Optimize the category page or a content page?
-
Hi,
We wish to start ranking on a specific keyword ("log house prices" in italian). We have two options on what pages we should optimize for this keyword:
- A long content page (1000+ words with images)
- Log houses category page, optimized for the keyword (we have 50+ houses on this page, together with a short price summary).
I would think that we have better chances with ranking with option nr.2 , but then we can't use that page for ranking with a more short-tail keyword (like "log houses").
What would you suggest? Is there maybe a third option for this?
-
The most important thing to think about here is your visitors and not the search engines.
Imagine being a customer and searching for "log house prices". Chances are you will want to see a list of prices. This lends itself to the category page perfectly. I would imagine that seeing an article or content page would have a higher bounce rate and will most certainly have a lower conversion rate (for this keyword at least).
Remember that there is no reason not to have a nice bit of content on the category page if it adds value to your visitors.
With regards to the term "log houses", this could be used for a more generic page which covers your entire range. This decision should be based on how much time you have to spend on the website, your resources and more importantly, the competition for the keyword. If you feel like you can rank for that term instead of log house prices then go ahead and give it a go... It will be harder though, that's for sure.
Matt
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
-
Google webcache of product page redirects back to product page
Hi all– I've legitimately never seen this before, in any circumstance. I just went to check the google webcache of a product page on our site (was just grabbing the last indexation date) and was immediately redirected away from google's cached version BACK to the site's standard product page. I ran a status check on the product page itself and it was 200, then ran a status check on the webcache version and sure enough, it registered as redirected. It looks like this is happening for ALL indexed product pages across the site (several thousand), and though organic traffic has not been affected it is starting to worry me a little bit. Has anyone ever encountered this situation before? Why would a google webcache possibly have any reason to redirect? Is there anything to be done on our side? Thanks as always for the help and opinions, y'all!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TukTown1 -
Page Rank Worse After Optimization
For a long time, we had terrible on page SEO. No keyword targeting, no meta titles or descriptions. Just a brief 2-4 sentence product description and shipping information. Strangely, we weren't ranking too bad. For one product, we were ranking on page 1 of Google for a certain keyword. My goal to reach the top of page 1 would be easy (or so I thought). I have now optimized this page to rank better for the same keyword. I have a 276 word description with detailed specifications and shipping information. I have a strong title and meta description with keywords and modifers. I have also included a video demonstration, additional photos and an PDF of the owners manual. In my eyes, the page is 100% better than it ever was. In the eyes of MOZ, it's better also. I've got an A with the On-Page Grader. Why is this page now ranking on page 8 of Google? What have I done wrong? What can I do to correct it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dkeipper0 -
301 or 404 Question for thin content Location Pages we want to remove
Hello All, I have a Hire Website with many categories and individual location pages for each of the 70 depots we operate. However, being dynamic pages, we have thousands of thin content pages. We have decided to only concentrate on our best performing locations and get rid of the rest as its physically impossible to write unique content for all our location pages for every categories. Therefore my question is. Would it cause me problems by having to many 301's for the location pages I am going to re-direct ( i was only going to send these back to the parent category page) or should I just 404 all those location pages and at some point in the future when we are in a position to concentrate on these locations then redo them with new content ? in terms of url numbers It would affect a few thousand 301's or 404's depending on people thoughts. Also , does anyone know what percentage of thin content on a site should be acceptable ?.. I know , none is best in an ideal world but it would be easier if there we could get away with a little percentage. We have been affected by Panda , so we are trying to tidy things up as best at possible, Any advice greatly appreciated? thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Effects of pages heavily reliant on CSS for text and image content
We have a new feature that's been live for a couple days here: http://www.imaging-resource.com/cameras/canon/t5/vs/canon/60d/ My concern is that the developer relied very heavily on css for content and image layout. Such that the meat of our pages looks pretty meager: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/b1ccb77914c6722d40bd Google does parse css, but I'm not sure if it does so for content, or just to verify the site isn't doing something nefarious. Will google see our deeper content in the css, or view the page as being very thin?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ir-seo-account0 -
Structure: Should an eCommerce blog have main menu links to each of the store category pages?
Hi, Should my eCommerce site's blog have menu links to the store's category pages? (like in the store itself) The meaning is that every blog post page will have links to category pages that are not related and probably weakens the in-text relevant links. The other option is to have menu links only to the blog category pages and in-article links to the relevant store category pages (maybe add menu button "Go to Store"). Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Optimizing WordPress Pages With List of Posts
A friend of mine has published a new site called www.localsguidesa.com. It is an informational/review site about a resort town. Most of my experience has been dealing with single html pages. In the case of this site, the main "money keyword" pages are mainly an introduction of text followed by a list and snipped of blog posts such as this page http://localsguidesa.com/what-to-see-do/attractions which would target St Augustine Attractions. Would she be better off making the main pages with more content and less blog posts? How would ranking be affected with all the preview blog posts on the page? The strategy is for the blog posts to rank on the longer tail keywords...such as "Top 10 Attractions in St Augustine ", but what suggestions would you have for a main navigation page such as http://localsguidesa.com/what-to-see-do/attractions
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Pinlaser1 -
Dynamic pages - ecommerce product pages
Hi guys, Before I dive into my question, let me give you some background.. I manage an ecommerce site and we're got thousands of product pages. The pages contain dynamic blocks and information in these blocks are fed by another system. So in a nutshell, our product team enters the data in a software and boom, the information is generated in these page blocks. But that's not all, these pages then redirect to a duplicate version with a custom URL. This is cached and this is what the end user sees. This was done to speed up load, rather than the system generate a dynamic page on the fly, the cache page is loaded and the user sees it super fast. Another benefit happened as well, after going live with the cached pages, they started getting indexed and ranking in Google. The problem is that, the redirect to the duplicate cached page isn't a permanent one, it's a meta refresh, a 302 that happens in a second. So yeah, I've got 302s kicking about. The development team can set up 301 but then there won't be any caching, pages will just load dynamically. Google records pages that are cached but does it cache a dynamic page though? Without a cached page, I'm wondering if I would drop in traffic. The view source might just show a list of dynamic blocks, no content! How would you tackle this? I've already setup canonical tags on the cached pages but removing cache.. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Duplicate Page Title problems with Product Catalogues (Categories, Subcategories etc.)
Hey guys, I've done a fair bit of Googling and "mozzing" and can't seem to find a definitive solution. In our product catalogue on our site we have multiple ways to access the product for navigation purposes, and SeoMoz is throwing up hundreds of duplicate page title errors which are basically just different ways to get to the same product yet it sees it as a "separate page" and thus duplicating itself. Is this just SeoMoz confusing itself or does Google actually see it this way too? For example, a product might be: www.example.com/region/category/subcategory/ www.example.com/region2/category/subcategory/ www.example.com/region/category/subcategory2/ etc. Is the only solution to have the product ONLY listed in one combination? This kind of kills our ability to have easy refinement for customers browsing the catalogue, i.e: something that falls under the "Gifts for Men" might also be a match for "Father's Day Gifts" or "Gifts for Dad" etc. Any solution or advice is greatly appreciated, cheers 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ExperienceOz0