How to target very broad, umbrella keywords on the homepage
-
Hey there SEO Mozzers,
I'm new to the SEO Moz community and would genuinely appreicate any advice/input on this topic.
I'm part of the online marketing team for a UK-based site called Tendea.co.uk. We operate an introductory platform for enabling the connection between parents and families seeking care services (childcare, pet care, senior care, home & garden care, etc.) and individuals providing care services (babysitters, nannies, pet sitters, housekeepers, etc.). To take a US site for comparison, the services are very similar to those offered by Care.com
I'm currently having a bit of difficulty as to what very broad, umbrella keywords we should be targeting for the homepage, primarily in the meta title/description. We've started with keywords such as "care, family services, care services, and family care", but I think these terms are almost too generic and aren't necessarily terms we really want to be ranking for. I suggested to our in-house SEO team that we just target some of our strongest keywords from each of the individual care categories for the homepage (babysitter, pet sitter, housekeeper, caregiver, etc.). They were against this idea, though, as we have separate subfolders that target the individual care categories and their specific keywords (tendea.co.uk/childcare, /pet-care, /elderly-care, etc.) Essentially the argeument is that we don't want to be targeting these terms on the homepage and on a separate subfolder page, as then the two pages would be competing for each other's keywords. Instead we're being encouraged to find some sort of umbrella terms to target for the home page that can encompass all of the care categories.
For comparison's sake, I took a look at Care.com's meta data and it targets all their specific keywords for the various care categories "Babysitters, nannies, Child Care & Senior Home care - Care.com". Is this the right kind of strategy to take, or do you guys have any suggestions for much broader, umbrella keywords to target on our homepage? Thanks in advance for your input!
-Mike
-
Fair point. I will try and do a quick bit of keyword research later as it may be useful to get an outsiders perspective.
-
Thanks for your response and that great blog article by Rand (hadn't found that one yet!).
I absolutely agree with you - we want our users to be landing on our subfolders where the content is geared at exactly what they're looking to find (childcare, pet care, senior care, etc.). Our subfolders are, I believe, in pretty good shape in terms of content and keyword targeting. Nevertheless, it's still important to get the homepage to rank for something, especially because that's where 99% of links will point to. I guess I'm still struggling with what broad terms we can use on the homepage that we can still realistically rank for. As I mentioned, we started with things like "family care" and "family services", but those keywords usually rank for content that has nothing to do with the kind of services we offer. Rand's example is simply constructed, starting with comics and breaking it down from there. Unfortunately our site's services don't lend themselves to some kind of no-brainer, broad umbrella term. I guess I just need to do a bit more broad keyword research and leave the specific keyword targeting to the subfolders.
-
This is a great question and something I have pondered over on several occasions.
In my opinion I would say focus on a couple of broad keywords on your homepage rather than trying to target loads of different keywords for each service you offer.
The main reason being that you want users to land on the sub folder were the content is focused around their search query as they will be more likely to convert than if they land on a generic page and have to navigate through the site to find the relevant content.
The below blog may be helpful:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/keyword-targeting-how-to-employ-multiple-keywords-for-seo-conversions
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
-
Country Wise Keyword difficulty
I want to know that how it is possible that global and country-wise keyword difficulty should be the same. Please help me out understand this confusion.
Keyword Research | | Daie80 -
Minor languages keyword research
Hello, I am in charge of doing a keyword research for several small countries in Europe, namely Hungary, Estonia and Latvia.
Keyword Research | | Lvet
I normally use the Keyword planner for Google Ads, but for Hungarian, Estonian and Latvian this tools seems to find no results for the keywords related to my websites. For example, in Hungarian the keyword "ajak toltoanyagok" ("lip fillers" in English) doesn't give any results (and yes, I am targeting my searches to Hungary and Hungarian). I have the same problems with Latvian and Estonian. Is there another tool that I could use and that could give me better results? Help! Cheers Luca rONwtZt0 -
Always shows homepage in google
We have www.powerwale.com (homepage) and powerwale.com/inverter-battery pages whenever there is a inverter battery online keyword search happens in google, google shows only homepage in the results, even we have seo optimised the inverter battery page,seperately above.. Not sure, why this happening?? Any SEO expert ideas, wht should i do to make inverter battery page is displayed in google result..instead
Keyword Research | | Rahim119
of homepage... Appreciated your ideas.. Thanks0 -
Tools to group large list of keywords
Hi Guys, Was wondering if anyone knows of any tools which can group large lists of keywords. Currently using http://www.wordstream.com/keyword-grouper Any other good tools to check out? Cheers.
Keyword Research | | jayoliverwright0 -
Google Adwords Keyword Planner Question
Is the keyword volume data shown the number of google adword clicks people made after searching with the used keyword, or is it the exact match search volume??
Keyword Research | | jennie.evans0 -
Price Comparison Website And Keywords
I run a price comparison website for a small niche at http://cdkeyprices.com I am targeting keywords for the specific products I am comparing the price/merchants on. On a typical page I would have a price column, product name, the merchant and a buy button. Buy button is affiliate linked to the merchant. The product name in the product column is the name from the actual website I am tracking. As such, my keyword was appearing sometimes up the 30 times. I've took it down some months ago but was wondering if this was a bad move. I was concerned Google would think I was stuffing the keyword. I've only just gotten into SEO the past few months so was not able to see any changes. Should i put the product column back up or would it be considered over optimization?
Keyword Research | | MrPenguin0 -
Most Important Keyword Term
Question about a sites most important keyword term. So lets say you have a website and your most important keyword term is "Blue Widgets", you also have a page named "blue-widgets.htm". What do we do with our index page in this instance? Especially for the title tag? Should I put "Blue Widgets" in the title tags of both pages? I'm guessing this would be a duplicate meta tag error? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Keyword Research | | TRICORSystems
Thanks
-Brandon0 -
How do you limit the number of keywords that will be researched
I'm working with a client who has a website, but doesn't really have a clearly defined idea of who their key audience is nor do they know what keyword phrases they would like to rank for. I know that I can generate a starting list by reviewing their site, but I want to set some parameters on it so I can provide an accurate estimate. I'm looking for suggestions on how to do this.
Keyword Research | | EricVallee340