How to Optimize a Home Page?

[WMA]

Can anyone advise on what is the best way to optimise the home page?

Many websites I see include the target(focus) keywords from other pages on the home page. Is this self competition?

"Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization- It's a best practice in SEO to target each keyword with a single page on your site"

If an e-commerce website has 4 levels in the SEO architecture. Home Page, Brand Pages(Category), Range pages(sub-category) and individual product pages.

It would seem that the main keywords would be within the category(brands) level of a website. However many websites I see include these on the home page as well.

Could someone please clarify this? I do not recall seeing the report card saying Self-Cannibalization when these keywords(category level) are listed on the home page. However I could be wrong,

Please could someone advise on what SEO MOZs recommendations are for best practise on optimizing a home page so that it does not compete with category pages, or other pages on the website.

Thanks

[KristinaKledzik]

Hi WMA,

Before I start, there are a couple of things you should keep in mind when looking at other websites for SEO tips:

1. Many websites aren't optimized for SEO (or, they're trying, but not 100% there)
2. Big companies have more leeway in SEO, because they have so many backlinks.

To answer your first question, is it self competition to include target keywords from other pages on the home page, the answer is no, it's fine to have a target keyword on multiple pages on your site. But you shouldn't target two pages for the same keyword. For example, if all you sell is books, don't target your home page for the word "books" and have a category page for books. Then, if someone searches for "books," search engines don't know which page to display, and both of your pages will rank lower.

The bigger question, how do you optimize a home page, is trickier to answer. SEO isn't an exact science, and there are tons of ways that you can effectively optimize your homepage. Generally, I would say that your homepage should be targeting your brand name as a keyword, and include text about all of your types of products, and links to category pages. But your homepage is a representation of your company, so I can't really answer that question over Q&A.

Hope this helps!

Kristina

[WMA]

Hi Kristina,

Thanks for your response.

Upon reflection I do not think I asked the question correctly.

I was more referring to the optimization of title tags on a page.

If target keyword is used on the home page or any other page than the its focus page(the one that should be the SERP for that keywords), best practice is to use internal linking? The focus keyword becomes a hyperlink to its target page. This prevents self cannibalization. I see that Wikipedia do this. Am I correct in this assumption? It is a different although related question.

Going back to my original question that I did not ask clearly enough-

Should the home page contain title meta tags that contain focus keywords from other pages. Typically for an e-commerce website the main focus keyword are one level down in the hierachy at the category level.

My understanding is that if I use the focus keywords from the target pages(category pages, this would be self cannibalization?

Would you agree with this premise, and if so the home page should only use Brand keywords. (Company name, Core business(e,g, importers of furniture, online furniture).

If you could clarify the answer to this question(Meta Title tags) and also if using internal linking is the best way to prevent self competition.

Many thanks

Liam

[KristinaKledzik]

Hi Liam,

I think that the same premise applies to meta title tags and keywords in general, so, yes, a good formula for a homepage title tag is: Brand - Core Business(es), even if the core business(es) have their own category pages.

You're right, if you turn a word on a page into an internal link, it shows the search engines that the destination page is targeted for that keyword. But again, I wouldn't worry about self competition unless you're actively targeting a keyword on two pages.

Best,

Kristina

[ClaireH-184886]

i find this very interesting. If you have a page dedicated for the keyword gastric band hypnnotherapy, should you not mention this keyword on your home page?

[KristinaKledzik]

You can definitely mention it, just don't make the homepage all about gastric band hypnotherapy. The trouble comes when both pages are targeting the same phrase.