Changing the relevance of the homepage
-
One of my new clients is hell bent on changing the content of their homepage. They are one of the world's largest resort companies. The site is graphics-heavy (with embedded text), and barely contains any content. I haven't started any of the on-page optimization yet, but when I do, it will be a major overhaul. Despite the poor on-page of the site, they are getting great rankings and a ton of traffic due to number and quality of their backlinks and domain authority.
My concern is this: they want to change the homepage and make it into a "vacation sweepstakes" type of page. Their logic seems to be that they will generate a lot of interest on the site and get people excited about winning an expensive dream vacation, which is all fine and dandy, however, my feeling is that this will change the relevance of the page. So, instead of pitching their ownership-based program, now, they will be promoting vacation contests.
So here's the stupid question: would this have the potential to negatively affect their search engine results or the Domain Authority?
I'm thinking of suggesting to them a less drastic approach. Perhaps something like the lightbox sweepstakes overlay on marshallsonline.com. At least, this way, we can keep the current homepage and improve on it, rather than going into another niche. Any feedback or suggestions on this is greatly appreciated!
-
Hi Letty,
That is also a great idea. I've already sent the client my recommendations. If they insist on doing it their way, then I will definitely suggest they split test the two pages, and go with the winner. Thanks!
-
hi Ollan,
I do recognise the persistent from inside the company if somebody pitched an idea, which they think is the best idea every. It can be very hard to convince people not to do it, because they only see gain and a flashing website and don't have enough inside in the long term impact. Maybe a suggestion for trying to convince the company it do an A/B test first with adwords. Use the same keywords as you do on the homepage now, and lead them to the homepage (or a special landingspage similar to the homepage, maybe even already optimized). And target the new keywords a lead them to a special landingspage with the proposed new idea of sweetstakes.
Otherwise a keyword research with the different targeted keywords gives them better insight in the difference in numbers of traffic.
-
Hi Brad,
I agree with you that it would be a poor decision to change the focus of the page. I would rather improve on an existing page that has good ranking despite poor on-page, than start over with entirely new and untested content. I wouldn't want to turn off regular visitors by providing them with an entirely different user experience. I also don't want to be blamed for the drop in traffic if they go ahead and do this!
Thanks to both of you for your feedback!
-
Hi Takeshi,
44% of the visitors to the site hit the homepage, (roughly 600,000 UV/month to that page). The marketing and creative departments seem to think the sweepstakes should be on the homepage. My opinion is that it could easily be a prominent banner on the homepage going to a landing page, or a lightbox.
-
I think your concerns here are very valid. If they have such a strong backlink profile and then you change the focus it is opening up several cans of worms. For one the bounce rate could go through the roof. The new meta descriptions could lower the over CTR which could hurt ranks. I don't see this affecting DA but this seems like a very poor decision. How about a landing page on the site and a promotion link to the sweepstakes from the homepage? Seems like an extreme change in direction from a casual observer.
-
It shouldn't affect domain authority, but could impact relevance to the keywords you're currently ranking for.
Here's a question: Do these sweepstakes have to go on the homepage? What percentage of site visitors visit the homepage? Maybe it makes more sense to have a separate landing page for the sweepstakes, with prominent graphical links from the homepage and navigation. Or use a lightbox like you said.
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
-
Too many SEO changes needed on a page. Create a new page?
I've been doing some research on a keyword with Page Optimization. I'm finding there's a lot of changes suggested. I'm wondering that because of the amount of changes required is it better to create a new page entirely from scratch that has all the suggestions implemented OR change the current page? Thanks, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris29181 -
Does Google Delay or Graduate SERP Changes?
You can request re-indexing of a single page via Google Search Console. It would seem to me you could use this feature to experiment with on-page changes to see the rank change to determine which changes have the most effect. For the sake of this thread, lets temporarily forget that the relative importance on various on-page factors has already been reverse engineered to a degree so we already have a general idea to som extent. It would seem to me if I were Google, I would introduce either a random delay period, or, temper rank change after reindexing. What I mean by that latter point is say a reindex takes a page from position 20 to 10. If it is 'tempered' so to speak on Day 2 after reindexing it might be at 18, day 5 it's at 16, day 7 it's at 16 until it reaches the actual "real" rank. Both the delay and or the tempering of rank change would make it difficult more difficult to reverse engineer relative importance of on-page factors. OR, does Google realize there are large SEO firms doing SEO over several years for many sites that can examine aggregate data to determine these factors so Google doesn't delay (aka sandbox) or temper rank changes due to manual re-indexing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Semush0 -
Homepage is deindexed in Google
Please help for some reason my website home page has disappeared, we have been working on the site but nothing that I can think of which would block it. There are no warnings in google console? Can anyone lend a hand in understanding what has gone wrong, I would really appreciate it. The site is: http://www.discountstickerprinting.co.uk/ Seems to be working again but I had to fetch the home page in google console, any idea why this has happened cannot afford a heat op at this age lol?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Can I change a URL on a site that has only a few back links?
I have a site that wants to change their URL, It's a very basic site with hardly any backlinks. http://www.cproofingandexteriors.com/ The only change they want to make is taking out the 'and'.. so it would be cproofingexteriors.com they already own the domain. What should I do?? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MissThumann0 -
Why is this SERP displaying an incorrect URL for my homepage?
The full URL of a particular site's homepage is something like http://www.example.com/directory/.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheEspresseo
The canonical and og URLs match.
The root domain 301 redirects to it using the absolute path. And yet the SERP (and the cached version of the page) lists it simply as http://www.example.com/. What gives? Could the problem be found at some deeper technical level (.htaccess or DirectoryIndex or something?) We fiddled with things a bit this week, and while our most recent changes appear to have been crawled (and cached), I am wondering whether I should give it some more time before I proceed as if the SERP won't ever reflect the correct URL. If so, how long? [EDIT: From the comments, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8QKIweOzH4#t=2838]0 -
Thoughts on my change of address delima?
Currently our corporate website and store website are under two domains. internationalcompany.com (DA: 51; Corporate Website) companystore.com (DA: 34; US Store Website) We were hoping to piggyback on the corporate website domain authority by moving our store to internationalcompany.com/store and when we learned that couldn't happen we opted for us.internationalcompany.com/store. The reason we are leaning towards the route of us.internationalcompany.com is because it is likely that we will be taking over the US branch of the corporate website so we thought it better that the store be a sub address of that. My main concerns... From what I have gathered it seems that I can't do a change of address to a subdomain within Webmaster Tools - I'd have to have access to internationalcompany.com which won't happen soon. So, is a 301 just as good in this case? As a subdomain, we won't actually reap the benefits of the domain authority of the parent domain will we? Are we just as well off considering a new domain and asking that regional tags be established on the current internationalcompany.com so that the content does not interfere with our SEO efforts? This is a broad explanation for a complicated issue. Please ask any question that may help clarify.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bearpaw0 -
Changing title tags in well established site - should I do this gradually to avoid risk of penalty?
Hi, I'm altering title tags in a well established site (many of which are duplicates) and was wondering whether there's a risk associated with adjusting them all in one go? Should I just make gradual changes instead in case I flag anything?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Sudden Change In Indexed Pages
Every week I check the number of pages indexed by google using the "site:" function. I have set up a permanent redirect from all the non-www pages to www pages. When I used to run the function for the: non-www pages (i.e site:mysite.com), would have 12K results www pages (i.e site:www.mysite.com) would have about 36K The past few days, this has reversed! I get 12K for www pages, and 36K for non-www pages. Things I have changed: I have added canonical URL links in the header, all have www in the URL. My questions: Is this cause for concern? Can anyone explain this to me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0