Content Marketing and how it effects Rankings
-
Hi there everyone!
I have what I think is a simple question, but one I can't fully understand the answer to.
If I had a homepage that I wanted to optimize for the keyword, e.g. "Second Hand Cars", so I add the keyword in the page title and text etc etc. But I still don't rank well for it. So I turn to content marketing and create some content on my site's blog about new cars, sports cars, and of course second hand cars, with some great content and anchor text pointing back to the home page.
Now here's my question, how does creating that content on a blog, or on someone's blog/website help my homepage rank higher for my chosen keyword? Surely it would just help the blog post rank higher? And if someone were to search for "Buy Secondhand cars", wouldn't my hypothetical blog post (with more shares and links than my home page) rank higher than the home page itself?
If anyone can clear this up for me I'd be eternally grateful! Thanks in advance
Cheers
-
Thanks everyone for such great answers! You've all helped a great deal in answering the question
-
Mathew,
You do have to watch out for keyword cannibalization and synonyms in your content. A term like "second hand cars" is a slippery slope in that it is the same as "used cars", "pre-owned cars" ,"previously new cars", and then you've got all the variations of "used automobiles", "used cars for sale" "used vehicles", "used cars in miami", "billy bob's second hand cars" etc. When you are building out content on a topic with so many synonyms and similar words, it's just about impossible to create pages on each of the many varieties of these term that are so distinctly different from each other that Google is likely to rank them the way you would like, or think they should be ranked. You're not going to rank for all of them anyway, so why try--choose a brand focus and stick with it.
Rather, when you are creating your site and editorial calendar, reserve the hierarchically uppermost page of the site or category for your most competitive term and use content on it that includes all (or most, or a lot of) the synonyms and variations of your main term. Then stay away from anything but casual use or of those synonyms in the rest of your content. You can get away with content on sub pages dealing with "used fords" and below that "used mustangs" and "67 mustangs" below that--those terms are distinctly unique and lend themselves to content that can be distinctly unique and engaging to distinctly different audiences.
Think of your content as something that would appeal to aficionados. How would they talk about the page's product or category? If they would split hairs on the meaning of terms, then you might be able to too if you can effectively used written words to juxtapose their arguments. Search engine's are not any better at differentiating synonyms than we are and if we can't write down words on our sites that are going to help them, they're going to be lost.
-
When a page links to another page, it is letting Google know that the page it is linking to is of significant value. When you build a page about new cars, and then you link out from that page to something else, Google assumes that that other page is also about new cars, and that it is a high quality page. Of course, the original page is still seen as more influential, but some of this value is transferred along to the page it links to.
The way that this will increase the value of your homepage is, for example, if there were 10,000 pages all about new cars, and they all linked to your home page, then Google would be strongly inclined to think that your home page was a great resource for things about new cars. So even though the 10,000 pages might be more optimized for the "new cars" keyword, since there are so many, and since they all link to your page as a resource, that little bit of value they transfer to your page adds up, and your home page becomes more important than the linking pages in the eyes of Google.
This is the basic concept of Pagerank, and is a very important factor in how Google determines results in the rankings.
-
With regards to links, The Rising Tide Lifts All Ships, assuming your blog is on the same domain.
It is possible for sub-pages to rank above the homepage for your lead-terms - http://moz.com/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization - though it doesn't happen too often and I wouldn't like to comment further without seeing the site in question.
-
To answer your question yes and no. It's never going to outrank your homepage Google knows how to map URLs. So you will not likely see your perfectly optimized page being the only thing ranked in Google however if it's only thing with content on it it might be.
Google likes long interactive enthralling engaging gripping content.
Meaning if I throw a video of relevance and quality in addition to a couple thousand words of high quality information on used cars and not just repeat the word used cars over again and over again although it must be used (no pun intended) in the page title tag and URL to have it be optimized for that keyword.
You want to really give the visitor the most amazing presentation and information that they have ever witnessed in their life. This will not only get you ranked higher in Google because Google sees your content is not thin meaning it's not just you slapping 300 words on a page and using used cars over and over again like the shining when all fun and no play make's Jack a dull boy is implemented things go wrong just like in the book or the movie.
By writing such quality content and of course sharing it on social networks you will have people and say wow that's a great article on preowned automobiles I think I will buy a used car from here. But you must start with quality and just because Google only cares about things over 300 words does not mean that should be where you stop.
What Peter has said is exactly right I wish you the best and I would recommend a tool called scribecontent.com
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
Hi Matthew
To a large extent, ranking well for a search term will depend on how competitive that search term is, i.e. based on how many other sites and pages are being optimised for it. If the term "second hand cars" is the term you are targeting, then that will be quite a challenge, but not so much if you are targeting a smaller geographical area, e.g. "second hand cars Miami".
However, I realise that doesn't answer your specific question. Even more these days since the Hummingbird update, it's not just about optimising pages - although you are right still to do that - but making sure your site is well targeted. So if you are targeting "second hand cars" for your site (bearing in mind you want your home page ranking for that), then the site as a whole needs to be optimised well for that term.
In terms of pages ranking higher, the anchor text and links you are adding will, to some extent, pass SEO value to the pages they link to. So by creating great content on pages about cars that links to your home page about "second hand cars" each page that is linked will pass on value to the page being linked to. Cumulatively the that page will accrue value, providing the page itself has good content.
This page in the Moz guide may help you further: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links
I hope that helps,
Peter
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
-
Paid link with high quality content
I know paid links is against google's policy. But what if I have a very quality content including my paid link on blogger's site referencing to my site.
Link Building | | zeitnot
Is it counted as an ad or spammy content which leads to penalization by search engines ?0 -
Which one is more important ? high DA Backlinks or quality content ?
we have a new website which is about selling fireplace : http://bistoonshop.com/ which one should we invest our time on ?
Link Building | | hellothere771 -
Does More Guest Posts Effect Website Rankings in a Negative Way?
Hello Everyone, On an average I am getting around 20 backlinks for 15 days. All these backlinks are done through proper outreach and guest posts in relevant websites. We have a team of four people doing only outreach and getting backlinks through proper guest posts. But I am worried on whether it will effect my website ranking in a negative way? Kindly get me clarified with my doubt. Should I continue this or should I reduce my numbers?
Link Building | | sandeep.clickdesk0 -
Google Don't allow to publish duplicate content for other website?
Hi All, How can share other website content in our website and same for other user, how can share our content on his website? Everyone is saying, sharing content will be good but Google saying you can add duplicate content so i want to know process for content sharing to earning natural links. Thanks, Akhilesh
Link Building | | dotlineseo0 -
Which is More Powerful? Content or Backlinks: Ecommerce Sales
Hello, Which do you guys think would bring in more sales: doubling the content across all category pages and top 30 products, or getting 10% more good unique root domain backlinks from broken link building? 350 products in total 50 main categories 150 subcategories. Product page content would be frequently asked questions for the product and would be added by the site owner who is an expert. Thanks.
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
Does registering with the paid Yahoo directory have any effect on your google rankings?
I am trying to get quality back-links and I know Yahoo is one adn as it is a directory is still ok post penguin but can anyone tell me whether it is worth it or does Google ignore the Yahoo links? Thanks
Link Building | | ebowdublin0 -
What Are the Best Practices for Ranking for Synonyms?
This topic has me entirely confused, and unsure if we should keep a website focused on one keyword group, and using synonym contextual links to rank it for other keyword synonyms. We simply have not seen enough data or run enough tests to find our answer, and wanted to reach out to the community to see if anyone has. I have seen Google rank a synonym to my search query on the first page, and is why we are confused. Let's use an example: We'll use "Industry" as the main keyword for our page. "Company" or "Companies" is viewed as a synonym by Google of this keyword. When we query "Industry", "Company" and "Companies" are also found in bold. 1.) Is it best practice to also create a unique page targeting synonyms? Our thinking is that it would be best to try and target exactly what the user is looking for rather than having a synonym to their search for better conversions, but as mentioned above we feel it's best to hit exactly what they query because that's their way of thinking. That they're looking for that exact match. 2.) Have the page "Industry", but do some link building using contextual links "Company" or "Companies" pointing back at our "Industry" page. Would this help rank our "Industry" page for "Company" or "Companies" even though the main page is "Industry"? Just not sure we want to do this as the reasoning explained in #1. Thanks for your help!
Link Building | | cyberlicious0 -
Site size affecting page rank?
I've noticed the sites that rank above me for certain phrases are much larger than I am. Here are the results of the 'site:' command for the top 6 results for a phrase I want to rank for (yes, I know that 'site' is not exact): 32,600 pages 8,760,000 pages (wikipedia) 684 pages 148 pages (domain name equal to search phrase) 1400 pages 120 pages (my site) Now, I appreciate that larger sites have more stuff to link to, and therefore have more juice flowing to them from external links. BUT, is it also true that they are generating lots of internal juice by having so many pages? I've looked at the PageRank algorithm and understand that the max page rank for a site (with no external links) is based on the number of pages of that site and how well linked they are). My question is: based on all the experts here, is number of pages in the site an important factor (assuming good on-page SEO), or does it really come down to number of external links (from relevant sites with appropriate anchor text, of course)? Can a small site with tons of external links rank above much larger sites? Has anyone beaten Wikipedia for a phrase they were targeting? How did you do it? Thanks!
Link Building | | scanlin0