Keyword Landing Page Transition
-
We are redesigning the site to launch soon.
We are a manufacturer. Our most valuable keyword currently ranks around 8th on Google in a competitive market and responds with a link to our product selection page as the landing URL. This link / URL is currently listed on every site page in a right column menu with the keyword as the anchor text.
My concern is that I have redesigned this product selection page, and would like to change its file name to include the keyword as well as use the same keyword anchor text.
And to complicate the matter, for political reasons my boss has asked me to consider keeping the old product page available to alleviate board concern (not rational, but may be required).
Since the old page shows similar information to the new selection page, if I keep it, I am considering calling it a "Visual Selector" as opposed to the "Product Selector" menu name for the new page. I will list both in a list under the keyword product name on the home page menu and then drop the old selector page link on all other pages to lower visitor confusion.
So the alternative choices to proceed are as follows:
1. Keep old and new product selection pages
a. Show both on all page menus (Keeps the old page visible to Google, duplicating the current presentation for current keyword landing page)
b. Only show old product page on home page menu to alleviate the Board concerns (Keeps the old page visible to Google, but with one link)
2. Get rid of the old product page and redirect URL to new one (our primary keyword would be ranked on its own merit and the current Google ranked page would redirect to the new one)
Number 2 is the logical method for users, but I am nervous about dropping and/or redirecting the current landing page which ranks my best keyword at 8th in a competitive market.
Your recommendations or comments? What do you predict Google will do in these three scenarios? Hope you can follow this maze...
Thanks!
- George
-
I believe my question focuses down to which is the safest path:
1. Never change file names on an established keyword landing page
2. Remove existing page and redirect to new improved landing page
3. Keep both until new one ranks as high in spite of some visitor confusion
-
Hmm, regarding the re-direct, I honestly don't know... I will defer to other members who may be reading this and ask for their suggestion...
C
-
Thanks, Chris...
ps - the board's concerns are not for SEO, although I have put the fear in them about potential serp drops too!
Do you feel a redirect would cost ranking or are you just playing it safe?
-
Hi George,
I would choose Option 1a.
I think the 'Board concerns' are valid ones - I assume that any loss of business could be very detrimental to the company, so the Board are rightly nervous about these changes... If they weren't, I'd be nervous !
By introducing the new product page along side the old one (with an explanation of what you are doing), regular visitors to the site will get the drift of what is going on & the changes they can expect to see. They will feel valued as you are keeping them informed of the site changes too.
I would also monitor the clickthrus on both the old and new product pages, and when you and the Board are happy that the users of the site have adopted the new Product Page you can begin to phase the old one out.
Best,
Chris
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
-
The Keyword density in a landing page is very low . by adding meta keyword tag can improve keyword density?
The Keyword density in a landing page is very low . by adding meta keyword tag can improve keyword density?
On-Page Optimization | | socialhi50 -
Renamed a page and created a 301, page lost its rankings.
We changed a page name to fall under the root of our site from domain.com/page1/page301d/ to domain.com/page301d/ and after 2 weeks it still is not back to its #3 position. Now it is on the bottom of page 3. I cant figure out what im doing wrong here. The original .com/page1/ that this page fell under was removed totally and redirected to antoher page that was more relevant. I went ahead and re-enabled this page and its contnent, because the page was linking out to the page we 301d. This page we re-enabled had about 150 links poitning to it and therefore i was thinking that maybe the link juice from this page (or relevancy) via an internal link was helping it rank. This was updated about 6 days ago and the internal link is back Any other ideas why this might not be working. Ive checked all the 301s, content has not changed on the page. We have updated the strcuture for many pages. Instead of having the pages in question fall under anotehr page, they all fall under the root and its sub content is now only 2 levels deep , instead of being 3. hope that makese sense.
On-Page Optimization | | waqid0 -
Ranked page is not desired page
I have a question on a problem I am currently faced with. There is a certain keyword that my employer wants to rank for. The good news is that sometimes it does rank in the top 5 pages of Google. (It drops in and out) The bad news is that it is going to a page that we need to keep, but not the ideal place we want people who are looking for that keyword to go to. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with this type of situation and what tactic they used to get people to the better page.
On-Page Optimization | | trumpfinc1 -
Is it difficult to rank for a keyword phrase with an H2 halfway down the page?
If your competitor has a page that is optimized for a keyword (title tag, URL, content) and you target the keyword halfway down a page with an H2 and a short paragraph about the keyword, are you at a strong disadvantage?
On-Page Optimization | | ProjectLabs0 -
WordPress and category/subcategory landing pages
Hey, Here's my situation. I'm building a WordPress blog for product reviews of a certain niche. Current category setup is 4 main categories with 4-8 subcategories each. Each subcategory has a unique description that will help it become a landing page for certain keywords, after which it lists the posts from that subcategory. The posts will always be assigned to a sub-category, never to a main category. My issue is what to do with the main categories. They're fairly general so they're not really targeting any keywords, and don't have any unique descriptions attached to them. I was thinking of choosing between three options on designing the main category pages: List the subcategories + normal posts loop that bring the latest posts from the subcategories (may create a lot of duplicate content since the subcategory pages are also listing their posts) List only the subcategories (+ maybe just the latest post from each subcategory) Don't link the main categories at all, instead only use them to create dropdowns for the subcategories So, what would you choose, and why?
On-Page Optimization | | mihaiaperghis0 -
View all Page for Product Overview Pages
Hi everybody! We have an ecommerce site with product overview pages, where sometimes there are hundreds of products listed. Usually, we just display 30 and have a button where users can click to see 30 more - or all products listed at once. This is the overview page (as indexed in google): http://www.geschenkidee.ch/aussergewoehnliches.html
On-Page Optimization | | zeepartner
And this is the view-all page: http://www.geschenkidee.ch/aussergewoehnliches.html#all What should I do here? The product overview page will hardly generate more traffic by listing all products (because the overview page will rank for generic keywords, while the product keyword searches will be referred to the specific product pages themselves). I was originally thinking of using rel=canonical pointing to the view-all page. But this would just lead to longer load time. Should we just leave those overview pages or is there a best practice for how to deal with such pages? Thanks for your thoughts on this!0 -
What is the Best Landing Page setup?
I have seen a few different types of landing pages. I am trying to figure out which style works best from a SEO perspective. 1. The cram everything possible onto the page approach ala nyt.com? 2. The fill your home page with a ton of links approach like cnn.com? 3. The put just a small sample of your content approach like seomoz? I see 4 blog snippets, a "Go To My Campaign" call to action and that's it. 4. Pages like Groupon.com which have 100% focus on a call to action. I also notice many focused pages like Groupon remove the header and footer on their landing page. Does that help the page retain it's PR better?
On-Page Optimization | | KevinPatrick0 -
Keyword issue
On this site filmeonlinenoi.com the keyphrase "filme online gratis" its auto-cannibalizating?
On-Page Optimization | | Alexsmenaru0