Previous keyword overuse on past blog posts: looking for a plan to proceed with new posts

[KristyKK]

My client has multiple office locations around the US. Each location has it's own subdomain for maximum local visibility. For example: "cityname.maindomainname.com"

Each subdomain has it's own blog, and has, up until now, all posts have been key-worded:

"product + city" followed by the blog title
For example: "Life Insurance San Fransisco | 5 Facts to Know"

So on each subdomain (location), there are many blog posts done on the same product, in the same city. So they have a series of blog posts with the pattern below (hypothetical examples):

"Life Insurance San Fransisco | Insurance Myths"
"Life Insurance San Fransisco | Which One is for You?"
"Life Insurance San Fransisco | Getting Your Policy Reviewed"
"Life Insurance San Fransisco | Buying From a Reputable Agent"
"Life Insurance San Fransisco | Cancelling Your Policy"

The issue I am running into is how do I properly keyword/key-phrase all future blog posts for each location. The same keyword has been used so many times that it seems almost meaningless to continue to use it ("life insurance") even though it's the target product and location the client is trying to rank for. I don't plan on using the formula "product+city," but it would be nice to use the term "life insurance" somewhere in a key phrase or two.

The client's goal, to rank high for their product in each, individual location. I am looking for guidance and advice on what would be the best course of action to achieve the client's desire for increased visibility in their target areas.

An added challenge is the number of cities. Following their current blog posting needs/schedule, they want to do 60 posts a month, one for each city each week (14 cities), so I'll be on the hunt for how to write this many posts without writing duplicate content, but that's for a different question.

So considering the above, if this were your client, how would you proceed?

[ChrisAshton]

I've just started re-evaluating MozPro again now but from what I recall, there's no way to see a specific scorecard for blog posts.

Blog posts and landing pages have quite different purposes and so keyword targeting does work quite differently as well. Rather than targeting a specific product or serviced based term like "leather shoes seattle", they'll target a particular intent related to it. For example, "best leather dress shoes in seattle" or even broader, perhaps offer advice - "10 tips to having your old leather shoes looking like new".

Clearly terrible titles but you get the picture!

Rand did a Whiteboard Friday some time ago on a relevant topic that you might find helpful. Essentially what he's saying there is that getting the targetted terms into the title and through the content is kind of important, but not more important than the user experience.

Also, don't worry too much about what Yoast has to say either. It can be a handy guide sometimes but just because it's highlighting something doesn't necessarily mean you have to do it. It's a confusing industry huh? I suppose if it was easy, everyone would be doing it!

[KristyKK]

Thank you very much for your answer. Yes, this is exactly what I needed to hear. One question, I am fairly new to the industry and am a little confused as to how the Moz keyword ranking fits into the 'don't write for a particular keyword' idea. When you write:

"Blog posts should absolutely have a target audience and perhaps a common search phrase in mind, but they shouldn't really have a keyword focus like other pages on your site - there should never be a post that's built around the phrase Insurance San Francisco for example."

Are you saying we should not choose a specific keyword (or keyphrase) to build the post around (even if we barely use the keyword in the post and focus on the message around that keyword)? When I have Moz evaluate a blog post, there is a long list of keyword optimization advice. I am using WordPress with Yoast to post the blogs, and there is also heavy focus on keyword optimization. How does the lack of keyword focus and the Moz/Yoast optimization advice fit together?

[EGOL]

Yes, that is what I would do.

[KristyKK]

Thank you very much for your response. You touch on several points I was actually thinking but had not put it into concrete terms like that. You are right, I doubt if anyone is going to share or discuss the current posts. I am tempted to suggest they remove all the previously published posts and start fresh, especially since they are not ranking for anything at this time. Do you think this would be a good idea?

[ChrisAshton]

Hi there!

If this were my client, I'd be having a very serious and educational chat about the direction the campaign is headed and strip it back to basics. The below suggestions assume the site doesn't currently rank anywhere that's going to bring them any real volume of traffic.

Remove the Subdomains Subdomains are treated as separate websites so sanfrancisco.website.com is viewed as a completely different website to seattle.website.com. While that may be ok for the end user, what this means for optimisation is 2 different link building campaigns, two sets of content (both of which need to be unique and still genuinely valuable) and 2 sets of ranking signals.

You mentioned they have 14 locations set out like this so what you've actually got is 14x the work needed. Honestly, this is not a good use of your time or their budget.

Remove the Spammy Blog Posts The reality is, nobody is likely to actually read a series of blog posts that are so blatantly keyword heavy. The most probable outcome is that users will be given a very low quality vibe and steer clear of the brand in the future.

Also, having that much keyword spam on your site is playing with fire. It doesn't provide a good user experience and search engines these days are easily capable of understanding exactly the aim.

Blog Posts Don't Target Keywords

Blog posts should absolutely have a target audience and perhaps a common search phrase in mind, but they shouldn't really have a keyword focus like other pages on your site - there should never be a post that's built around the phrase Insurance San Francisco for example.

Focus Your Time; Work on the Primary Domain

As I touched on above, splitting your time across 14 subdomains is not a great use of your time or their budget at all. Rather than trying to churn out 60 low quality blog posts from questionable sources to meet this arbitrary requirement, spend that same time writing 1 or 2 high quality, uniquely valuable posts each week then promoting them through various channels like social media, influencer outreach etc. It's going to give you far better quality signals than huge amounts of rubbish across 14 subdomains.

More importantly, this approach gives users a reason to stay on your site and build that crucial rapport. in the insurance industry, people tend to shop around and do their research for a bit before they commit to the purchase and swamping them in keyword spam is not a way to build that relationship.

Go Back to Basics

From my experience, any site that's in this bad shape is probably going to have a lot of other fundamental issues (thin, keyword heavy content, a terrible backlink profile, poorly structured and keyword heavy navigation etc) that really should be addressed before even thinking about blog posts.

If this were my client I'd be treating it like a brand new website and going from the top. Ignore the domains and plan to take them offline, plan the site architecture and nav then get to work on improving the site one element at a time with a heavy focus on the user experience and the real end goal (traffic that converts) rather than keywords and SERP position.

You can rank #1 all day long but if your site is heavily spammy, it isn't going to convert!

That's probably not what you wanted to hear and perhaps not the sort of info that you're looking for here but to be honest, I think any further time that gets tipped into forging ahead with those spammy subdomains is time very poorly spent. I hope you find it helpful either way!

It may be that the client is very reluctant to such a drastic change so it would take a very strong educational approach and, if they're financially driven, focus on the fact that optimising a single site, they need to pay you to do less work for more return; "more for less".

[EGOL]

they want to do 60 posts a month, one for each city each week (14 cities), so I'll be on the hunt for how to write this many posts without writing duplicate content, but that's for a different question.

If this gig was offered to me, my first goal would be to see if someone should upset the apple cart.  My hunch is that they are wasting their time.

It sounds like they have a ton of light weight content on this website.  If they want 60 blog posts per month a person could not generate anything but mindless prattle.   So, I would get into the analytics to see just how much traffic all of that past content is pulling in from Google. Then, how much of that is from client's target market.  I bet people there will be really disappointed.

I bet it will look like this..... "During the past 12 months the entire mass of these blogs pulled in just six visitors from search and all of them bounced.  They probably are not getting any sales or traction out of this content.  Nobody is sharing it.  Nobody is talking about it.  Everyone who lands on it leaves.

I'll probably get their attention when I give them the news.  I'll either get the job or I will be on my butt, on the concrete, in front of their San Francisco life insurance office.

You don't earn great rankings or traffic from Google by publishing a ton or rubbish.  You get great rankings by publishing a few ounces of gold.  If I get the job the strategy will change from rubbish to gold and we will publish a dozen posts per year.  We will also restructure the website away from subdomains and into folders.