Optimized pages ranking lower than homepage with keywords
-
Ok, I know this question has been out there before, but i don't know how fo search for it specifically enough. I have several keywords that rank higher on my home page. As you know MOZ assigns keywords to whichever page on your site popping up in search first. So even though i have A-grade optimized pages for a particular keyword, that page may not pop up BEFORE the homepage for instance, on searches. In many cases, the homepage is grade "F" for a particular keyword, yet its pulling up first for most of my keywords. I know that my homepage has more rank because it gets the most visits and i'm sure we can't really optimize the homepage for EVERY keyword. What is the best thing to do in this situation? Do i just need to wait for my optimized page to catch up in rank, or is there a trick to optimizing homepage to ALL key words at grade "A" level? Do i need to keep back-linking to my optimized page directly to get the juice up? I created all these great optimized pages for specific keywords, but my homepage which shows "F" grade is the one pulling up 4th or 5th on searches Help??
-
Thank Jane. I think i'm understanding this better now. I need to create more relevant content for the keywords with F grades on homepage and make sure i link back to optimized pages from homepage. Great. That shouldnt be to hard a task.
by the way. I think I duped this question. Look at this question
How to optimize home page for several keywords
Not sure if I could have just sent you a link lol Didn't want to log off for that sorry. But there was alot of input here for me and I also sent alot of info regarding my site thx. again.
thx again
-
Hi Robert,
Just to reiterate what was said here - the issue here will be that the home page is much stronger than the internal pages, hence why it's ranking better. This is quite a common problem. I wouldn't worry about the page grader for now, because once you get the right pages ranking, the page grader will show the correct grade for the pages.
Working on the internal linking to those pages, off-page optimisation, those page's content, etc. is certainly going to help. Strengthening the homepage won't hurt either, as long as those internal pages are linked to well from the home page. You can consider linking to them with optimised anchor text, as long as this appears natural and makes sense for a user. For example, if you were working with an insurance site and the home page is ranking for [car insurance] instead of www.site.com/car-insurance/, link to the car insurance page from the home page with the anchor text "car insurance". You'll know instinctively if this is appropriate for the pages / keywords you're dealing with here. You may well have already done this, but thought it best to reiterate just in case!
Cheers,
Jane
-
It does thanks. Seems like i pretty much have to stuff each page full of media, links, social, content, the works, one grilling page at a time. Welcome to SEO work I suppose. thx again.
-
Hi Robert
H1 headers are still an on-page factor for search engines, so don't over look them. You want to look at ways you can earn links to the individual pages that you have created which are optimised for specific keywords. Make sure you haven't over optimised these pages and also make sure that the content isn't too thin - it needs to give the visitor value. You can help the amount of internal authority that your pages have by making sure they are higher up your sites link architecture and if possible feature in your main navigation. Look at ways that you can earn links for these pages - can you add content to them or place them in front of social media audiences that will interact with and share them? The more exposure they have the more likely you are to gain natural links to these pages.
Hope this helps?
-
Hi Matt, and thx for your response. I have a list of "Fs" on for keywords that relate to my home page and that's why it bugged me that there was really nothing i can do. The page critical fixes require things like including keywords in titles etc. which of course I can't do for so many key words. In some cases my home page still comes up first page in others not, which is why i created the other pages optimized for specific keywords. And so i guess i need to backlink directly to the optimized pages to raise rank? Domain is not enough?
By the way do any search engines still look for the h1 tags. i've been putting them in to raise grade on MOZ. Appreciate your help.
-
Hi
your homepage will have the most authority in terms of ranking power from links and this will be helping it to rank for keywords it isn't even overly optimised before. Out of interest where do your optimised pages sit in your sites hierarchy? Do they have much page authority? how many pages ares you talking about and are they in your main navigation structure? Some obvious questions but it just gives a better indication of how your site is setup. Have these pages got a lot of content and what is there engagement like - bounce rate and so on.? You mentioned backlinks - have you earned many to these pages? Sorry for all the questions just helps to get a clearer picture of things as I say..
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
-
Can’t put a finger on, what is causing 12 year domain, SEO optimized and decent link profile to rank lower than other less superior domains.
Can’t put a finger on, what is causing 12 year domain, SEO optimized and decent link profile to rank lower than other less superior domains. I have dissected the site and link, content, etc profile using ahrefs tools, still no luck, and unfortunately they do not have a community to ask anyone opinion. Hoping someone on Moz will be able to provide me with a secondary opinion or something I obviously missing here. Looking for any constructive feedback/professional opinion with fresh look on what maybe the cause of our down rankings and what may be a cause of it. Any feedback is very much appreciated. Search Term: 3030 aventura condos / One of our link samples (SE Position #6): https://goo.gl/FbYj4V Competing Domains (SE Position #1): https://goo.gl/fLPKX5 Competing Domains (SE Position #2): https://goo.gl/GqXGse
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Im_Jake0 -
Landing pages, are my pages competing?
If I have identified a keyword which generates income and when searched in google my homepage comes up ranked second, should I still create a landing page based on that keyword or will it compete with my homepage and cause it to rank lower?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | The_Great_Projects0 -
How to avoid keyword stuffing in dynamic pages?
Our new home page which is in development has been identified as being keyword stuffed for a particular search word. The problem is that the page includes a dynamic feed pulled in from our database. It would be similar to booking.com for example coming up as keyword stuffed for the word hotel. But hotels are their business and so any instance of the word hotel is probably relevant. Our problem is similar. How detrimental would this be for SEO? And does anyone have any ideas how this can be worked round?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | striple0 -
How to rank product pages?
Hi guys, Please advice me on something improving my product pages ranking. We are doing well for head terms, categories but not ranking for product pages. We have issues with product pages which I am think is hard to tackle. For instance we have duplicate products (different colors), duplicate content internally (colors) and from manufacturer websites. Product pages linked from sub-category i.e. Home > Category > Sub-Category (20 per page) using pagination for next 20 and so on. Product pages linked internally via widgets that says other Similar products, featured products etc. Another issue with our product pages is that we are using third party reviews platform and whenever users add reviews to product pages this platform creates an hyperlink to different anchors which is not relevant to product. Example - http://goo.gl/NUG652 Can somebody please give some advice on how to improve rankings for product pages. writing unique content for thousands of pages is not possible. Even our competitor not writing unique content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webmaster_SEO0 -
Is this keyword easy to rank? how can I estimate what kind of work it takes.
I am Using Micro Niche Finder KeyWord: Send SMS online domain available: .org Avg. Monthly searches: 1600 Adword cost : 2.12 Measure of Back link: 633 SOC: 20 (green) Most of the Back link using Majestic SEO appear to be coming from sendhub.com and massmailsoftware.com website. I researched sites with these keywords and those sites appear to have tiered pricing plans and appear to be charging money for their services. My plan, put some effort in organic SEO and rank this site to page 1. Get some optin users and start communicating with them to see what is their pain point. How can I tell on what it takes to rank this page to page 1 on google? Would it take lot of blog articles for back link and if so… how many? Is a rough estimate possible. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | zsyed0 -
Will Creating a Keyword specific Page to replace the Category Section page cause any harm to my website?
I am running a word press install for my blog and recently had 3 of my main keywords set as categories. I recently decided to create a static page for the keywords instead of having the category page showing all the posts within the category, and took it off the navigation bar. I read about setting the categories to use NO index so the search engines can shine more importance on the new pages i created to really replace where the category was showing. Can this have a negative effect on my rankings? http://junkcarsforcashnjcompany.com junk car removal nj is showing the category section, So i placed the no index on it. Will the search engines refresh the data and replace it with the new page I created?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | junkcars0 -
Google is ranking the wrong page for the targeted keyword
I have two examples below where we want it to rank for the targeted page but google picked another page to rank instead. This is happening a lot on this site I just recently started to work on. Example 1 Googles Choice for key word Motorcycle Tires: http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/cl/50/Tires-and-Wheels What we want Google to choice for Motorcycle Tires: http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/49/-/181/Motorcycle-Tires Other pages about Motorcycle tires: http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/d/12/Motorcycle-Tires We even used the rel="canonical" for this url to point to our target page. http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/50/-/181/Motorcycle-Tires Example 2 ATV Tires We want this page to rank http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/81/165/ATV-Tires however google has decided to rank http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t/43/81/165/723/ATV-Tires-All that is acutally one folder under where we want it.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DoRM0 -
What is the best choise for seasonal pages that rank after the season is over?
Hello and thank you for your attention. I am optimizing a travel website and I have a few problems. Every time I get a good rank for a particular keyword the owners take down the page because the offer is over. They also take down the category because the season is over. That is why I loose all the rankings. What is the best option in this cases and how should I guide the whole team that putts offers and new categories on the website? Would a Static sitemap be enough - I do not know what to do as moving a category from the main menu to a sitemap - another page on the website would result in loosing authority - and SERP. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | A.Popoviciu0