Homepage outranking subpage for main keyword, but subpage is more optimized for the keyword.

[Deacyde]

Recently did a site redesign, 95% of the site and keywords are matching up in terms of keyword to what page is ranking for that keyword. All and all was expected and pleased with the redesign, except...

A subpage ( PA 1 ) really is a landing page for the main keyword in question is only one jump from the hompage, is it's own category and has the exact match anchor text to its page from the homepage, has a total of 14 total keyword usages.

The homepage has a PA of 28, mentioned the keyword once in the body text in form of anchor link, yet still steals the thunder from the main keyword. There aren't a ton of backlinks, but ones we do have 95% of them goto the homepage.

Subpage in question has a on page grade of A for the keyword, while the homepage has an on page grade of C. No backlinks at all for this page yet.

Subpage even uses the keyword as it's url name, so kinda at a loss to what else I can do, it's a new page, so alll I keep thinking is the issue is the page authority, it's linked to from other pages on the site.

Any suggestions?

[BrianJGomez]

I know I'm a little late to the game but one suggestion I would recommend reading your post is to take the synonym out of your page title on your home page. For example, I work with a lot of attorneys and if I create separate pages for "lawyer" and "attorney", I never get the respective targeted traffic ... google just ranks the more optimized, higher PA page for both terms.

[Deacyde]

Very good points guys thanks!

• To Patrick: Yes, bad, bad backlinks in some cases, I'm actually in the middle of a backlink audit ( looking at our backlinks directories seem to have scraped us and or even a negative SEO campaign. ) So I want to remove the directories and other sad excuses for backlinks, especially ones using the anchor text of our keyword.
• As for the homepage title I only removed the 1st part of the keyword and replaced with a synonym that was already ranking for the homepage.  Reason I didn't want the homepage to rank, was that it simply doesn't give the searcher what they were searching for, yes it has the links, but not the meat. The subpage I want to rank for this, has about 6 additional paragraphs that explain the meat a searcher will want explained to them when searching for the keyword.

_I can send you a link to the site in private message. _

• To Dmytro: Yes it's a new page the subpage is, with a PA of 1, so homepage easily outranks it, and the homepage was ranking for this keyword before the redesign. So could be an issue of time google needs to see this page changed and the keyword isn't relevant any longer or I'll just need to build up the subpage to the point it takes back the keyword relevance.

_I can send you a link to the site in private message. _

[solvid]

I agree with Patrick.

I personally think that search engines simply prioritise your homepage over the subpages, as a result of higher PA, Links and so forth.

Also, you said that this is a new page, was your homepage ranking for that keyword before you've added the new page? What I think, is that the new page contributes to the ranking of the homepage, as it hasn't got enough ranking signals (e.g. backlinks) on its own.

I might be wrong.

It will be helpful if you can maybe post the link to the website.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Without seeing your website, I can't say, I'm just here for ideas at the moment!

If you think your backlinks may be spammy (the fact that you said "cheap" and "directories" makes me nervous) I would look into auditing those, try removing bad ones, and disavowing ones that are outright bad or you don't hear back from for removal.

I would also be careful about changing your homepage title tag - if you are ranking for that keyword, I worry changing it might make you lose rankings altogether, so just be careful.

It's not bad that your homepage is ranking, more often than not your homepage has the most equity for ranking. I would keep your homepage as is and build equity around the subpage for that keyword through thoughtful linking and brand building.

Let me know if you have any further questions here!

[Deacyde]

Hello and thanks for the reply!

Backlinks / Anchor Text - ( Seems directories ( the cheap free ones ) have linked to us a good amount of times using our keyword )

Wonder if it will help to disavow some of these, because feel these are hurting us not just their quality but the pages the backlinks show up on changes based on how many backlinks they have, so the total number of backlinks changes + or - 1( or more ) because of these kinda directories.

Content - Homepage was completely rewritten upon redesign, the keyword we want to rank on the subpage doesn't appear at all, minus the anchor text for the link to that subpage. On the subpage itself, uses the keyword 13 times, as well in alt tags for images. Its hard to avoid the keyword being used that many times even, since it describes the material types as well.

Title tags are good, the homepage did have the keyword in it ( naturally ) but changed it to a synonym.

Seems a few backlinks using the anchor text with keyword will help pry the homepage away from the keyword relevance.

How do you feel about that?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I would check the anchor text of the backlinks to your homepage, that may have something to do with it. It seems like Google is putting more emphasis on the homepage for that keyword, so they are seeing something you may not be at this minute.

Try adding an internal link (relevantly and organically) in the content of your homepage, rather than just the main navigation, to that particular page and see if that helps you. Also, you can try adding Schema to that page as a WebPage and add keyword data to the markup.

Check your title tags as well and make sure that you are not abusing the keyword by spamming in your content. For now, that would be my recommendation as a place to start: checking your backlinks, anchor text, and content. Some of the links to your homepage might be able to be changed to the category page if it's more relevant to the content it's being linked to from.

Let me know if this helps! Good luck!
Patrick