Opinion on stripping down homepage to two navigational links for SEO
-
I am in the process of restructuring a clients site who offers two niches. One is an event venue and the other is private dining. We have struggled in the past with ranking for either one since google sees restaurant and event venue as two distinct businesses. So on the homepage I would like to essentially 'divide' the site into two sections - Weddings and events, and Dining. From there people can choose which part of the website they would be directed to. (There are other things we will do as well, like up content etc. but this is the start)
So my question is this - from an SEO standpoint should I do away with a menu on the home page and only have two links there and have the site hierarchy go down from there, does this give more 'juice' to the two categories? or will it hurt the site since there is no about, contact, etc page link on the home page?
thanks for any opinions on this!
-
Hi Jenn!
Ah, I thought this sounded a little familiar
So, no, I would not remove main navigation from the homepage. But, I would do this:
-
Have universal navigation for the website including all the major links.
-
For the sake of users, yes, divide the contents of the homepage into two side-by-side sections in whatever way offers the best user experience (one side for the club, one for the wedding service).
-
Have each side link to its respective set of content, but with all normal navigation intact in both sections.
You honestly do not want Google to view this as two separate businesses. You don't want them to be confused about whether (222) 111-2222 is the number of a restaurant or a wedding venue. You want to promote the whole thing as a single brand, with a single GMB listing and supporting citation set, for a business that offers a varied menu of services (dining, events, etc.). But, for the sake of users, you simultaneously want them to be able to quickly access the content describing the services in which they have the most interest. So, if they happen to enter to website on the hompage (instead of on the main page for weddings) you can certainly give them a big, visual cue about how to navigate to that section of content.
Ranking for these different types of searches is just going to come down to good old SEO, both local and traditional, and all of the marketing you can do to promote the variety of services offered. Authoritative local links to the main page for the weddings (for example) will help in your pursuit of visibility for wedding-related searches in your city, while getting great restaurant reviews on Yelp should bring in diners.
I'd seriously urge the owner to view their brand as a brand - one that offers a variety of services, just like a general contractor who does roofing, remodels, fence building and deck design. Each is a different experience, for a consumer with a different need, but all needs are being met by the single, unified brand.
Hope this helps!
-
-
I know that from our human standpoint we don't view them as two clearly separate categories, but the issue has been that Google and search engines view restaurants and event venues as two categories, so it has been difficult to rank high in both areas (especially for wedding venues which is an area of rising competition here locally). So my thoughts are that by separating the site's hierarchy into two distinct paths that google may more clearly discern that we offer both. Does that make sense?
-
same everything - hi Miriam you helped me on a previous post about this same company
-
I have a question: Do these two businesses have an overlap of customers or are their new services that can be created to merge these two businesses? I do not view them as two distinctly different businesses. I see small family and company gatherings as a middle ground, where expertise from both businesses can merge.
-
Hi There!
I can see how you're thinking about this. I have a question: do the event and restaurant components of the business share an address and phone number, or do they have unique addresses and phone numbers?
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
-
Unsolved GMB Local SEO question
I am trying to diagnose how one particular competitor is smoking us in local rankings. I came across a text field “Service Details' within Google My Business Services. This allows me to put in a brief description of each service we offer. My thought is that this could be a good place for keywords. That said, the descriptions are not public facing (or to the best of my knowledge) so I am reluctant to do all the work for nothing. I am wondering if anyone has filled these out and if there were any noticeable results. Any insight is appreciated
Local SEO | | jorda0910 -
Local SEO for a business serving multiple small cities
We have a local business that has a showroom in one city, and serve other 5 different small cities (in total 6 small cities). Search volume for the targeted keyword is very low (around 100 each plus minus) with a variety of competition levels. The product is expensive so this justifies the low search volume with a serious user intent.
Local SEO | | Nadiamo44
My question is given the low search volume for each keyword, what would be the best local SEO tactic for this. The website has a DA of 20 with competitors who has similar and higher DAs. Options I am considering: 1. Create unique pages for each location with unique content (no address available so I will have to use a city name postcode)
2. Create pages with the same content (but changing the area of service on the URL, H1 and mention the postcode and the radius of coverage twice in the content) and using a canonical tag to solve the duplicate issue.
In this scenario, I will create the main product pages with the address of the showroom, and mention the area of service covered for the other 5 cities.
3. Given that the 6 cities are part of a greater area, use the greater area to target them all. The keyword of the greater area has a lower search volume than the city keyword. This might work for keywords with low competition but not for ones with high competition levels. Not sure how well search engines will rank the keywords that include the greater area and show the pages for searches in small cities. Any advice on which option to go with or any recommendations for other solutions?0 -
Outbound Links for Local SEO
I am working on building an area guide page for a local hotel website. The hotel itself has a lot to offer in forms of on-site entertainment and they are concerned about sending people away from their website (and their business). However, it's also important to write about the area and local attractions in close proximity to their hotel for many reasons, including building local authority. Is there any benefit to adding links to the Google My Business/map listing of the local attractions? Or can we just simply not include external links?
Local SEO | | triveraseo2 -
Amount of Internal Links?
Does anyone know how much internal linking is helpful in ranking? And, what is the recommended amount of internal links in a page of the website? I have seen some websites adding so much internal links ranking good but not sure about the recommended amount.
Local SEO | | BrianBotts.0 -
Defining a niche for my SEO company
Hello, I realize that in order to get business in SEO, you really need to specialize. The most experience I have is with the nuts and bolts of small business E-commerce and and many types of small business web design. I've run several online stores for about 9 years and I've been doing small business web design (and a bit of development) since 2001. I've had several other SEO clients over the years. I'm in Boise, Idaho at this site What would be a profitable approach? I'm thinking I could mainly build and market small online stores for locals. Maybe something like 'Ecommerce Web Design and SEO in Boise, Idaho' for a home page title. Or I could learn Local, but I have less experience with that. Or I could try to get national clients in an even smaller niche. I'm trying to find a good approach. I only charge $75/hour and I give generous quotes when appropriate, so an 'affordable' approach would be good Thanks, Bob
Local SEO | | BobGW0 -
Local SEO for B&B - Attracting International Customer
Hi Guys, Hope the MOZ expert community will be able to help me 🙂 What would be the best way to manage the SEO for a Bed and Breakfast ? As the B&B is in a touristic place in France attracting lots of German, American and British tourists, the website will be in French, translated in English and German. It will be set up under a .fr extension and using wordpress multisite for each languages, so it will look like this: French: www.mydomain.fr English: en.mydomain.fr German: de.mydomain.fr They'll roughly have the same content for the business part, but they'll have different articles on their respective blogs. Now my questions are: If I sign up to Google my business (http://www.google.com/business/) Would I be able to translate all my business descriptions, separate the reviews per language, use google+ for different language? If not, then should I sign up for the French version of "google my business" and then open 2 separate G+ pages for the English and German version ? Can I open 3 different "google my business" account for each language but with the same google account, same telephone number and same business address ? Should I actually "translate" my business name and create 3 separate website so I can open a "Google my business" for each, but then they'll still have the same address and phone number ? Basically, I want to find the best solution for people around the world to see the content in their own language (reviews, blog post...) and also show up on map listings for google.com /.co.uk / .fr / .de etc... Other social media: Facebook: should I have one page and target the English language for each post in English, etc... Or should I have 3 facebook page in each language ? Should I have 3 pinterest accounts, or should I create 3 boards for each language so I can describe each pictures in proper language Miscellaneous Don't hesitate to give me any other important tips that I should think about before launching ! After being an employee for many years, I want to rock my own business 🙂 Cheers
Local SEO | | LELOnic0 -
2 Word EMD's - Good of bad for SEO
Hello Again Moz Folks, I have a domain: www.edmontonweb.ca
Local SEO | | Web3Marketing87
It is currently on page 2 and I'm trying to figure out ways to improve its ranking. Because it is an EMD, I considered forwarding it to www.launchwebdesign.ca Considering there is existing Domain Authority on edmontonweb.ca, is this a good move?
Would forwarding the domain transfer DA to launchwebdesign.ca? Thanks, Anton0