Optimize root domain or a page in a sub directory?

[MiddleEastSeo]

Hi

My root domain is already optimized for keywords, i would say branded keywords, which i do not really need, as the traffic from these does not give me any revenue ( mostly consists of our employees/returning visitors). Now i have run on page optimization for set of keywords for root domain which i like and got good grades (hurray!). But yet my website does not show up on search engines for those keywords.

I have got pretty good link building done to my root domain but this is not done for all keywords (but done for branded keywords). It just happened, please do not ask why.

So i decided to optimize inside pages in sub directory with new set of keywords i like. Starting with link building, giving anchor text on various other website linking to this particular page. These pages are not ranked in top 50 in google.

Is that a good practice?

or

I would not need those branded keywords, hence should I re-optimize my root domain to suite my new keywords by giving less preference to branded keywords?

Is this a good practice?

[X-com]

Hi! I would optimize subpages for the specific keywords and build links to them. Also, dont forget to put links to them from your homepage and other powerfull pages in your website.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi there,

Without knowing more about your site, it's hard to say exactly what the best practice is for your situation, but obviously you want to build relevant links to topic specific pages.

It's possible, if your main pages are optimized in a way that aren't providing any benefit, that you could try freshen the content on those pages to more accurately reflect the keywords you're trying to rank for.

Really, out of the two options you proposed - building new pages or updating the old pages to take advantage of the existing link equity/authority - it's really a toss up. More important is going to be the quality of links that you build to those pages.

As long as you're building new links, my preference would be to create new content. This

• preserves your old content (assuming it's relevant)
• gives your domain greater link diversity among a higher number of URLs (deep linking)
• give you a more options in the future if you ever have to "cut" spammy links

Either way, as long as your building new content and creating new, good links, you should be fine.