How important is it to rank for a product category?
-
We make a product in a category of products -- let's say "donuts". There are really only 4 major donut companies (lots of artisanal donuts out there, but they're not really competitive yet). One of our competitors has systematically achieved top rank for "donut" and lots of adjacent keywords like "donuts" and "buy donuts".
My question is, does their success ranking for the product category keyword "donut" influence their success ranking for long-tail keywords like "powdered donuts" and "tastiest donuts"? Or, to flip that question, should we try to compete for "donut" before worrying about "decadent delicious donuts"?
Other factors:
- In terms of search volume, as you would expect, "donut" sees 10 to 1000 times as many searches as most of the other keywords adjacent to it.
- We can definitely compete for "donut" -- just trying to figure out if doing so should be our top priority.
-
I think Robert covers it pretty well. I would just add that it will probably be easier for you to rank for the long tail terms like "frosted jelly donut" as well if you're already ranking for "donut" if you've developed a logical hierarchy in your site architecture. When ranking for donuts, creating your sub categories or internal pages linked from your page that's ranking will pass along more authority to those pages targeting long tail terms.
That said I agree with Robert's assessment that assigning your time half and half is a good strategy if you have the resources to do so without becoming stretched too thin.
-
If you have the capability, definitely go for it.
Since Google is looking more and more at semantic rankings for relevant keywords, "powdered donuts" or "decadent delicious donuts" will naturally follow if you are producing content that ranks for "donuts", especially if you make special reference to these specialty keywords.
The competitor that is ranking for all of these keywords is likely doing so because they have produced content and generated links to an architecturally-fitted site for your industry. If you can replicate and improve on that process, you will out-compete them.
In terms of strategy, you probably want to assign 50% of your monthly workload to "donuts" and another 50% to long tail keywords relevant to "donuts". This way, you can make quick gains on long tail keywords which are easy to rank for, and longer-term gains on your major industry keyword over several months. This strategy helps you double-down on long tail keywords while also building up relevancy and authority for your major keyword.
Looking forward to seeing what other folks have to say on this.
Cheers,
Rob
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 do i rank for 1000 keywords?
i have dr 25 and 200 referring domains and ranking for 90 kws in usa. i saw this trend that if you rank for more kws then chances are that you can rank for those high traffic kws in 1 to 5 positions. what i mean is that it increases your odds ? possible answer1 :increase dr and da both and ur and pa ( ahrefs and moz) i know pagerank matters but these are some metrics we can look at for right now possible answer 2 : get a lot of backlinks maybe from same site but how does my backlinks can help me to rank for 1000 kws so that i can have at least 100 kws to rank in position 1 to 5? detailed answers will defi be appreciated
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sam09schulz0 -
Product URL Optimisation
Hi guys, We are currently trying to add new products to our site but we are in a quandary on what type of URL structure to pursue. For example:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | michel_8
Product Name: Aspect Exfoliating Cleanser 240ml https://www.example.com.au/aspect-exfoliating-cleanser-240ml (including the size)
VS
https://www.example.com.au/aspect-exfoliating-cleanser 1.) Which is a better URL structure based on SEO 2018 and why?
2.) Is there any merit in removing the size from the URL key with the aim of attracting more traffic? Keen to hear from you guys! Cheers,0 -
My homepage ranks but not my target page.
Hello, I have an issue with one my pages. I have a page about "Bike tours in France+ exclusively that has been existing for almost 8 years. Since day 1 I changed the web address a few times but I have the necessary redirect (actually only 1). I can't find this page (pretty much since day 1) on the keyword "Bike tours France" and I am wondering why ? However, I can find my homepage rank on "Bike tours France" even though it doesn't only talk about "Bike tours in France" instead of my page which is only about "Bike tours in France". I am wondering why only my homepage shows and not the other one. For information, I have about 30 % of my external links that say Bike tours France and that go to my homepage because when I started my website I was only doing "Bike tours in France" Could google say we don't care about your page about "Bike tours in France" because you got so many links to your page with the keywords "Bike tours France" and could it be why I don't see it rank. However, it is index but doesn't show up in search results ? Or could it be the fact that made many content changes over the years on this page and that google is saying I will rank you but it will take years because of so many changes. What can I do to make my page about "Bike tours in France" appear in search results for the keyword "Bike tours in France". Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Help - Lost Ranking - What did I screw up?!
Hi, We're working with a local service provider with a location specific keyword (not a real example: "orlando plumbing contractors"). Background:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AaronHenry
In recent history the client updated a new site design and upgraded from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5. Of course there were duplicate content issues which have been resolved with the help of AceSEF. Duplicate content, title tags, and other content issues are handled as soon as they appear in GWT or MOZ. Additionally, a high number of backlinks were lost when the latest Google update hit. Many of these sites were of sites that no longer existed or were spammy and flushed out. Some were lost due to the previous SEO firm literally removing backlinks and switching them to their new client (seo firm was putting all of the work the client paid for under their name to control everything). Current Situation: The backlink loss seems to have been stopped (hopefully) because we are using a new strategy that relies solely on the quality of the links, surrounding text, varied anchor text, relevancy, etc.) However, we tried an experiment on just one of the clients keywords. That experiment seems to have blown up in our faces evidently. The landing page for the location specific keyword has dropped from the index completely (it seems), but only when searching broad. When using exact match with quotes like the example quoted above ("orlando plumbing contractors") the landing page appears, but several ranks lower. We were ranked yesterday 6/23/13, but as of today 6/24/13 are no longer ranked. On broad matches, non-relevant sites and even a site that shows only a broken server configuration is outranking the client (they appear for the broad search, but the client does not). What Was Done
We recently created a press release for and posted it on a press release site. We then created a link back to the landing page (exact match anchor text). We posted the PR article to several social sites (Google plus, folkd, delicious, twitter, stumble upon, diigo). We also created a blog article (on-site) on site for that, creating links back to the landing page (the links all had exact anchor text). We posted that blog article to social news sites (facebook, stumble, delicious) and included a ping. The PR article was manually rewritten and posted to the PR site (we had to make 2 versions of the PR; one for the blog and one for the PR site). The Result
The client ending up dropping off the broad search rankings, but only slipped a few for "exact match" (with quotes). The PR article that was created is now ranked on page 3 for the board keyword and is still beat by non working sites. We suspect that the exact anchor text could be causing this problem. Anyone else have an idea (we're scratching our heads and trying not to freak out at the same time).0 -
Drop in rankings
Our keyword rankings have dropped greatly since July'12. Our site used to be in the top 8 rankings for the most competitive keywords on our industry and now rank 30+. Being new to this industry any help would be greatly appreciated. www.fragileremovals.com.au
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobSchofield0 -
Duplicate Content on Product Pages
I'm getting a lot of duplicate content errors on my ecommerce site www.outdoormegastore.co.uk mainly centered around product pages. The products are completely different in terms of the title, meta data, product descriptions and images (with alt tags)but SEOmoz is still identifying them as duplicates and we've noticed a significant drop in google ranking lately. Admittedly the product descriptions are a little bit thin but I don't understand why the pages would be viewed as duplicates and therefore can be ranked lower? The content is definitely unique too. As an example these three pages have been identified as being duplicates of each other. http://www.outdoormegastore.co.uk/regatta-landtrek-25l-rucksack.html http://www.outdoormegastore.co.uk/canyon-bryce-adult-cycling-helmet-9045.html http://www.outdoormegastore.co.uk/outwell-minnesota-6-carpet-for-green-07-08-tent.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gavinhoman0 -
Adding Millions of Products to Google
What is the best way to submit all of your product pages, millions, to Google for serps? XML, RSS, Google Product Search, etc. These are products that are updated on a daily basis, and change often.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Copstead0 -
Why does this site rank on the 1st page
i dont mean to be calling any site out im just scratching my head on this one.- I can't see any signal that would make it worthy of ranking on the first page for keyword loose diamonds. page http://www.jewelryexchange.com/DiamondResults.aspx Am i missing something all tools seem to say the site isn't worthy- All help appreciated
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidKonigsberg0