SEO for a site in development
-
We've recently taken on a new client for an initial 6 months for SEO (until their new site is going live) to help build traffic to the site. They are currently getting a new website built so don't want work done on their current site... but due to the current structure it is making it difficult for us to improve rankings for a number of keywords. They are essentially a booking engine for services across the UK so it is just a home page with a search filtering through their services, locations and dates which leads to a results page. It is a combination of services and locations we need to target keywords for but there are no appropriate landing pages due to the site layout.
The one thing they are happy for us to work on is the blog, so my question is would it be best to create landing pages on the blog targeting keywords such as 'sports massages in London' and build links to these pages? Then when it is time for the new site, with new appropriate landing pages, simply 301 redirect these pages?
If anyone has any input on this idea or suggestions for other ways about it we'd be delighted to hear from you
Thanks
-
** While this type of content would undoubtedly drive traffic, many users would not convert into customers as there is no service nearby. **
I agree. My sites have lots of this type of content and I work very hard to get this traffic. If you use Google's DFP you can target your house ads to display a geographically relevant creative for certain locations (for example... sports massage in Bentham, or Birkenhead, or Accrington) and show adsense for any other location. This enables you to promote your own services where you have them and adsense to all other visitors. You can also sell this geographically targeted ad serving to specific clients.
I like the idea of a side menu but do you think this would be enough to allow the pages to rank?
If you have a kickass article that gets a lot of links it will start to pull traffic for these geographic terms. If competition is not strong or your pages develops significant link strength, then you could rank for these terms. I get lots of geographic term traffic from these types of pages. Lots. If you have one of these pages with 30 great links it is going to compete.
-
Unfortunately so, the sign on process was all fairly rushed due to the customer and development team are difficult to get in touch with!
-
Thank you very much for the in depth response. I agree, this type of content strategy would be extremely beneficial for them to be seen as a credible booking engine and help with the SEO too! My only concern is that there are only particular towns and cities that this booking engine has for each service so we really wanted to rank for specific locations. While this type of content would undoubtedly drive traffic, many users would not convert into customers as there is no service nearby.
I like the idea of a side menu but do you think this would be enough to allow the pages to rank?
-
agh - that's a pain. Too late for them to be specified? I like to build this stuff in from the start for these very reasons.
-
Hi Mat,
Thanks for the response, I like your thinking but it's another development team who have already began work and we're not going to know the final urls until they put the site live... Another stumbling block with this project!
Cheers
-
I think that blog posts that explain the generic (without location) topics that you do bookings for they could be a fine informative library for the site.
If an author knows what he is writing about and produces a highly informative about the different types of sports massage and the reasons that an athlete might benefit them it would be a great way to attract attention to the site.
Imagine an article like that hitting the subjects... what is a sports massage, are their different types, how can they be beneficial to the athlete, how are they done, how much might they cost. Don't you think that an article like that might be very valuable for a site like yours. Imagine your blog article ranking at the top of SERPs for topics like "benefits of sports massage" .... "types of sports massage"... People who are searching for those topics are ONE STEP AWAY from booking the service. And you have house ads or a search box on that page that helps them find where they can get this service.
If you hire a person to write these who knows nothing about the subject then you will not have a very good article. But if you hire experience and get photos, athlete and service provider interviews/quotes, then you have an article that might perform well.
Wouldn't that make their site a more credible booking engine?... and don't you think those pages would have a chance to rank well for generic high-traffic terms?
This type of content is not cheap. Experienced authors, going to get photos, spending time on interviews is expensive - but from my experience it can pay off nicely.
These pages are way to valuable to redirect. If you have some of your best locations in the side menu a powerful page like this might rank for some of the cities that you serve.
-
I'm not convinced that 301s are as useful as they used to be. With that in mind, how about doing the opposite:
1. Create the landing page
2. put a the 301 in place NOW pointing from the eventual final URL to the blog
3. link build to the final URL
4. When it goes live remove the redirect
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
-
How updating a post can influence seo
I have just read this great post from moz blog: http://moz.com/blog/google-fresh-factor But I haven't found nothing about updating post date. If I edit an old great post (now ranked 2nd after several months in 1st serp position) does it be better if I also update the date of the post in the wordpress post edit page? Thank you very much and sorry for my poor english. Bye, Dario.
On-Page Optimization | | Italianseolover0 -
Can you set objectives for an SEO campaign?
We have been working with a client for 3 months and they've been happy with the progress we've made on their SEO and the resulting increase in rankings, traffic etc. They are renewing their contract for another 6 months but this time want to set some objectives and want us to suggest what those objectives are. Is it possible to set objectives when a great deal of the results can be out of our hands, eg, how Google works, level of interest in the client's products in the target market, whether they take on board our recommendations for changing their website content to get better seo results etc? What would other people be happy being set as their objectives for a campaign?
On-Page Optimization | | mfrgolfgti0 -
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 -
How is my on-site SEO looking like?
I know this is a broad question. My site's content has been written more than one year ago and haven't been changed so far. Our main goal is to make the application hosted in the site work better every day, so we don't worry much about writing content. The URL is http://www.onlinelogomaker.com
On-Page Optimization | | rpedri0 -
Onpage SEO Analysis within a campaign
I have setup a campaign and have a number of pages which are ranked as F, but that is because they are comparing against the homepage and not the internal page I have setup. Is it possible to update the page which the campaign monitor is checking against. Or is it driven by the highest ranking page for that keyword. Thanks Andy
On-Page Optimization | | iprosoftware0 -
Improve Site SEO
Hey Guys I was wondering if you could give me advice to improving my SEO. I have used all the tools on this site and have improved it a lot already, but wondering if there is any glaring issues, that I could fix now www.treelifedesigns.com
On-Page Optimization | | treelifedesigns0 -
SEO for Blogs - Top Tips
Hi People, This may have been covered before (i am sure it had) but I was wondering if people use the same SEO tactics for blogs as they do for other sites. Really wondering if there are any tips for blogs specifically ? 🙂 Thanks all
On-Page Optimization | | wedmonds0