is there a way to report individual Gmail addresses to Google as purveyors of spam and beyond a capcha, is there any other work around? This is form to schedule a service appt. so they are not emailing to an info@etc.com type address. It is a contact form. Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | RobertFisher0 -
Ideal product page conversion/retention rate for eCommerce sites
Hi SEOmoz-ers, I was wondering if anyone has data regarding product page abandonment rate (% of potential customers that leave the site after seeing product pages) for websites like Overstock, REI or Zappos? As you may know the above mentioned sites do an exceptional job with product pages. It would be helpful to know what some of the leaders in this space are achieving in terms of conversion rate. What is your personal opinion about this? Thanks,
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Kush_VMI
Kush0