Existing good authority LP with multiple keywords, how to optimize for these keywords?

[Falcopa]

Hi Mozzers,

Currently I am optimizing ONpage after I made a report for which keywords the website already ranks in the serps. I was surprised about the numbers of keywords the website ranks in Google. The website ranks for multiple keywords in 1 landing page. They get a lot of traffic, but has a position #5 or #7/#8, onpage grade is for most of the keywords a C or D and lots of them a F, so it's worth to optimize it. How should I do that when the landing page is domain.com/category and the 5 different keywords are partofcategoryname. Should I put all these keywords in the title and landing page body content as the onpage tool recommend me that?

I was thinking about the option I described above OR to create a new landing page for the specific keyword each. However, the already ranked landing page has a PA of 38. When starting to build new landing pages is starting to build from PA 0.

Anyway, it's definitely I chance to do onpage, I just don't know what I should do since there are 5 different keywords that already ranks for the landing page with good traffic. I want to let it rise in the serps to increase the traffic of course.

Looking forward to recommendations!

thanks in advance

[RyanKent]

Hi Falcopa,

The concept of "optimization" is fluid. You cannot optimize for 5 terms. Any work you do to optimize for terms #2/3/4/5 detract from the optimization of term #1. I'll share one example as it applies to the title. The most perfectly optimized title for ranking a page discussing diet cheese would be..."Diet Cheese". You can add additional terms to the title to help optimize your CTR such as "Diet Cheese Facts" or "Losing Weight with Diet Cheese".

If you change your title from "Diet Cheese" to "Diet Cheese and Swiss Cheese" then you have lose 50% of the ranking weight from Diet Cheese and shared it with Swiss Cheese". Additionally, the terms at the beginning of the title have more weight so it might be more like a 60/ 40 split. You cannot optimize for Swiss Cheese without weakening Diet Cheese. Does this make sense?

With respect to the onpage report, for a given keyword, any page can be graded. The report should only be run on the one or two keywords which is the focus of the page. As described above, you cannot be an "A" on 5 terms.

The clear direction for you is to create new pages.

Best of luck.

[AlanMosley]

I am making some assumptions here.

Domain.com/category  - Is a category page that has links to category items
Domain.com/category/item1
Domain.com/category/item2
Domain.com/category/item3

The keywords are the names of the category items?

Now what you want is users to get to the item pages, its hard to onPage op the category page for all items. But because of its linking structure it will rank well for them or should I say it is ranking well for them

I would not link away from this page to landing pages, I would link to it with keyword link text. If you are funnelling people to the item page to make sale, don’t send the user or link juice back to the landing pages.

I am not saying you should optimize it for ABCD or F. at the cost of any of the other keywords.
you can not optimize for one category item over the others, you must optimize if for the category its self

[Falcopa]

Thanks for all replies. According to SEOMOZ onpage optimization help I should optimize the page onpage for the keywords that has a C, D or F. Reading the replies you guys advice me to not optimize it for these keywords in order to create a A or B in grade?

For e.g. the landing page is domain.com/cheese the page is ranked for keywords like cheddar cheese, normal cheese, old cheese, diet cheese. The content on the landing page is about how and where to buy "diet cheese" in general and in some way this landing page does rank for:

cheddar cheese on #5

normal cheese on #3

old cheese on #7

diet cheese on #2

SEOMOZ Onpage optimization tells me "diet cheese" has a grade of A, "normal cheese" a grade of D, "old cheese" a grade of D, "cheddar cheese" a grade of F.

It's clear why "diet cheese" has a grade of A, simply because that's where the content is about. But the other keywords are ranking pretty well in the serps and getting pretty good traffic though. How should I optimize this then, should I optimize it according SEOMOZ Onpage suggestion? As it mention that when having keywords that already ranking well and has good traffic, BUT a onpage optimization grade of C, D or F, it could win a lot of efforts when rising in the serps after working on the onpage optimization to a grade of A or B.

I hope I have clarified it better now about my question

Thanks again, Mozzers!

[RyanKent]

Generally speaking, your plan of creating a landing page for each specific keyword is ideal. Every page of your site should target 1-2 keywords. When you have a page targeting 5 keywords it is a SEO opportunity which should be addressed.

If your page is domain.com/cheese and you discuss cheddar cheese, swiss cheese and 3 other cheeses then the category page should be a general "cheese" focused page which links to your five specific cheese pages. I wouldn't let the existing category page's PA hold you back from improving your site. The new content may be helpful and earn more links on it's own. The key is for the content to be of a high quality nature. Use anchor text on the existing category page to direct traffic to the new pages.Assuming the quality of your content is solid, this process will allow you to improve your rankings and earn more traffic.

This is the format Wikipedia uses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese

The best general tip I can offer is before creating any web page do keyword research. Know exactly what term you are targeting with the page, then write for it. If other keywords become involved then it's time to consider adding another page.

[AlanMosley]

From what you tell, me i assume that the category pages links out to the category items, and they all link back again. meaning it has a lot of child pages that link back. Knowing a bit about how link juice flows, I would suggest that the page ranks because of the linking structure, not the optimization so much. no i would not stuff keywords into tile that could well stuff things up.

instead, optimize as much as you can without going un-natrual. optimize child pages so that they pass back relevance. link to the page with keyword text (not stuffed)
take a look at this page, it explained how page rank flows.
http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html 
think of this information like a golf lession, try to over do what you have learnt and you will go all stiff and un-natrual, swing natrualy with the information in the back of your head.