Hi there,

Absolutely not. In fact, I believe content in accordions outranks content on a page, although not for technical reasons.

Accordions are easier to fit into a page and can answer multiple user inquiries at once without throwing a wall of text at your visitors as they browse. Google reads accordions just the same as it reads open text. The difference comes with user interactions, metrics and satisfaction metrics.

Think about it like this:

You are browsing for pricing of a product. You also want to know shipping details and whether said product is safe to use for your 4-year old.

Your search returns 2 companies in your area that provide said product.

The first website throws 3,000 words at you in blocks, requiring you to scroll for what feels like hours without a clear indication of where to find the answer to your questions.

The second website can be scrolled in about 2 seconds and features an accordion which features headlines and direct answers to your questions without the need to view other content. Now we're cooking with gas.

In addition, accordion content lends itself to direct-answer formats which in turn lend themselves to showcase on SERP's. So not only will rankings improve, but so will traffic (there are tons of studies showing that Top 10 rankings = traffic, but few people realize that meta data and snippets can improve your odds of trapping 1st page traffic better than positioning).

Over time, this website will generate more and more authority for this product and relevant search queries, overtaking the other.

To answer your question directly - Google treats both forms of content equally, but (all else being equal) user metrics will provide greater link building potential, greater readership, more shares, etc. for the one featuring an accordion setup.

Look forward to what others have to say on this,

Rob

Hey vtmoz,

Short answer: It will probably help your rankings for that keyword/phrase.

Longer answer: It won't put you on the 1st page, but it will go some distance in helping your rankings along with other established factors.

Potential issue: If your brand features other products or services for which they wish to rank that are irrelevant to the keyword you wish to rank for, be careful that you do not gain rankings for your selected keyword at the expense of others on your site.

For example, say you want to rank for "keyword 1" so you target "Brand" "Keyword 1". If you also have "Keyword 2" and "Keyword 3" that are not relevant to "Keyword 1" you have just shot yourself in the foot for those keywords in order to gain ground with "Keyword 1".

This may not be a problem for you, but something to be aware of.

Personally, I'd be more inclined to make internal pages for keywords I am attempting to rank for, and introduce the brand and specific keyword to those pages to help Google with context. The last thing you want to do is switch up Google's understanding of your site by "traffic hunting" (i.e. putting keywords into your site content to increase traffic rather than to serve your visitors). In this way you might even lose traffic by making the change you have highlighted.

Let me know if you'd like clarification on the above - always happy to help!

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Rena,

I don't think the duplicate issue is being called out with regard to the pictures/titles on your pages. I think Yoast is picking up on the images representing your awards below the images of your cards. Depending on how you have developed these pages that would be my guess - are these images being uploaded according to a tag system/structure (i.e. are they being automatically uploaded as placeholders for each page?). If so, I have seen that register as duplicate content.

The titles and images of the products themselves shouldn't be returning duplicate content issues. If so, I wouldn't worry about them since there's nothing wrong with how the pages are created as they are. The only addition I would make would be to add some short descriptors and perhaps some Alt-Text on your images to differentiate them from one another.

Let me know if I can be of further help!

Rob

Hello,

There is no discernible difference to Google whether your internal links are located through buttons, icons, or the sidebar. The primary navigation bar is held as a slight priority over internal links on your pages, but only because of link juice flowing through your site.

If your links are tracking through your services page, your primary concern should be around user experience - are users more likely to use the buttons that are currently there, or would a sidebar create easier transitions from page to page? The answer to that question should determine whether you decide to change up your page.

Personally, I think you are better off with buttons and/or images to help visitors find exactly what they're looking for when they transfer to your services page.

Hope this helps and feel free to get in touch if you have further questions.

Cheers,

Rob

While you may not be able to compete directly with the big dogs immediately, you aren't doing yourself any favors by sticking pages you wish to rank deeper inside your site. Even though the content may be more specifically relevant, the reality is that once you are targeting traffic on a national scale, you are probably looking at your link profile as the defining factor of success rather than your content.

Content still retains power in terms of generating relevancy, but link building is what you need to compete with those long-standing enterprises. In my opinion, content location is secondary in this situation.

A better way to go about this might be to run some competitive analysis on a wide range of keywords to determine:

a) Where are your customers coming from?
b) What are they looking for?
c) Where does your competition rank?
d) Why are they ranking where they do?

Once you can answer these questions, you have the ability to make a strategy that will work regardless of where your content is located. Additionally, adding more pages will just make work for your web dev team without any discernible increase in your potential rankings, and will take time. Given the size of your site and the variety of products you carry, this may be an ineffective use of time when you might just be building a significant link profile to a couple of major landing pages.

Whatever you decide, learning why your competition is succeeding needs to be your priority. Then you can decide on a content-driven strategy or a link building strategy.

Hello,

I would say that from a user experience standpoint, this is a terrific idea. You give you prospects everything they are looking for upfront and without them having to go to multiple websites. It is, of course, more advantageous if/when you can show that you are a better option than your competition, although showing that you are better across all fronts might leave some people suspicious of your brand.

It can be a bit of a double-edged sword, although I personally believe it is a risk worth taking if your products/services are comparable in quality and cost to your competition. I've been down this road with several of my clients with mixed results - as long as our content marketing strategies were controlled and reviewed for quality, we never had a problem. If people fire from the hip without fact-checking, you can run into real trouble.

Legally speaking, the waters are a bit muddier. For one, if you are copying anything from a competitor's site and showcasing it on your own, you are (at the very least) plagiarizing. If you misrepresent them in any way, you are liable to legal action, which can get messy. You also put yourself on their radar for future events and time periods, so it is best to have your ducks lined up before you go this route assuming you are competitive to them.

That being said, there is nothing in the law stopping you from price comparison tools, etc. Using a company's logo is gray territory. I would also add that you make sure you are not trash-talking your competitors if you are going to compare your products/services with theirs. Make sure you can back up literally everything you are saying with demonstrable facts, and you will be okay.

Hope this helps! Feel free to reach out to me at any time and we can put our heads together on how to make your new campaign work!

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Paul,

You're right - any click from X.com that takes someone directly to portal.X.com would indeed count as a bounce. There are a couple of ways you might proceed:

1. Use Adjusted Bounce Rate

You can read this great post about adjusting your GA code to interpret users that spend a certain amount of time on a landing page as "engaged" and therefore not a bounce even if they click through to portal.X.com.

https://moz.com/blog/adjusted-bounce-rate

This probably won't solve your problem if people are specifically coming to your site and immediately clicking through to the subdomain, but it might help if your blog posts are ranking and being considered bounces.

2. Redirect Through An Intermediary Page

If you have the ability to create a page through which you can transfer any clicks, that would solve your problem. For example, you create a "placeholder" page and redirect it to your subdomain. You then make the "portal" link direct to the placeholder page.

In other words, the following would happen:

1. User lands on Landing Page
2. User clicks "Portal Page"
3. User goes to placeholder page (considered "engaged" at this point)
4. User redirected from placeholder page to portal

It's not the cleanest solution but it will accomplish what you are asking for. The placeholder page is just there to redirect the user, nothing else.

More important than these 2 strategies, however, is the question of why bounce rate is so important. Are you simply trying to differentiate your portal users from other traffic on your site? Are you worried about negative SEO impacts of having a higher bounce rate than usual? Or is it being used as a KPI of some sort?

Feel free to reach out any time and I will be happy to lend a hand if at all possible.

Cheers,

Rob

Hi there,

In general, Google is moving towards providing an all-questions-answered approach to content, particularly for sales-oriented (e-comm) sites. The algorithm uses content to determine relevancy using semantic keywords. In your situation, you would probably need to adjust a couple of items to improve your SEO before you develop your content strategy.

For example, your filters include everything from grades to brands, screws, bolts, etc. You might take a look at the sub-categories of products you carry, and determine if you can lump several of them together to make the ranking process a bit simpler. All "Fasteners" on your sidebar could probably be lumped into 1 category page, which would rank more easily than having 7 or 8 different pages, as an example. This may not be a handy way to do things, based on your customer base and the architecture of your site, though.

Your content strategy will also be impacted by your link building strategy. Do you have a lot of time and/or a huge budget of time and money to chase links for individual pages, or do you have to be a bit tighter in your spending on this front? If money isn't an issue, smaller pages may be worthwhile over the long term. However, I have yet to see the project where money and time aren't factors.

SUMMARY

To answer your question more directly, a long piece of content on a single page tends to outrank smaller pieces of content spread across multiple pages. If you can provide your users with everything they need on 1 page, you will outrank your competitors. That being said, you need to balance this approach by ensuring that you are not over-stuffing your pages and driving user experience into the dirt.

My opinion is your first link is a better way to go than the next 3, although I think there are other factors here you might want to spend some time on for full SEO benefits.

Feel free to reach out to me any time and we can put our heads together for a more complete strategy.

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Virginia,

The TLD is country specific - example.co.uk specifies the UK as the country of origin, so they are already gaining the ranking benefit this provides via their current TLD, particularly for searches coming from the UK.

The subdomain idea they are proposing will hurt them in 2 ways:

1. If you formulate a 301 redirect (assuming they don't want the .co.uk TLD anymore) then you will lose link juice from your current link profile (estimates vary between 2% and 10%) which will negatively impact your rankings. That's why I tell my clients to only redirect if they are absolutely sure they are okay with losing a little bit of their current traffic.

2. If you don't redirect, and retain both domains, you will begin splitting links coming into your website among your subdomains. Each subdomain has its own link profile and the more you split the incoming links, the weaker both become relative to what your primary domain could have been if you had just stuck with it.

The only way what they are suggesting makes sense is if you want to attract more of an American audience, or your business has separate offices stationed both in the UK and in the US. Even then, you would be better off creating a completely separate domain (example.co.uk and example.com) rather than breaking your link profile up among sub domains.

I see what their thought process is, but you can tell them that, in terms of ranking potential, this move will put them forward about 1% and bring them back by at least 10%, if not more. This will depend on what strategy they employ when they make the switch.

I hope this makes sense. If not, feel free to PM me or reply here and I will help out as best I can. It's always important to help clients from hurting themselves!

Cheers and best of luck,

Rob

Hi Fabrizo,

I think I understand what you are asking here, but if not please feel free to rephrase or correct me.

Based on what you are saying, you seem to be going for exact match keywords linked through image alt text for maximum relevancy to your targeted search terms. There aren't really any "problems" with this, but you may be going after a red herring here, even if your competitors are doing well with this tactic:

a) There is no guarantee that this tactic is what is generating the ranking results for their targeted search terms

b) Alt tags and exact match keywords don't carry much weight in terms of your overall ranking potential. That comes from links, content, architecture and various other factors.

I think that you may be expending a bit too much energy on relatively minor factors when you might consider beefing up your link profile, expanding your content base, improving your user experience, etc. This is especially true when you start getting into sub categories - if you are constantly working on the small details you lose the forest because of the trees.

So, to answer your questions directly:

1. No, I don't think there is anything "negative" that will come from this strategy.

2. Yes, I think that this strategy will move the needle but in a very small way compared to building a few powerful, genuine links from relevant sources in your industry. Build up your content, give readers something about violins to be interested in. I took a look at your site and the first thing I would consider is replacing the example music videos from your specific instruments pages to your home page so visitors know what kind of quality they are getting if they subscribe.

It's an uphill battle since your site is effectively an e-commerce store and therefore features a lot of images and uncrawlable content in videos, but adding some content about the value of your service, building links to your category/subcategory pages and improving the user experience is probably where you will get the biggest bang for your buck in terms of rankings.

Hope this helps - I'm always available if you would like to discuss further. Feel free to PM me at any time.

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Jeremy,

There isn't really a "correct" answer to this one.

Links help with your rankings regardless of where they are sent. The fact that these links are coming from high-authority sites is probably the biggest benefit, regardless of anchor text or link pathway.

On the flipside, you probably want to try to create relevancy between the page you are linking from and the page you are linking to. For example, as a fitness expert, if you are providing information on proper stretch technique or diet, then you may want to target pages on your website that feature stretching or diet respectively. Your author bio links might link to an "About" page on your website since people who click on your author bio might be looking to learn more about you (creates UX as well as website traffic since they are finding what they are looking for with 1 click). The Home Page is also an option since it provides greater link juice throughout the site, but your referral traffic drop-off might increase as a result.

As for sites that allow links within the content itself, you can go the Home Page linking route if you want since that helps with general rankings across your site. That being said, Home Pages don't convert people, landing pages do.

My personal opinion is you choose link pages on your site according to keywords you want to rank for and based on their relevancy to your guest post topics. It's better to drive targeted traffic to relevant pages rather than bring general traffic to your home page.

There are a lot of different ways to look at this, but technical SEO is giving way more and more to user experience and relevant link channels, so I would be less worried about pounding your home page with links and more about ensuring your users have a good experience on your site - that's how you get returning traffic and repeat visitors.

Good luck moving forward!

Cheers,

Rob