Home page keyword in url
-
I have been looking into SEO for a few weeks now trying to perfect a homepage. Going through various sources on MOZ, and other examples out there on the internet, I keep seeing that you should have your keyword in the URL of the page.
The homepage is the page most people want to rank the highest in google searches, however, you cannot put the keyword in the URL as most home page URLs are simply /.
Should I actually make the home like this: www.example.com/key-word-example? I would imagine this would not be the normal for many users and would seem like it's not the home page.
-
Hello, thanks for your reply.
The website I'm building for my client is actually a porn website ( Sorry if i'm not aloud to bring that up in these forums, but it is a professional business ).
Now the video category pages and actual video pages will be mainly just 5 videos in each row. As users will not really be looking to read content. However because the site is different than usual sites, i was planning on putting content on the homepage to rank for the main keyword.
Is this a suitable post? if not i will delete it.
-
Also I'd like to add, your homepage should be ranking for what your overall site / service does, not the main things it sells nor the main service. Kinda like a very general keyword usage there, since you want more control over how these keywords rank in SERPs.
I just got done redesigning a client's site that had most of it's keywords ( main ones included ) ranking the homepage for those keywords, which was kinda nightmarish, since customers were hurting our overall CPC campaign and our organic results since they were bouncing so much. A homepage isn't going to be the info hotspot a user wants when they search for a keyword, since it normally is the spot you do brief eye catching highlights of items or services. Think of the homepage more like clickbait.
When you have subpages that specialize on keywords, you have a better chance to give the user what they wanted when finding your page in SERPs which will improve overall rankings and if you advertise, can help lower costs and improve quality scores.
You basically answered your own question just didn't realize it, using example.com/key-word-example should be a subpage targeting a main keyword you want to rank for. That way you'll be able to focus on content for that keyword easier, without worrying about other factors that a homepage needs.
Hope this wasn't TL:DR
-
Yes, I typically reserve the homepage for branded search. On most sites, the content of the homepage is too broad to really be a helpful entry point from organic non-branded search.
-
Thanks for the reply!
I completely agree with what you said and i had those concerns as well.
So would you suggest not using my most important keyword for my home page?
-
Heyo!
I would not recommend your homepage exists at any URL other than example.com for the following reasons:
- It's web development best-practice
- Most of the links you will acquire naturally will point to example.com
- Some citations won't accept a URL with anything after the .com
- It's confusing for people
- If bots can't access your homepage at example.com, they most likely won't find your robots.txt or XML sitemap files either
I'm sure other could drum up more reasons, but the ones I've listed here should be enough to dissuade you.
You can typically fare much better by giving non-branded keywords interior pages that are specific to that topic rather than the broader homepage content. This will increase the likelihood of people finding what they're looking for and is a better way to tailor your content to your audience and to algorithms.
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
-
What is the best meta description for Category Pages, Tag Pages and Main Article?
Hi, I want to index all my categories and tags. But I fear about duplicating the meta description. for example: I have a tag name "Learn Stock Market", a category name "Learning", and a main article "What is Stock Market". What is your suggestion for meta description of these three pages that looks great for seo google?
On-Page Optimization | | mbmozmb0 -
Home page cannibal
I was wondering if others had the same problem I have. It appears Google loves that home page too much and I'm having a difficult time getting it to rank the page I really want. And that happens if a keyword I want to rank for only appears on the home page one time with a keyword density of .1%. Take vanillaqueen.com for example. The home page ranks on the first page for "bulk vanilla beans" and not http://vanillaqueen.com/shop/category/vanilla-beans/ or http://vanillaqueen.com/five-reasons-why-buying-bulk-vanilla-makes-good-sense/ And I'll add another one that I recently took on. This is a personal injury attorney in a large city so there is a ton of competition who have been doing SEO for a very long time. (Fortunately he also does business and civil litigation law to keep the business going). Last month, according to webmaster tools, he got a couple of clicks (hey, it's something!) on "personal injury attorney [his city]" on page 2 in the SERPS, but it was his home page. http://bit.ly/1Gvumlm **In this case I don't mind people landing on the home page, but does the fact that another page that is much better optimized for those keywords indicate a penalty on that page? And is his rank lower because the better page is not ranking and Google has to find the next best thing in the home page? ** Has anyone else experienced that and what have you done to get Google to not go home? P.S. The law site is a huge challenge because of the competition. Any help you pros out there can offer to get this underdog out of hiding will be much appreciated. We're starting a smart, strategic content marketing plan now that I'm very excited about.
On-Page Optimization | | katandmouse1 -
Home page optimisation question - Expanding box
Hi guys, I was wandering if anyone can help me on how google looks at expanding boxes now? What I am referring to is on our home page orderblinds.co.uk we have an article written which shows a taster of the information about the company, the user then has to click read more to expand the box and see the rest of the content. Is this bad for seo as when you view the html all the content is there but I'm sure google can work out that this text isn't visible until you click read more? Any feedback on this subject would be great,
On-Page Optimization | | OrderBlinds0 -
Please review page for on page SEO
I'm working on an adult dating site review blog and am hoping to build links to the category pages. It's a wordpress blog so the posts are categorised by topics. However can you tell me if there is enough content on the page for google to identify what the page is about? The problem is that the content of each category pages is pulled from the posts. What I think is needed is some static text on the page 2-300 words that use the keyword. Here's an example of a page targeting the keywords 'online dating'. http://www.top-10-dating-reviews.com/category/online-dating/
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK
[editor's note -- thumbnails on site may not be appropriate for some workplaces] Will the page rank like this if there are a good amount of authorative links or does the page itself need work?0 -
Duplicate Page Content for Product Pages
Hello, We have one website which URL is http://www.bannerbuzz.com & we have many product pages which having duplicate page content issue in SEOMOZ which are below. http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-1.html
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-10.html
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-11.html
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-12.html
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-13.html We haven't any content on these pages, still getting duplicate page content errors for all pages in SEOMOZ. Please help me how can i fix this issue. Thanks,0 -
Should I use bolded keywords for keywords in the content throughout the page?
If I'm trying to optimize for a specific keyword, should I bold all of the keywords that appear in the content of the page or just one or two? or none at all?
On-Page Optimization | | globalrose.com0 -
Is it wise to target different keywords for each page?
I am running a dating site, I am trying to focus on 5 keywords on the index page. My Search page is one of the 4 other pages on the site. My question, is it wise to target different keywords on these pages or am I better off focussing on the same 5 keywords as the index page? Thank you,
On-Page Optimization | | debeenus0 -
Can you optimize for 2 keywords per URL?
Or should you just stick to 1 page, 1 keyword all the time? If you do 2, are there any things you should watch out for? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | inhouseninja0