How can I change my website's content on specific pages without affecting ranking for specific keywords?
-
My client's website (www.nursevillage.com) content has not been touched for 4 years and we are currently ranking #1 for "per diem nursing". They do not want to make any changes to the site in fear that it might decrease our rankings. We want to try to use utilize that keyword ranking on specific pages (www.nursevillage.com/nv/content/careeroptions/perdiem.jsp ) ranking for "per diem nursing" and try redirecting traffic or placing some banners and links on that page to specific pages or other sites related to "per diem nursing" jobs so we can get nurses to apply to our new nursing jobs.
Any advice on why "per diem nursing" is ranking so high for us and what we can change on the site without messing up our ranking would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
-
Hi Karen.
I can appreciate your desire to keep your #1 ranking, and not make any changes to the page. Your fears are valid as any "improvements" you make to the page can impact your ranking. It's a tough spot. Google wants to provide users with the best experience, but by making changes to improve that experience you risk the #1 spot.
I took a look at your page and your SERP and have a concern. Your title in the results page shows as "Per Diem - Nursing news, career resources, RN jobs and nursing..."When I visit the actual page, the title is "Nursingvillage.com - Career Option". If that was a recent change, I would suggest it is a bad one and should be corrected. It would be a reasonable cause to lose your #1 ranking.
A reasonable title for the page would be "Per Diem Nursing | Nursingvillage.com". The rest of your title would be best left for your meta description.
As far as why you are ranking #1, the term "per diem nursing" only receives 3600 global searches per month according to AdSense. It's not that competitive. Compare that with the following keywords which receive more global monthly searches:
nursing jobs - 1,000,000
nurse employment - 673,000
nursing job employment - 550,000
nursing positions - 301,000
jobs for nurses - 246,000
"Per diem nursing" is a long tail keyword phrase which is why you are ranking so well.
-
Your rankings are mainly supported by title tag, keywords in on-page text and inbound links. If you do not change these you should be able to make page modifications with little risk of rankings loss. If you work to improve your site in a way that attracts relevant links that should strengthen your position.
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
-
Irrelevant blog contents negatively affect ranking for main keywords?
Hi Moz Community, I am working at a branding company. Currently, we found our ranking for main keywords (branding company) is dropping a little. I am suspicious of the new blog posts that we published lately. We wrote different kind of stuff, such as company culture, how to inspire employees, the importance of leadership and some other stuff that is actually not as related to our main keyword - branding company. My question is, will these irrelevant posts hurt our ranking for main keyword, to some extent? Thank you. Best, Raymond
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | raymondlii0 -
Can a move to a new domain (with 301's) shake off a google algorithm penalty
we have done everything under the sun using the holy grail of google guidelines to get our site back onto page 1 for our domain. we have recovered (penguin and panda) algorithm filters for keywords that were page 1 going to page 7 and now page 2. its been 2 years and we cant hit page 1 again. this is our final phase we cna think of.. do you thin kit will work if we move to a new domain. and how much traffic/rankings can we expect to lose in the short-term?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Direct_Ram0 -
Client rebranded with a new website but can't migrate now defunct franchise website to new website.
Hi everyone, My client is a chain of franchised restaurants with a local domain website named after the franchise. The franchise exited the market while the client stayed and built its own brand with a separate website. The franchise website (which is extremely popular) will be shut down soon but the client will not be able to redirect the franchise website to the new website for legal reasons. What can I do to ensure that we start ranking immediately for the franchise keyphrase as soon as the franchise website is shutdown. We currently have the new website and access to the old website (which we can't redirect) Thanks, T
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tarek_Lel0 -
Keyword research when the site's subject is low volume
Hey guys, what do you do when you planning a new website and doing keyword research for a site when the avg. search volumes are relatively low. We set up run contact centres for UK charities including voice, webchat, sms, email and response fulfillment etc. It seems that people aren't really searching that often for this 'sexy subject'. Average volumes for searches with some intent/qualifier range from between 10-100 monthly searches. What sort of strategies would you adopt in this scenario? Do you optimise for what you can and then make a large focus on other digital marketing tactics such as content marketing, social media, email marketing etc. Thanks for your time guys Leo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Leo_Woodhead0 -
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??
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DrMcCoy0 -
Ranking slipped to page 6 from page 1 over the weekend?
My site has been on page one for 2 phrases consistently from May onwards this year. The site has fewer than 100 backlinks and the link profile looks fairly even. On Friday we were on page 1, we even had a position 1, however now we are on page 6. Do you think this is Penguin or some strange Google blip? We have no webmaster tools messages at all. Thanks for any help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinechester0 -
Web pages fighting over rank for one keyword. Can it be stopped?
Hey, See attachment. Website is Omega Red. The page I want to rank for seems like it is being held back by other closely related pages with similar titles. I am looking to rank for electrical earthing with this page. On the graph it shows how the other pages have interacted over a period of time on the website and how if they drop out of the top 50 this page then moves up in Google. I don't really want to canonicalise the other pages into one but maybe this is what needs to happen? Any suggestions? bWymgVt.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hughescov0 -
Ranking locally without local keywords in title?
I have a website that targets national keywords. I would like to be able to rank locally for these keywords as well without having the city in the title. What is the best strategy for this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cprodigy290