Ranking a homepage for keywords

[carlystemmer]

We recently found a handful of keywords we would like our homepage to rank for (for example - customer experience). On our homepage we have articles (4-5 posted daily) that feature the keywords we are targeting (one being customer experience). How do the keywords we are using in our daily articles that are posted to the homepage affect the overall keyword ranking for the homepage?

In other words do the keywords used in the articles (title, first 2-3 paragraphs, meta description, etc.) all roll up/build up to the homepage's keywords or how does that work?

[RobertJakobson]

Hi, Joost De Valk wrote a great article on this subject in 2011:

“You see, sites don’t rank: pages rank. If you want to rank for a keyword, you’ll need to determine which page is going to be the page ranking for that keyword....Adding that keyword to the title of every page is not going to help. Nor is writing 200 articles about it without one central article to link all those articles to. You need one single page that is the center of the content about that topic. One “hub” page, if you will.”

Now that you understand that you should probably create a page in an url http://www.domain.com/keyword rather than trying to rank http://www.domain.com — here’s the answer as best as I can give easily since Google is secretive.

3 Basic Factors:

1. relevancy signals
2. internal and outbound linking
3. content freshness

1. Relevancy Signals

Bryan Dean's article gives, among other ranking signals, a good overview of relevancy for a page (not a site), many of which you mentioned:

• Keyword density and latent semantic indexing
• Heading and meta tags. See: http://cbutterworth.com/do-h1-tags-still-help-seo/ and much more..
• Content length. See: http://blog.serpiq.com/how-important-is-content-length-why-data-driven-seo-trumps-guru-opinions/

It is reasonable to presume that when Google goes through your site (perhaps via an sitemap) it does make some minor conclusions about the general themes of your site and that may affect your homepage’s rank.

2. Internal and Outbound Linking

Now, this is the easiest way to affect the rank of your homepage with the help of the posts you are doing. Make sure to link to the latest news, categories and tag cloud on your homepage.

You may show posts from a specific category, where the category is the keyword for which you want to rank. Thus Google sees that your homepage displays keywords and links about that topic prominently.

Don’t go overboard obviously. 3 latest news items in the category defined by the keyword, a link to the keyword as category and as tag or two is plenty enough for the homepage.

3. Content Freshness

Cyrus Shepard’s 2011 post on the Moz Blog serves as a good introduction to how content freshness might impact your site:

“Websites that add new pages at a higher rate may earn a higher freshness score than sites that add content less frequently.Some SEOs insist you should add 20-30% new pages to your site every year. This provides the opportunity to create fresh, relevant content, although you shouldn’t neglect your old content if it needs attention.”

Google also measures how your users react to your content:

“As content becomes outdated, folks spend less time on your site. They press the back button to Google's results and choose another url. Google picks up on these user behavior metrics and scores your content accordingly.”

[carlystemmer]

Wow, this is great, thank you! Do you have any advice for those looking to create or determine a "hub" page?

[RobertJakobson]

Hi Carly,

if you want to know more or need further help: Bryan Dean's On-Page SEO Anatomy infographic serves as a good start.

You may also provide a more concrete example by a private message via my profile page. I can help you.