Influencing which page google chooses as the authority for a certain keyword
-
I have spent the last year optimizing my site for a specific keyword that I believed would do well with respect to conversions.
The good news is that my efforts have somewhat succeed. I am now ranking second for a pretty popular keyword, and this effort has definitely increased my traffic.
The bad news is that the target page that shows up for the optimized keywords isn't really the authoritative page on my site for the given keywords. As a result, it is my belief that my bounce rate is increasing and my conversions are decreasing.
To be more specific, let's say I have optimized my site for the keywords "cool widgets". On my site, I am referencing "cool widgets" in key areas such as title, meta keywords etc. I am referencing the above both on my homepage as well as the cool-widgets page.
So, http://www.mysite.com and http://www.mysite.com both contain pretty heavy optimization for "cool widgets". When a user searches "cool widgets", google is displaying mysite.com - however, i'd like it to display mysite.com/cool-widgets like all my competitors.
Is there any advice or light the community can shed on how I might go about correcting this issue? I don't think I want to de-optimize my home page, as I am afraid I might lose that position and not have it replaced with the more relevant target page.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Roy
-
Thanks Reload! Makes sense - I will get to work on some of your suggestions.
-
WHat Roy said and you may have tried too hard with your "cool widgets" page. Be sure you haven't over optimized the desired page. Good luck
-
Hi Royboy,
It's a common issue with SEO, as we don't have the precise control the PPC guys do over our desired landing pages.
First step would be to optimise your internal links, make sure /cool-widgets is very well interlinked from within your own site.
Next build external links into that page. After awhile you may get both pages listed in one SERP, #win. Then you can re-target your home page to a more relevant competitive keyword.
Depending on your external link building, it can take several months though, but is worth doing.
In the mean time, put something very obvious on the home page pointing visitors towards /cool-widgets
Let us know how you get on.
Iain - Reload Media
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
-
Competitive keyword ranking
Hi, I'm checking the SEOMoz keyword rankings report. I've set about 30 keywords and it's awesome to see how they rank and how many times they were clicked. However it would be interesting to see whether the keywords that I entered are competitive or not. It's not worth putting a lot of energy in making non competitive words rank higher I guess. So my question is: is it possible to see whether or not ranked keywords are competitive or not? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | webctp0 -
Best way to find keyword to write a post that will get 50 visitors a day in Google traffic?
Hi - I have a blog with good PR (4) but not much search traffic. I am interested in targeting keywords on a single blog post basis rather than site wide. The current search traffic is so low I can't really base looking for keywords off the keywords people are already arriving from. The only tool I know is the Google keyword tool. I am tired of writing posts that get zero search visitors most days, so would like to try to target some terms that will get around 50 search visits per day to that specific post. Best approach?
Keyword Research | | KateV0 -
On Page Optimization
Hey its question time for me today.....lol, I an using the SEOmoz On Page Optimization Tool and so far I have optimized my home page for one term"web design edinburgh" started at an F now its an A (Good Boy!) So I wasn wondering what poeples views were on the best way to do this? What I was thinking about doing was optimizing my site for 1 main Keyword/ Phrase per page. For instance Home Page - Keyphrase - "web design edinburgh" Web Design Page - "Web Development" not sure to make it" web development" or "web development edinburgh" SEO page - "Search Engine Optimisation" and so on........ So I would end up with a potential of say 6 landing pages each optimised for a certain keyword/phrase! Is this a good idea, or is there a better method I could employ? Thanks for sharing again. Kind Regards, Craig Fenton IT
Keyword Research | | craigyboy0 -
Why do I get a vastly different keyword ranking on google using different browsers?
With Fire Fox I get a ranking of 3 for roof coating and get a page 6 with Chrome and IE. Not sure what is going on with that.
Keyword Research | | jimmyboy0 -
Assesing which keywords to target
Hi Looking for some advice: Situation: Starting and SEO campaign for the French market. We have extensive keyword data from our adwords account as this has been running for a few months. Questions: What should we be looking out for in relations to keywords to target in the seo campaign? How many keywords is it sensible to target or chase? (one person dedicated to the French seo campaign) Thanks for your help, Andrew
Keyword Research | | fleurya0 -
The importance of meta keywords
Hello, I am looking into Meta keywords in the attempt to understand their importance. I have been reading about this in several blogs and get the feeling that the general view is that they are no longer very valuable. Some say it is because Google and Bing no longer use them, that in terms of SEO they carry little importance and that they are a great indicator to your competitors about which keywords you believe are important... My question is this: Without Meta keywords, how do you deal with misspelt search keywords on your website? For example, if you were looking for a product called 'El Mundo en Espa_ñ_ol' but spelt it using the normal 'n' instead of the Spanish 'ñ', and the keyword 'Espanol' was not included in the Meta keywords, would you still find the product? English speaking people commonly search without the ñ because this is more convenient to them. So how can I make sure that the page is optimised for these type of common misspellings? Thanks!!!
Keyword Research | | languedoc0 -
Keyword Variations?
Hi, can anybody tell me if it is useful to optimize the following keyword in all 3 Versions?
Keyword Research | | mbase22
As I know google separates the 2 words as if using a hyphen - so it would be the same as if just using a space between the words.
But if you search for the different Versions in google there are different SERPS for every of this versions? Not many users will search using a hyphen between the words I guess - butt I saw some few keywords tipped in with hyphen in my google analytics report. And I want to be on top 😉 Piloten Ausbildung Piloten-Ausbildung Pilotenausbildung thx!0 -
Does keyword arrangement matter?
If I choose: Blue Wide Widgets vs. Wide Blue Widgets vs. Widgets Wide Blue Are these considered 3 different keywords that show up on 3 different SERPs?
Keyword Research | | 13375auc30