Targeting Keywords at Home page or 301 URL?

[SEOKeith]

Background info

This is a new site and I am using Wordpress for a CMS not a blog and I have set a static page as the home page.

The problem is when I configure the home page as a static page in wordpress it sets a 301 redirect to that page, which is this domain.com/software-consultancy (so the software-consultancy page is now domain.com).

I thought about creating a separate Home page but I didn't see the point as the pages would be almost identical.

**"Should I target keywords to the home page?" **

If I start link building using the phrase "software consultancy" to the home page should I link to domain.com or the 301 redirect URL domain.com/software-consultancy ?

My thoughts are that if the URL has the keywords I am targeting in it will help with SEO.

Or should I create a separate home page and just link the company name back to the home and have a separate page for "software consultancy" my thought is that having exactly what the company does on the home page would be better. But I don't want to lose out on search engine traffic by not having the keywords in the URL I am going to be link building for.

I guess if I link build to the 301 redirect URL I can always revert back to this URL if I want to change?

FYI here is my site structure:

The site is for a small software consultancy and I have the following structure:

domain.com/software-consultancy  -- (Set as Wordpress static Page so essentially a 301 redirect to / )

domain.com/software-consultancy/areas

domain.com/software-consultancy/areas/london

domain.com/software-consultancy/areas/new-york

I would really appreciate some feedback on this, even if it's experience / advice and there is no exact answer.

Many Thanks,

J

[RobertFisher]

I don't think area sub nav is that prohibitive, especially with listing 8 cities.

[SEOKeith]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your response

Let me clarify the 301 redirect, the home page is now set as the software-consultancy page and it looks like this in the browser domain.com for example. If you visit the software-consultancy page it 301's to the home page. Also all sub pages of software-consultancy/ still function as normal.

So essentially wordpress is just marking the home page as the software-consultancy page.

I am going to list around 8 areas / cities for the location part, I would lose the areas but it makes the drop down navs cleaner on the site. If I change this though I will deffintly lose the area sub dir. I guess having the areas sub nav is not going to make a massive amount of difference  SEO wise?

Thanks Again

J

[RobertFisher]

So, Domain.com redirects permanently to Domain.com/software-consultancy? If so, then directing links to either will give essentially the same value as the majority (90% +) of the juice flows through on a 301. You have a small software consultancy so the fact that Domain.com/software-consultancy is homepage is in no way a negative. (Visitors are not looking for off the shelf software and landing on consultancy.)

_If I start link building using the phrase "software consultancy" to the home page should I link to domain.com or the 301 redirect URL domain.com/software-consultancy ? _

Even though the 301 sends most of the juice I would still go to actual homepage. No need to give up 1 to 10% even.

I think based on you putting "company name" in you clarified for me a bit more of what you are asking which is "should I make an effort to have Brand {company name} have more status?" Well, based on current thinking, unless you have a well known brand, having it in the url/title tag won't help as no one is searching on it. You want to get out what they are searching on. They know they need to look for a software consultant, they don't yet know it is you.

But, one bit of advice on your structure: If area is really not something that needs to have its own page with sub headings (subdirectories) afterward, flatten it by pulling out the areas: domain.com/software-consultancy/London, New-York, etc. That would allow you later to still add specifics to London or New York if services are different for each, etc. I do not see where having Areas helps. For someone searching your site, unless you have a lot more categories or are going to list 8 -10 cities, you can get away with just listing the cities.