Perfect Site Structure help please and EMD question
-
Hello to all,
I appreciate your time and trouble greatly, so thank you in advance.
Question - 1 -
I just watched a video regarding onsite <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">seo</acronym>. This video explained to instead of using a services page to list each service, instead if possible make a page and menu item for the most popular search terms.
So my families business site is allspecialtybuildings.com
We do construction. I currently have it setup to have a services page then the listings of the services with its own page under the menu.
But from watching this video, would you also suggest that it would be best to take maybe the top 3 or 4 services, then list the services as actual page menus?
So say instead of this:
Service Menu Link -
-Pole Barns
-Indoor Riding Arenas
-Garages
-Horse Barns
-Loafing ShedsWould it be best to have each service as a menu in itself like this:
Home
Pole Barns
-Pole Barn Construction
-Pole Barn Kits
-Pole Barn Color ChartsIndoor Riding Arenas
-Indoor Riding Arena Construction
-Indoor Riding Arena Kits
-Indoor Riding Arena Color ChartsSame- Different word
Same- Different WordSo basically create specific and relevant pages and remove the popular pages from a service page.
Not sure if this make sense, or is basically not needed?
Last Question - Branding-
I got 2 <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">seo</acronym> companies reviews back, and was told to change my branding and domain. See the issue is that the company name is All Specialty Buildings.
So All is basically thrown out of some search results, almost like its a stop word.
So "Specialty Buildings" shows up on many results. I would like to counter this.
So I am curious if I get a new domain, like say something like ColoradoBarnConstruction.com
Would this be a better domain for <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">seo</acronym> rankings and memory for people?
Or would I risk an EMD penalty?
When I look for dentists, or <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">seo</acronym> help, I get coloradodentist, or coloradoseo(dot)com's
So they all rank well, I just want something brandable and easy to remember. I figured the company name would be best, But these companies that want 3500 a month for <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">seo</acronym> services are saying different.
Again thank you for your time, your ideas, and your advice.
Thank you
Chris
-
There is no right or wrong here. It is how you feel comfortable laying out a site. A menu with every page on a site can be a disaster for a user experience, but if it's not that many then it's fine. You could do a single services page and then just add links in the context (assuming a paragraph or something for each term.) or you could do a secondary menu for instance on the right side of the page that links to the particular pages. Whatever makes sense to you and users, I won't speculate without knowing the full sitemap.
-
Oh and on an odd note, since I service ALL of Colorado, is there a proper way to add Colorado to the url?
Like if putting everything I do under Services, would it be best to name that Site/Colorado/whatever
So use Colorado as the category for the services?
Or would you maybe not add the state you service?
-
Thank you Richard for your time to answer
I was just so unsure if I did Do a menu item, an then listed each page under it is best,
Like
Pole Barns ( main Menu item Click able to the main Pole Barn Page)
-Sub Menu Items-
-
Pole Barn Construction
-
Pole Buildings
-
Pole Barn Kits
or
If its best to have say a services page, then when you go to the services pages you click on a service, then from that page you go to other pages related to that service?
For you this may be kindergarten stuff, but just trying to do things proper for Google and My visitors.
Thank you again
Best Wishes
-
-
For the first question, if you have the time to make all the pages and are willing to do so I think it's a great idea. In most cases getting content right away is the hard and time consuming part so a lot of people will instead use blog posts to target the long tail keywords. I can easily see several posts about construction, maybe an unboxing of a kit, and a color chart sounds like a great infographic piece.
For part 2, google lowered the value of keyword rich domains long ago. Search in any major market for anything and I'm sure you'll see many many sites ranking above those that are keyword rich. I'm not saying being keyword rich doesn't help, but for instance search seo and notice some of the top results will be wikipedia, moz.com (which admittedly used to be seomoz) and searchengineland. These aren't keyword rich and they still rank well, if you like the name then that's what you should go with. Tell the seo company that if they want a keyword rich domain then they should make it into a second microsite and can build links to both, but make it clear to them that the main focus should be on the main website.
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
-
HomePage Stopped Ranking For Brand on Aged Site
I've got an odd issue (that I've never encountered in 27 years in SEO). Our home page stopped ranking for our brand "BlowFish SEO" and is no place to be seen when searching our brand. I do get the knowledge panel on the right-hand side of the page. and our about page now comes up number #1. Technically the on-page SEO is correct This page has ranked for many years for our Brand. If I search blowfish SEO west palm beach I get the home page and all the nice site links. And other various variations of branded search. Our company has lots of mentions across the web and branded backlinks. No manual penalty has been placed on us. Im starting to think some type of negative SEO attack but I can't find it. I do know someone is using my name and brand along with many other companies in cloaked doorway redirected pages to gain SEO leads.. Yeah I know I've complained about it to Google they do nothing about it.. Other things I've checked: No one else seems to be using my brand Home page canonical tag points to itself Title tag contains brand name at the front (rest of site it's at the end) No manual penalty XML sitemap contains home page (and accurate for other pages) To make this even more confusing, if you search the brand name the physical location appears on the right rail with an accurate URL. Ive added an image of the search result when I search BlowFish SEO Please note the top result is PPC the about page is 1st organc Any other ideas that I may be missing? BT8F1fD.png
Local Website Optimization | | BlowFish-SEO0 -
Which URL and rel=canonical structure to use for location based product inventory pages?
I am working on an automotive retailer site that displays local car inventory in nearby dealerships based on location. Within the site, a zip code is required to search, and the car inventory is displayed in a typical product list that can be filtered and sorted by the searcher to fit the searchers needs. We would like to structure these product inventory list pages that are based on location to give the best chance at ranking, if not now, further down the road when we have built up more authority to compete with the big dogs in SERP like AutoTrader.com, TrueCar.com, etc. These higher authority sites are able to rank their location based car inventory pages on the first page consistently across all makes and models. For example, searching the term "new nissan rogue" in the Los Angeles, CA area returns a few location based inventory pages on page 1. The sites in the industry that are able to rank their inventory pages will display a relatively clean looking URL with no redirect that still displays the local inventory like this in the SERP:
Local Website Optimization | | tdastru
https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/New+Cars/Nissan/Rogue
but almost always use a rel=canonical tag within the page to a page with a location parameter attached to the end of the URL like this one:
https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/New+Cars/Nissan/Rogue/Los+Angeles+CA-90001"/>
I'm having a hard time figuring out why sites like this example have their URLs and pages structured this way. What would be the best practice for structuring the URL and rel=canonical tags to be able to rank for and display location based inventory pages for cars near the searcher?0 -
Company sells home appliances and commercial appliances. What is the best way to differentiate the two on our site for the best user experience/SEO?
Should we structure it starting at the homepage with the user selecting for home or for business, that way they have to make a selection before moving further OR should we somehow differentiate in the navigation using the top menu tabs, dropdowns, etc?
Local Website Optimization | | dkeipper1 -
Site Getting hacked
Hi There, My one Website gets hacked Again and Again, I had Reset Many times ,But again, Also generating unnecessary URLs to My website in Webmaster tools, Can anyone Help Me To Solve This Problem please? please help, thx in advance,
Local Website Optimization | | nupuriepl0 -
I have 5 sites each targeting a different service my company offers, should I consolidate to one site or merge to one?
I run a photo booth company and have a site for each service I offer. Are smaller sites that are SEO for each service stronger than just having pages for each service on one mother site?thanks,
Local Website Optimization | | hashtagltd0 -
Benefits of adding keywords to site structure?
Hello fellow Mozzers, This is kind of a hypothetical, but it might have implications for future projects. Do you think there would be any benefits (or drawbacks) to placing pages of a site into a directory named after a keyword? For example, if I had a local store that sold hockey equipment, and "hockey", "equipment", and "hockey equipment" were the main targets being optimized for, would it be better (assuming the actual pages were the same) to structure the site as hypotheticalwebsite.com/about-us/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-skates/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-sticks/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/blog/ or hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/about-us/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-skates/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-sticks/ hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/blog/ Additionally, would any of this change if the root domain or the individual pages ALSO used those keywords (or if both of them used it)? pseudonyms-hockey-gear.com/hockey-equipment/skates/ pseudonyms-penalty-box.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-skates/ pseudonyms-hockey-gear.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-skates/ I've got a hunch that some of these are overkill, but I'm not sure where the scale tips from helpful to negligible to actively counterproductive. Thanks, everyone!
Local Website Optimization | | BrianAlpert780 -
2 Relevant local websites but closing one and redirecting it to an older site
We have 2 websites, 1 domain is about 10 years old and another is about 4 years old, the 4 yr old domain we are thinking of shutting down since its the same type of service we run but it was a 'keyword domain' that used to rank on 1st page but now its 4th page back. If we put the blog posts and other content + setup re-directs from the 4yr old domain to the 10 yr old domain, would this help the 10 yr old domain with more link juice that it might need for the extra boost? There isnt really any point having both websites up since both are about the same content and targeting the same local market.
Local Website Optimization | | surfsup0 -
Short EMD or Longer Partial MD: Which is better for SEO
Hey Guys, I appreciate all of the amazing responses you have been posting over the last two days.
Local Website Optimization | | Web3Marketing87
I have been a little tied up with Joomla 1.5 transfers, but I will make some comments soon! In the meantime, here is an interesting one: I have an existing domain with a little bit of DA - www.edmontonweb.ca as well as a parked domain with no DA - launchwebdesign.ca I have been advised to redirect (301) to the launch domain, but I still wonder if the current domain is better - after all it is very short & was registered over 5 years ago. Since launching the new site it has been about a month. We are currently #1 for almost every term on Bing & Yahoo (web design, edmonton web design etc.) but 14th on Google for "edmonton web design." Do you think switching the domain is a good call, or keep trying with edmontonweb.ca for a bit longer? Thanks guys, Anton0