Homepage ranking above category page, but no keywords in there! Why?

[isaac663]

So...we have a 5 year diary product page at TOAD diaries.  It's had a lot of on page treatment: keyword in title, alt text, decent copy, pictures of the product etc.  Find it here - http://www.toaddiaries.co.uk/shop/5-year-diary

So we rank 22nd for 5 year diary, but google sends the customer to the home page!  There no mention of 5 year diaries on there.  Seems ridiculous! I can't help but think we should rank better for this as it's a low difficulty term (according to keyword difficulty tool on MOZ).

Any thoughts on why this might be?

Oh, Google HAS indexed the 5 year diary page.  Used a search operator to check that first (thanks to you guys on here:) )

Thanks.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Isaac,

It isn't always about exact page matching in this manner - Google knows that a diary and 5-year diary are related and will deliver the page that they think is best suited - in this case, the homepage. However, I would be tempted to look at internal linking from the homepage to the 5-year diary page, and perhaps other related pages from within the site. It's all about creating a self-explanatory structure that gives weight to a page.

You could also look at strengthening this by building some backlinks to some of these internal pages too.

Also, you have a dead page that Google has indexed at the moment: http://www.toaddiaries.co.uk/shop/5-year-diary/castelli-5-year-diary

-Andy

[isaac663]

Hey thanks Andy!  Still quite new to this.

It seams wired though because 5 year diaries are a quite unusual 'long tail' type product. The search intent is clear, they want a 5 year diary.  Not any old type of diary.  Anyways, really appreciate the response.

So perhaps have a link from the home page?  And add internal links from say the "multi year" category?  Hmm all so mysterious

Another quick question if I may? If I update the site via webmaster tools all the 'dead links' should be sorted right?

Isaac.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Isaac,

A link from the homepage would be good - build it into the content somewhere though. The same goes for links from other pages.

Yes, you can tell Google that 404 pages have been fixed, if they are just pages that you have removed. Just remember to make sure no other pages or links lead to these dead pages, as that can cause issues.

-Andy

[isaac663]

Understood.  Thank you so much Andy.  This info is invaluable to use as a small company.

Isaac.