No Content on home page + rankings

[fun52dig]

If a home page has no content will it hurt the sites ability to rank?  The interior pages will have content but not the home page. (See attached image)

My client does not want content on the home page as he feels it will take away from the look and feel he wants to achieve.

This website is actually 10 sites or locations in one as we intend to market each location (a total of 10) separately.

In reality the home page is a doorway page to each separate location.

I'd like feedback if possible as to the necessity or not, of content on the Home Page of this or any website. Will the lack of content hurt on the Homer Page hurt with SEO?

Thanks
Gary Downey

bobby-vans.jpg

[SEODinosaur]

Oh this is why I was under the impression that every page is ranked individually. http://www.seomoz.org/q/pr-of-homepage-when-other-pages-have-more-lniks

[MarieHaynes]

My guess is that the homepage tends to rank best because this is the page that other websites will tend to link to.

It sounds like you want to build links to inner pages in the hopes that they will rank, which is fine.  But, if I am a reporter, or a customer who wants to write about my experience at your restaurant, I'm most likely to link to the home page.

[fun52dig]

Keri,

We are in the process of building a mobile version of the website along side of building a whole new site.

Thanks for the response.

[EGOL]

After you fix these problems they should be making a lot more money.

[KeriMorgret]

Not rankings, but consider user experience, especially with mobile. If someone is looking for somewhere to eat in the next two hours and they're using their phone, they're going to want a page and site that makes it easy to find information about the location, hours, etc. You might also bring that aspect to the customer and let them know the potential conversion issues (unless you're already planning something for mobile -- the existing site looked just like the desktop site on my iPhone right now).

[fun52dig]

The website has a lot of SEO issues.  I just took the contract on two weeks ago and we are in the process of rebuilding the website.

For sure we don't want to loose any of the inbound links pointing to the home page or other pages for that fact.

I agree with you as far as taking advantage of the home page and placing content on it. I will be trying to convince them to do so.

The challenge will be in changing the url's for each page without disturbing the inbound links currently pointing to url's like this one. (This is a current live url)

http://bobbyvans.com/Bobby_Vans_Steakhouse/46th_%26_Park_Avenue.html

The site currently has serious canonical and duplicate page issues.

[fun52dig]

Thanks for the answer.  I have the same mind set as you. I'm under the impression that you can rank deep pages higher than your home page.  This is a somewhat unique situation as we are trying to rank 10 locations under one sub domain.  It's not your typical one location SEO project.

With this all said I'm going to try and talk my client into adding some content on the home page.

[EGOL]

Run the Bobby Vans site on Open Site Explorer....

Homepage has...  highest page authority, most linking root domains, most inbound links.  I would be taking full advantage of that.

Also, there is a gold mine of wasted links because the site has a lot of canonical and URL problems that could be solved by a good SEOing.

[SEODinosaur]

I was not aware that SE ranked home pages higher. There are pages on sites that have higher PR then the sites subdomian. How can this be?

IMO the reason we usually see a home page ranking higher in PR is because its the home page and people naturally link to it, or type it in when they look for you. Also the subdomain is included in every URL. For these reasons I can see how the home page can get some extra authoritative qualities.

But I was always under the impression that every page is ranked independently.

[SEODinosaur]

Absolutely, every page is ranked independently. I have heard of sites that have deep pages that have higher page rank, then the subdomain.

Are you only targeting local areas? if so the home page does not need to have any content. However the pages you want to rank are independent and should have a diverse keywords in H1,Title, and Body. When building these local pages be sure to get links from these regions. ie if you targeting "Cars in Florida" build links within Florida to the site.

[EGOL]

The homepage is usually the most powerful page on a website and it is a waste of that resource not to use it to go after one of the most difficult queries.

You can compete with an interior page but it generally is less effective.   NYC steak house queries are rather competitive and to go after them with an interior page will probably result in lower rankings.

If you keep the homepage an image the client will make less money.

If this was my site the homepage would have quite a bit of text that includes lots of steak and other restaurant keywords.  We would be making a lot more money with that text than we would be making with an artsy image homepage.

The decision is artsy versus money.  Simple.

[fun52dig]

Just a side note.  This restaurant chain has locations outside of New York City so it wouldn't be practical to have the home page Rank for "new york steak house".  Besides New York City they have locations in DC, Long Island and JFK.  Isn't the proper SEO strategy to rank the individual pages/locations?  If I'm correct in my assumption then why is the Home Page that important?

[fun52dig]

Donnie,

I agree it won't hurt.  The home page is one of many pages.  Can't you focus SEO efforts on the other pages?  Won't search engines spider and index the other pages within the website.

[fun52dig]

I realize no content on a page is bad for SEO, do search engines give more importance to home pages than other pages in a site?  Can you not focus your SEO efforts on other pages?  Why does it have to be the home page?

After all, at the end of the day is it not pages that rank?

The Home Page is just one on many pages on a website.  Can I not focus my SEO efforts on the other pages and get them to rank for chosen keywords?

[fun52dig]

This restaurant is a chain.  The plan is to setup a separate Google Places page for each individual location/page and market the locations individually.

In other words the goal is to rank individual pages within the site.  If someone does a search query for "best new york steak house" or "steak houses in new york city" why can't one or several of the interior pages rank for that term?  Does it have to be the home page? The Home Page is just one page within the site. Isn't it true that pages rank not websites per say?  Is the Home Page more important than any other page?

I guess my real question is does Google give more importance to the home page than other pages on a site?

Thanks
Gary Downey

[Mcarle]

Photographers like image heavy home pages as well.

They are horrid for SEO.

You CAN rank with no text, but it is very difficult & might not be worth the extra effort...

[EGOL]

The more words that appear on the homepage the more traffic it will pull.  Every word on the page can combine with every other word on the page to match queries typed into search engines by people searching for something.

It is possible to rank without content on the homepage and it is possible to get in trouble for hiding content on the homepage.

If client's goal is to rank for his name that will probably be easy with no content.  If client wants to rank for "new york steakhouse" then he will need to accomplish that by anchor text links, the power of an interior pages or a strong effort on local search (which I see has already been done).

I would never have a zero text content homepage because I know that I would lose a lot of traffic and as a result a lot of sales.  If client values the "artsy" look of his homepage he will pay for it with lost revenue.

[SEODinosaur]

It wont hurt. However, it wont help.

Google looks at the content in your title, H1, and body. I would recommend having some text on the home page.

SEO is 200 factors. I do as many as possible. In this case this may be one of those factors you wont be able to touch up on.