Google Is Ranking the Wrong Page

[CRO_first]

Howdy Folks-

I have a case where Google is ranking the wrong page for a couple of different keywords.

The home page is: http://healthtn.com

Most notably, we're trying to optimize the home page for "Tennessee Health Insurance" but the below page is what continually ranks for it, and does so very poorly.  We used to be page two with the home page, now we are page four and it ranks the following page.

http://healthtn.com/tennessee/health-insurance/student

I have started directing our Internal Linking to reflect the correct anchor text but succeeded in losing ranking for the term, but am still ranking the wrong page.

Any thoughts or help would be much appreciated!

[Shakur]

Hi there,

Here are some of the most common reasons for search engines to rank a less relevant page above a more relevant one.

Internal Anchor Text .
External Link Bias
Link Authority & Importance Metrics
On-Page Optimization
Improper Redirects
Topic Modeling / Content Relevance Issues

You can find out more details right here moz.com/blog/wrong-page-ranking-in-the-results-6-common-causes-5-solutions

Hope it helps you.

[CRO_first]

Hey, thanks for the help!

After spidering the site again I noticed the primary anchor text being directed to http://healthtn.com is "Home" as it's the home page menu Bar.  Is there any way to getting around having 100+ links with "home" in the anchor text?  I am fairly certain I want to have a link back to the homepage from every internal page for a Quality User Experience?

[MoosaHemani]

My advice is to redevelop the content of the ideal page and make it more keyword specific. Give internal link from the page which is ranking to the page which you ideally want it to rank.

Give another link to your site structure and see if you need any improvement on that level.

Also build some good links with anchor text that target your keyword and instead of the home page link should go back to that particular page.

Hope this helps!

[BBEXNinja]

Looking through your home page's source code, I see that the keyword has been incorporate into the copy once or twice, the meta description and an image alt tag. That's a good start.

I would also incorporate "Tennessee health insurance" into the home page's meta title and h1 header. These are two fairly important hotspots with onsite optimization.

I would also try to naturally incorporate the keyword 1 or 2 more times within the home page's content. Lastly, I recommend brushing up on Chapter 4 of Moz's SEO Guide: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development

[CRO_first]

Thanks for the actionable advice, really helpful!

I went back in and made some of the changes you suggested.  It was helpful to revisit some of those points.  We've also been attempting too (and succeeded in) ranking for "Health Insurance Alternatives in Tennessee" so some of the meta real estate had been dedicated to that.  But I tweaked some things to try to do both.

I've struggled with the amount of content on the home page.  The student page that is ranking for "Tennessee Health Insurance",  only has it in the keyword in the content twice, but it does have over 1800 words and lots of Heath Insurance and Tennessee references.  The home page is designed to have little content on it, as many of them are... If I drop Tennessee Health Insurance a few more times in the 200 ish words on the home page, it may start to get stuffy?

Know anyway around low word counts on the home page?

As for the title, The page is called home for menu purposes, I don't have full control over the design and that is the way the site designer designed it.  Not sure if I can do much there...but I agree it is a vital piece of on page ranking options.

http://healthtn.com/tennessee/health-insurance/student

[CRO_first]

Thanks for the help sir, I just dropped a link into the misranked page back to the home page.  I haven't been able to do any of the other suggestions yet, but it's a start.  Thank you!