How do you transition a keyword rank from a home page to a sub-page on the site?
-
We're currently ranking #1 for a valuable keyword, but the result on the SERP is our home page. We're creating a new product page focused on this keyword to provide a better user experience and create more relevant content. What is the best way to make a smooth transition to make the product page rank #1 for the keyword instead of the home page?
-
Totally agree with Cornel.
Don't ruin what you have as you might not get it back!
Put your effort into making the product page also rank well for the keyword.
-
Hi,
You know what. If the keyword is really important for your company.
Don't ruin what you have.
Take these steps:
1. For the existing traffic create a clear and easy way from the homepage to the product page.
2. Start optimizing the product page for that keyword. If your homepage ranks #1 for the keyword chances are that Google will rank fairly fast your product page.
I've seen websites ranking with 2 pages for the same keyword.
Go on google.co.uk and search "secured loans" and you'll see that the first 2 results are from the same company.
Don't ruin a #1 for the chance that you might rank a product page.
Cornel
-
Google obviously sees your homepage as a more relevant page for that particular keyword. The steps I would take to rank a sub-page are to de-optimise the homepage for that specific term:
-
remove all mentions of keyword from homepage including meta title/desc and h1-h3 etc.
-
create product or keyword specific page you want to rank
-
make sure keyword is in the page url/title/desc/h1
-
create contextual or nav link on homepage using keyword to product/keyword page
There is no guarantee Google will see the sub-page as more relevant and rank it for your keyword, but taking these steps has worked for me in the past. Also there is no guarantee you will swap out the two in the same 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
-
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amarieyoussef0 -
My page ranking dropped after I made it responsive
Recently, I made one of my site page responsive. It was ranking on 13th Position and after I made the page responsive, it dropped to 24 desktop and 35 on mobile rankings. I ran mobile friendly test and it said "awesome, your page is mobile friendly". Not sure, what went wrong here. Page in question is: https://www.itcontractorsuk.com/ Can someone please advice? Please Note: My site is partially responsive.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ThinkWebUK0 -
301 from old site to new one , Should I point to home page or sub category page ?
Hey Seo Experts, I have a small website ranking for few terms like cabinets sale, buy etc . However what i have now decided is to launch a New website with more different products like living room furniture, wardrobes etc . Out of all these categories on new website Cabinets is one of the SubCategory . Now I do not want to have 2 websites . So wanted to 301 from small cabinets website to newly created website. Some of the doubts I have at the moment is ? 1 Should I REDIRECT 301 to sub category (i,e cabinets) which is purely related to Cabinets or Do a Redirect to HOME PAGE . As I also need more Authority to home page as well , as this is relatively new website ? 2 Second question related to this. If you have multiple sub domains does it divide the total authority & TF.Or it is just Ok to have multiple Sub domains if needed ? Any advice appreciated !! Thanks .
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aus00070 -
Moving career site to new URL from main site. Will it hurt SEO for main page?
For one of our clients we are building a career site and putting it under a different URL and hosting service (mainly due to security concerns of hosting it under the same host and domain). almost 100% of the incoming traffic to their current career section (which it is in a sub-folder) receives traffic for branded keywords (brand + job/career/employment), that is, there are no job position specific keywords. The client is now worried that after moving the site, the inbound traffic to the main site will be severely affected as well as the SERP results. My questions are, will the non-career related SERPs be affected? I don't see how will they be but I could be wrong If no, how could we reassure her that the SEO to the main site wont be affected? are there any case studies of a similar case (splitting part of the website under a new URL and hosting service?) Thank you for your help. PS: this is my first post so please forgive me if this has been asked before. I could not find a good response.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rflores0 -
Checking keyword rankings
I have 2 questions: 1. To check keyword rankings with firefox, i am choosing: Tools>Options>Privacy>"clear all current history" Timerange to clear: Everything Check Boxes: Browsing and download history, form and search history, cookies, cache, active logins Is there anything else I need to be doing? 2. Search results in my Niche are heavily localized. Is there any way to check rankings in another area? Ex: By default, our rankings are for Northeast NJ. Is there any way to check Baltimore, for example?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CsmBill0 -
Home page mysteriously not ranking at all
Hey everyone, I'm baffled by a situation. I started working on www.hushabyephotography.com almost 3 months ago. The first thing I did was changed the address (was previously blog.hushabyephotography.com) and updated all of the links pointing from the old name to the new "www" and used 301 redirects for canonicalization. Have also built some additional links, added content to the site, and performed on-page optimization to rank for the primary key phrase "san diego newborn photography". But ranking is no where to be found, I searched for the key phrase, and at rank 190 is a random subpage, not even the home page. The listing had also disappeared from Google Places a few weeks ago after the client updated their listing (which I believe was the result of the known Places bug (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-you-may-need-to-hide-your-google-places-address-asap). I'm at a loss here for ideas, as I've never failed to at least have a site on the radar. There aren't any spam links so I don't think any penalties are the result. One last thing, it ranks on page 2 in both Bing and Yahoo... Please help me out Mozzers!!! 😕
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Joes_Ideas0 -
WordPress site and Forum in Sub domain
I have a web site www.mydirectoyzzz.com (Eg site) instaled wordpress and directory theme on that. i wanna add forum to this web site phpbb or similar .so how can i use forum in main domain .wanna know how it works best for SEO www.mydirectoyzzz.com/forum or www.forum.mydirectoyzzz.com ? Adding forum to main site .is that harmful to main web site ? Looking for SEO Expert help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | innofidelity0 -
Pages that were ranking now are not?
Hi Folks Noticed something strange just now pages that were ranking on position 10 on Google for searches such as 'ufc trainer kinect best price' at the start of this week are no longer ranking? Is what has happened to the site the famous google dance or sandbox effect as the site only officially went live on Monday If this is the case what is the recommended course of action to get back ranking competitively again? as I have no idea on what has gone wrong as I has always tried to follow best practice from these forums and the SEOMOZ and YOUMOZ articles My site is www.cheapfindergames.com Many Thanks Ian
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ocelot0