Suggestions on plans to optimize my site? (NOOB)
-
I am currently trying to plan how to optimize my site based on keywords. I read and I understand site architecture and usability http://www.seomoz.org/blog/site-architecture-for-seo , but I am still somewhat confused about how to target each keyword per page or when
http://www.seomoz.org/img/upload/splitting-keyword-targeted-.gif
Let me give you an example. We build databases for SME's using 3 different technologies. One of them is MS Access.
Based on PPC campaigns and keyword research some of the possible keywords might be
ms access programmer
ms access consultants
access database experts
According to the link provided, should these be separate pages? I feel if they were, our site nativigation would be cluttered and clients would not be benefiting from them at all. It might even lead to some redundant data which I believe is bad right? My feeling is to make one page and target one keyword, but I'm not sure.
For example, see one of our top ranking competitors
http://www.justgetproductive.com/content/access-programmer/index.php
Please, look at the footer? Is that actually how I should structure my links? I hope the answer is NO! Then again, if I do just have one page targeting one keyword, what do I do about the others? Do I just try to use blog posts/articles addressing those keywords? Do I not target them at all?
Thanks for any advice, please keep in mind I am just getting started. My approach is to create a plan to outline everything before I put a lot of time into it.
-
Hi JP,
Thanks for the response. I understand the concept of 'silo-ing' which does make the navigation better, but I feel that doesn't take away the spammy effect. Perhaps I don't fully understand it, but I believe in my case it would be like this
Database solutions->Access->ms access programmer->ms access programmer in San Francisco
Database solutions->Access->ms access programmer->ms access programmer in Los Angeles
Database solutions->Access->ms access consultant
then pages on the same level would then link to one another correct ie consultant and programmer or San Fran and Los Angeles?
I understand about the cannobilization of keywords ie target one or two keywords per page per site so they don't compete with one another. That makes sense.
The thing I don't understand about these methods is that: wouldn't they all have the same sort of content (almost duplicate)? What use is it to the user to navigate all these pages? Or the point is for them to land in them (landing page) and hopefully get a conversion? Is the method solely as workaround to target different keywords while minimizing the spammy effect? Can you provide an example of how you use 'silo-ing'? Is your content extremely similar? or do you tailor each page for the keyword?
-
This explains site architecture and the 'what is a silo' all perfectly -> http://www.seomoz.org/blog/site-architecture-for-seo
edit : as for the data at the bottom of the page I believe they did that due to their top level menu being ajax - even though google can crawl and understand ajax it might have been from years ago when it was a bit hit and miss and they wanted to be sure.
-
Eduardo,
I am in the same boat right now and am willing to pay to get the question answered but cant find any takers. If I find out the answer I will email you and please let me know if you find out anything. I think we have the exact same problem and I also will probably have cannobilization issues too.
JP>>> I will have to find out more about "silo-ing". And I was also told that data at the bottom of a page can be considered a "page envelope" and was okay as long as there was valuable content above it in much greater amount.
-
I would say your idea to target the keywords in blogs that are subsequently developed is a reasonable approach. The example of the footer links seems a bit spammy, yet at the same time it does seem to provide useful navigation and may represent the overall architecture of the site. Are you going to target a local approach as well? (i.e. ms access consultants in California, etc.). Maybe someone on here can explain cannobilization of keywords better than I can, but we've had good results "silo-ing" each page and are ranking high on those keywords. I think you could do the same. Good luck!
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
-
Site has 302 redirects for HTTP to HTTPS when it should be 301
Hey all, In the latest Moz crawl, certain pages on our website have shown as having 302 redirects for the http to https, but not all. There should be a 301 solution, but wanted to see if anyone had any advice or guidance. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Julzseo1 -
Hreflang - Is it needed even if the site is only one language
This topic came up in a discussion I had with a fellow SEO colleague, I don't believe it makes sense to have Hreflang if you don't have a second language but according to my friend they mentioned that it is great if your only targeting one country. Any opinions out in the Moz community? It seems like overkill to me
On-Page Optimization | | JonAlonsoCNC0 -
Client Worried About SEO Decline After Site Redesign
Hi, We're in the process of redesigning www.directvillasflorida.com/ for a client. The client has recently expressed concern that their rankings may drop off after the change. Here are some facts about the site: As you can see, the current homepage is _very _keyword heavy. They have a DA of 26 and are ranking #1 for 'florida villas', higher than their more authoritative competitors. They are also ranking #1 in the mobile search results, despite not being mobile-friendly. Their link profile is pretty average and the anchor texts are pretty keyword-rich 'florida villas' appears 30 times with a 4.41% keyword density 'florida' appears 66 times with a 3.31% density The client has admitted keyword stuffing years ago and hasn't changed anything because it worked and still is working. In the site redesign, we've cut out a lot of the spammy, keyword-rich content and he's worried he'll suffer because of this. Any ideas what to do here? It seems clear that the site is breaching Google's guidelines, but, for whatever reason, isn't being picked up by Google. Cheers, Lewis N.B. The client is just paying us for a redesign, not SEO.
On-Page Optimization | | PeaSoupDigital0 -
SEO for New Magento Site??!?
Hi All, We have had a new site delivered by our developers (hurrah...the old one was to terrible for words) but we seem to be having a lot of issues with the new Magento platform. What they have done is used the community version and tried to customize it. I came on to this project about a month into the build and although Magento does seem to do a lot things well there do seem to be some problems. From an SEO prespective we have seen some increase on some search terms and a drop of in others. I would be interested in hearing from other Magento users about their experiences with this platform and any ideas on how to crank up the activity. Our site is at www.nationwidepharmacies.co.uk . There are few odd bits including the side navigation which seems to be very clunky and not overly customizable in this version. Any useful criticism would also be well received. Look forward to hearing Nic
On-Page Optimization | | nicc19760 -
Large Site - Advice on Subdomaining
I have a large news site - over 1 million pages (have already deleted 1.5 million) Google buries many of our pages, I'm ready to try subdomaining http://bit.ly/dczF5y There are two types of content - news from our contributors, and press releases. We have had contracts with the big press release companies going back to 2004/5. They push releases to us by FTP or we pull from their server. These are then processed and published. It has taken me almost 18 months, but I have found and deleted or fixed all the duplicates I can find. There are now two duplicate checking systems in place. One runs at the time the release comes in and handles most of them. The other one runs every night after midnight and finds a few, which are then handled manually. This helps fine-tune the real-time checker. Businesses often link to their release on the site because they like us. Sometimes google likes this, sometimes not. The news we process is reviews by 1,2 or 3 editors before publishing. Some of the stories are 100% unique to us. Some are from contributors who also contribute to other news sites. Our search traffic is down by 80%. This has almost destroyed us, but I don't give up easily. As I said, I've done a lot of projects to try to fix this. Not one of them has done any good, so there is something google doesn't like and I haven't yet worked it out. A lot of people have looked and given me their ideas, and I've tried them - zero effect. Here is an interesting and possibly important piece of information: Most of our pages are "buried" by google. If I dear, even for a headline, even if it is unique to us, quite often the page containing that will not appear in the SERP. The front page may show up, an index page may show up, another strong page pay show up, if that headline is in the top 10 stories for the day, but the page itself may not show up at all - UNTIL I go to the end of the results and redo the search with the "duplicates" included. Then it will usually show up, on the front page, often in position #2 or #3 According to google, there are no manual actions against us. There are also no notices in WMT that say there is a problem that we haven't fixed. You may tell me just delete all of the PRs - but those are there for business readers, as they always have been. Google supposedly wants us to build websites for readers, which we have always done, What they really mean is - build it the way we want you to do it, because we know best. What really peeves me is that there are other sites, that they consistently rank above us, that have all the same content as us, and seem to be 100% aggregators, with ads, with nothing really redeeming them as being different, so this is (I think) inconsistent, confusing and it doesn't help me work out what to do next. Another thing we have is about 7,000+ US military stories, all the way back to 2005. We were one of the few news sites supporting the troops when it wasn't fashionable to do so. They were emailing the stories to us directly, most with photos. We published every one of them, and we still do. I'm not going to throw them under the bus, no matter what happens. There were some duplicates, some due to screwups because we had multiple editors who didn't see that a story was already published. Also at one time, a system code race condition - entirely my fault, I am the programmer as well as the editor-in-chief. I believe I have fixed them all with redirects. I haven't sent in a reconsideration for 14 months, since they said "No manual spam actions found" - I don't see any point, unless you know something I don't. So, having exhausted all of the things I can think of, I'm down to my last two ideas. 1. Split all of the PRs off into subdomains (I'm ready to pull the trigger later this week) 2. Do what the other sites do, that I believe create little value, which is show only a headline and snippet and some related info and link back to the original page on the PR provider website. (I really don't want to do this) 3. Give up on the PRs and delete them all and lose another 50% of the income, which means releasing our remaining staff and upsetting all of the companies and people who linked to us. (Or find them all and rewrite them as stories - tens of thousands of them) and also throw all our alliances under the bus (I really don't want to do this) There is no guarantee this is the problem, but google won't tell me, the google forums are crap, and nobody else has given me an idea that has helped. My thought is that splitting them off into subdomains will have a number of effects. 1. Take most of the syndicated content onto subdomains, so its not on the main domain. 2. Shake up the Domain Authority 3. Create a million 301 redirects. 4. Make it obvious to the crawlers what is our news and what is PRs 5. make it easier for Google News to understand Here is what I plan to do 1. redirect all PRs to their own subdomain. pn.domain.com for PRNewswire releases bw.domain.com for Businesswire releases etc 2. Fix all references so they use the new subdomain Here are my questions - and I hope you may see something I haven't considered. 1. Do you have any experience of doing this? 2. What was the result 3. Any tips? 4. Should I put PR index pages on the subdomains too? I was originally planning to keep them on the main domain, with the individual page links pointing to the actual release on the subdomain. Obviously, I want them only in one place, but there are two types of these index pages. a) all of the releases for a particular PR company - these certainly could be on the subdomain and not on the main domain b) Various category index pages - agriculture, supermarkets, mining etc These would have to stay on the main domain because they are a mixture of different PR providers. 5. Is this a bad idea? I'm almost out of ideas. Should I add a condensed list of everything I've done already? If you are still reading, thanks for hanging in.
On-Page Optimization | | loopyal0 -
Checking for content originality in a site
two part question on original content How would you go about checking if a site holds original content accept the long search quary within Google? ans also if I find many sites carrying my content and I am the original source should I replace the content? thanks
On-Page Optimization | | ciznerguy0 -
Optimizing for Date Sensitive Products/Services
We have a product that we currently rank number one for, but would like to capture the date modified variations of the term (such as event 2011 or product 2012). My question is - what would be the best way to optimize for a date senstive product/service? Would it be better to include the date variation of the term on the main page for the product? Or should we create a new page entirely to capture this variation? I lean towards optimizing the existing page because the intent is the same whether a user is searching for product or product 2012. I should mention that the previous year versions of the product are not available. Merci. Chris Thompson
On-Page Optimization | | GroupPublishing0