How do I influence what page on my site google shows for specific search phrases?
-
Hi People,
My client has a site www.activeadventures.com. They provide adventure tours of New Zealand, South America and the Himalayas.
These destinations are split into 3 folders in the site (eg: activeadventures.com/new-zealand, activeadventures.com/south-america etc....).
The actual root folder of the site is generic information for all of the destinations whilst the destination specific folders are specific in their information for the destination in question.
The Problem: If you search for say "Active New Zealand" or "Adventure Tours South America" our result that comes up is the activeadventures.com homepage rather than the destination folder homepage (eg: We would want activeadventures.com/new-zealand to be the landing page for people searching for "active new zealand"). Are there any ways in influence google as to what page on our site it chooses to serve up?
Many thanks in advance.
Conrad
-
Hi Conrad,
Aside from internal linking, it is also important to look at the page titles, and these could do with some work.
When crafting page titles, you want to remember that Google has changed how they calculate how much is now shown, and this equates to 56 characters (512 pixels). MOZ has a tool to show you what would be seen here.
You say that when someone searches for "active new zealand", then you want this page to be returned http://activeadventures.com/new-zealand
However, the page title of that page is "New Zealand Hiking & Adventure Tours & Vacations | Active Adventure".
This title is also a little spammy, and you need to get your desired phrase in there as well, if you can. Rather than what is there, I would have "Active New Zealand adventure tours | Active Adventure". This gets both key phrases in and fits into the 512 pixel limit that Google now has.
Internal linking can also help by explaining more to Google about the pages as well. A strong anchor text around each phrase would be desirable here.
If you want a hand with any of this, just drop me a PM and will be happy to give you some pointers.
-Andy
-
Looking at your internal linking, I don't see many links beyond menu, logo and breadcrumbs. Your site rarely links from the body of pages. This is most noticeable on your home page, which has no internal links in the body. Everyone has their opinion on this, but in my experience I see the most benefit from links from the body.
The other thing I notice is that the keyword text for your breadcrumbs at the individual destinations has "Home" instead of the destination like "New Zealand." If you wanted to make this a less confusing link, on the user end, you could just change it to "New Zealand." It's also a potential spot for a more optimized link if you were so inclined.
What I'd suggest doing is linking to your destinations from the home page, decreasing its relevance for that exact term while improving the relevance of the next page, and working on body level internal links on the internal pages of each destination.
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
-
Inner pages of a directory site wont index
I have a business directory site thats been around a long time but has always been split into two parts, a subdomain and the main domain. The subdomain has been used for listings for years but just recently Ive opened up the main domain and started adding listings there. The problem is that none of the listing pages seem to be betting indexed in Google. The main domain is indexed as is the category page and all its pages below that eg /category/travel but the actual business listing pages below that will not index. I can however get them to index if I request Google to crawl them in search console. A few other things: I have nothing blocked in the robots.txt file The site has a DA over 50 and a decent amount of backlinks There is a sitemap setup also any ideas?
Technical SEO | | linklander0 -
How to Remove Web Cache snapshot page & other language SEO Title in Google Search Engine?
Hi... Please tell me how to remove web cache link given below. I have changed my SEO title but it can't be changed...Any other methods for without using webmaster tools. Kw3arat
Technical SEO | | Thilak_geo040 -
How do you link your adaptive mobile site to Google Analytics?
With Google now saying they're putting a lot more emphasis on mobile sites, we recently got notifications from Google Webmaster Tools saying that some of our pages are not built for mobile. Some of these pages, however have an adaptive page that when you visit from a mobile phone (m.mysite.com), you're taken to instead of the desktop version. My question is, how do I let Google know that I have an adaptive site and not get penalized for poor mobile usability? I already have Google Analytics on the mobile site, I just need to somehow let Webmaster tools / Google's web crawlers know that they should be looking to my mobile site for usability, not the desktop site. Any advice is appreciated!
Technical SEO | | Ditigal_Taylor0 -
Some posts not showing on Google search if I seach them using post title?
Hello! Some of my WordPress blog posts aren't showing on the Google search result, even if I type the post title. What could be the issue? Is it my site text selection disabled issue or WordPress SEO by Yoast plug-in issue or something else? Moreover, if I search some of my post text (article content), I can't see relevant post on Google search. I use following code to protect my articles. Is it SEO friendly? .content {
Technical SEO | | Godad
-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-ms-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
} my site:- http://goo.gl/tD2fS Thanks!0 -
Google Places Page Changes
We had a client(dentist) hire another marketing firm(without our knowledge) and due to some Google page changes they made, their website lost a #1 ranking, was disassociated with the places page and was placed at result #10 below all the local results. We quickly made some changes and were able to bring them up to #2 within a few days and restore their Google page after about a week, but the tracking/forwarding phone number the marketing company was using shows up on the page despite attempts to contact Google through updating the business in places management as well as submit the phone number as incorrect while providing the correct phone number. And because the client fired that marketing company, the phone number will no longer be active in a few days. Of course this is very important for a dental office. Has anyone else had problems with the speed and updating Google Places/Plus pages for businesses? What's the most efficient way to make changes like this?
Technical SEO | | tvinson0 -
How to know which pages are indexed by Google?
So apparently we have some sites that are just duplicates of our original main site but aiming at different markets/cities. They have completely different urls but are the same content as our main site with different market/city changed. How do I know for sure which ones are indexed. I enter the url into Google and its not there. Even if I put in " around " it. Is there another way to query google for my site? Is there a website that will tell you which ones are indexed? This is probably a dumb question.
Technical SEO | | greenhornet770 -
How to show ratings on Google?
One thing I have noticed recently is "review ratings" appearing in the Google search results. I have attached a screenshot which shows an example of this. I think this is a really good feature and helps make a listing stand out in the SERPs, I would certainly be more likely to click this one. My question is how do you code for it so that Google will display it? The URL of the page in question is http://www.footy-boots.com/inter-milan-away-shirt-2011-2012-9430/ 4nXyk
Technical SEO | | ukss19840 -
Google Panda and ticketing sites: quality of content
Hi from Madrid! I am managing the Marketing Department of a ticketing site in Europe similar to Stubhub.com. We have thousands of events and, until now, we used templates for their descriptions. A lot of events share the same description with minor changes. They also have a lot of tickets on sale, so that's unique content different on each event. Now the last Google Panda update hit Europe and I was wondering if that will affect us a lot. It's hard to tell for now, because we are in the middle of the summer and the volume of searches in our industry depends decreases a lot during this time of the year. I know that ideally we should have unique descriptions but that would need a lot of resources and they are not important for our users: they just want to know the venue, the time and the price of the tickets! Have you experienced something about Google Panda update with a similar site or with another e-commerce industry? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | jorgediaz0