On-Page Optimization Report: How Are Keywords Chosen?
-
Apologies if this has already been covered 100 times!
Last month I set up a new campaign, and so far the On-Page Optimization tool has only crawled and graded three of my pages so far. I assume it takes time for more pages to be covered?
But, here's my real question: I see that the tool is giving my pages grades based on certain keywords, but the tool itself seems to be deciding which keyword to use in grading each page. To use a made-up example, my example has a page about leather gloves, a page about wool mittens, and a page about cotton mittens. The last one is supposed to be optimized for the keyword "cotton mittens," but the tool is grading it based on how well it's optimized for "wool mittens."
I can go into the drop-down at the top of the page and change the keyword that the page is graded on, and that gives me a new grade, but only for that instance. The next week, the tool is back to giving the page an F for "wool mittens."
Is that because the tool decides that "wool mittens" is the keyword for which the page has the best chance of ranking, no matter what my intentions are? is there any way to permanently tell the tool that I want the page to target "wool mittens" as its main keyword?
Thanks in advance for your help!
-
Ahhh, I get it now. Joel, I read your first message as "click 'Run This Report' weekly," rather than "click 'Run This Report Weekly.'"
Got it now!
-
You can.
When you select your keyword and enter the URL just click "Run This Report Weekly"
Any reports you no longer wish to see you can click "Stop Running Weekly."
Thanks,
Joel. -
Thanks Joel. Ideally we'd be able to tell the tool "I am targeting this keyword with this page, so please only grade it against this keyword," but so be it.
Appreciate your help.
-
Hi there,
Thanks for the question!
The On-Page reports are generally automatically generated for any keywords rankings in the Top 50.
If you want to change the Keyword that it grades for you need to push "Run This Report Weekly" after changing the keyword.
If you have any specific questions I'm happy to address them if you want to email into help@seomoz.org.
I hope that clears some things up.
Cheers,
Joel. -
The campaign tool is not guessing, it is taking the pages that rank for the term and showing.
If you want to check each page simply use this tool: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-optimization/new
with the tool provided you can manually check the pages you want and the keywords on them.
It is impossible to get the card to 100% for more then one term however you can get it close.
-
If that page is ranking for more than one term (to be clear, we're not targeting more than one term), then how does the tool choose which one to grade the page on? Does it choose the keyword for which the page ranks higher?
I just wish we could tell the tool what keyword we're targeting with the page, since right now it's guessing incorrectly.
-
** I just wish there were a way to tell the system what keyword we're trying to target with a particular page, rather than the tool pulling a keyword from the list and giving us an unwarranted "F."**
The "F" you are receiving for a page is only there because that page is already ranking in Google for the term you have selected.
For example:
If you set your keyword to "blue cat" in an SEOmoz campaign, it will check your entire website within Googles index. Every page of your site will be checked to see if it ranks in Google for the term "blue cat". SEOmoz will then return your results for the term "blue cat" if you by chance have a random page ranking for the term "blue cat" even if you did not specify the term on that page(target the term) it will show you the page where that term is ranking on the search engine. It will also grade the page for the specified term on the ranking page.
It is not pulling random data.
-
I recommend using the report card tool for your main keywords and only
targeting one keyword per page... Two max.
Just to clarify, it's not that we're trying to target more than one keyword for this page. It's that we're targeting keyword A, but for some reason SEOmoz wants to rank it for keyword B. Not surprisingly, it's giving us an "F" for this keyword (since, as you have recommended, we're being very single-minded about what keywords the page targets). So, the report isn't that useful since it's showing me low grades for keywords that my pages aren't targeting.
Anyway, I appreciate your response. I just wish there were a way to tell the system what keyword we're trying to target with a particular page, rather than the tool pulling a keyword from the list and giving us an unwarranted "F." We've started to ignore the tool because of this.
-
This is not selecting random keywords... It is selecting keywords you chose for your campaign. Then it is telling you where you rank for each of those terms and which page's of your site are showing up in the SERP.
It also gives you your report card grade, just in case you would like to make some additional changes to that page, since it is already ranking for one of your selected keywords.
So your SEOmoz campaign takes your keyword, pulls the page that is ranking for that term and then grades it on which ever page is ranking. Not up to you rather up to the search engine.
I recommend using the report card tool for your main keywords and only targeting one keyword per page... Two max.
-
Thanks Donnie, but that doesn't really answer my question. My problem is that the tool is automatically choosing what keywords to grade each page on, but it's not choosing the keywords I would choose. It's not a matter of me trying to rank for multiple keywords, but of having one keyword in mind for a page when the tool seems to have another in mind.
It's telling me a page is an "F" for a keyword I don't care about, when I know that I'm actually earning an "A" for the keyword that I want. I'd like the report to remember the keyword that I'm targeting, rather than randomly(?) choosing a keyword from my list and assigning a grade.
-
I like to use this report card and only target one or two phrases max per page. just type the keyword phrase you want and which page you want that keyword phrase to rank for, just follow the instructions.
Tip: getting two keywords A's for one page will be extremely challenging.
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
-
Ranking Keyword
Hi! I am Amelia My site rank 5 keyword in united states show that Ahref's and I check in Moz but that shows 1 rank key word and Ahref's shows the 59 backlinks and Moz shows 5 to 6 backlink why that shows low keyword and backlinks that's my site problem or Moz issues. Check My website and tell me issues.
Moz Pro | | Oiebyut0 -
WIX - problem with On-Page Optimization picking up SEO
Hi, I'm new to here so please be gentle!
Moz Pro | | sportinglists
I have a WIX site and had it for a few months. I have m own domain sportinglists.com and I am using MOZ to improve the SEO. Having read a few things it seems that I may struggle, given that I have a WIX site. I am playing around with a certain page, that will most likely be the most popular one on the site (fingers crossed), however when I run On-Page Optimization it fails to pick up the following things that I know I have added to the page; H1 (page title) - I added through the text options
Body text - I added paragraph text and
Image Alt - put in through the settings Is this because that it is made in WIX that this won't be picked up or is more likely my incompetency? Thanks0 -
Page Rank vs Page and Domain Authority - who wins?
A client has found another SEO agency promising various things to do with link building. Most of these promises are based upon links from sites with allegedly high page ranks. So my questions: Page rank seems to be fading out am I safe to stay with PA and DA metrics instead? I don't agree with link building tactics and feel that it should more a networking activity to provide USEFUL links to users... am I being too white hat and missing opporunities? The other company have promised long list of links including 100 SEO friendly web directory listings, 200 PR 8 back links from Pinterest (which i thought was no follow) & 10 long lasting and high quality mini web sites (with three pages/posts, video and pictures). Am I right that this all sounds a little spammy or is this really what I should be doing for me clients?
Moz Pro | | SoundinTheory0 -
Current on-page best practices
Given all the recent talk about over optimization, when was the last time SEOMoz updated the on-page report card tool? Rand wrote an excellent piece on Perfect On-Page Optimization (which is great, and thanks) in summer 2009. Is that still best practice 3 years later (and post-Penguin/Panda)? If not, has the SEOMoz on-page report card tool been updated to reflect current thinking for on-page best-practices? I know the higher level concept is "write for humans, not for bots" but if you can do both (and not create an unreadable seo-frankenpage) then why not? Does getting an "A" grade wreak of over optimization now? Should I use the key phrase at the start of the title, h1, and strong (or bold) elements on a page? Should have an image with file name and alt text equal to (or containing at the start) the key phrase?
Moz Pro | | scanlin2 -
Crawl Diagnostics Report
I'm a bit concerned about the results I'm getting from the Crawl Diagnostics Report. I've updated the site with canonical urls to remove duplicate content and when I check the site - it all displays the right values, but the report, which has just finished crawling is still showing a lot of pages as duplicate content. Simple example: http://www.domain.com http://www.domain.com/ Both of them are in the duplicate content section although both have canonical url set as: Does each crawl check the entire site from the beginning or just the pages it didn't have a chance to crawl the last time? This is just one of 333 duplicate content pages, which have canonical url pointing to the right page. Can someone please explain?
Moz Pro | | coremediadesign0 -
One page per campaign?
Not quite sure if I read correctly, but is it correct that one campaign tracks only one page of my site? So if I wanted to track something like a services page, this would require a second campaign?
Moz Pro | | GroundFloorSEO0 -
How do I find the most linked to page of a site?
I'm looking at a site for a potential link and am trying to find the most linked to page. The SEOmoz toolbar tells me the root domain (DA) is linked to by 660 root domains but the main URL (PA) is linked to by 38 root domains. I used open site explorer and got the same # of 38 root domains in the result. From the Top Pages tab, I clicked on the 2nd page down and the SEOmoz toolbar gives me 189 root domains linking to that page (PA). Then I ran a Linkscape report to see what that would say and I get 146 linking root domains. 1. Is this 2nd page down on OSE the most linked to page? 2. a. Is something off in these numbers?
Moz Pro | | Motava
b. How come OSE/Linkscape doesn't report the 660 root domains in the DA?0 -
Duplicate page content reports duplicates, but pages don't show duplication
My duplicate page reports shows 376 pages with duplicate content. After reviewing the pages the report claims have duplicate content, i can't find duplications. could this be an error, or is there some source code that doesn't display that could be causing this issue?
Moz Pro | | noonzie0