Homepage not ranking for main keyword, all other pages ranking slightly for their own keyword phrases.

[Mr.1000]

Dear Mozzers,

We have an ecommerce website (www.pashmina-boutique.com), we want to rank the homepage for the keyword "pashmina". Problem is, we are nowhere to be found, not even in the top 100 search results of Google. It is indexed, we have no crawl errors, except that we had some problems with our hosting (503's), the crawler of Google bumped in a few of those. And we are fixing it.

Our other pages, e.g. (http://www.pashmina-boutique.com/15-white-pashminas) ranks for "white pashminas" 24th and "white cashmere pashminas" 23rd.

We have done no linkbuilding, in Majestic, you can check that. We have been offline for a long time (over 6 months) and about 3 weeks ago, we did a redesign (SEO). We relaunched, everything is looking fine except the homepage isn't ranking for the main keyword.

Could you guys check it out? Is it over-optimization? It can't be Penguin, Panda would be a surprise too. Or do we still have to wait for the monthly Panda data-refresh?

We are currently busy with this issue, once this is solved - that the homepage is ranking - we will start linkbuilding.

Mr.1000

[LauraSultan]

First of all, It's unrealistic to rank well for a highly competitive single keyword like "pashmina" within 3 weeks of launch with no backlinks - even within the first 100 results. Your other pages are doing better because "white pashminas" and "white cashmere pashminas" are not as competitive. Sites rarely jump to the top of the rankings right after launch. There may be a bump at first as Google indexes the site, but then it drops back down.

Secondly, you state that you haven't done any link building, and I assume you mean that you haven't done any spammy link building. However, you still need good backlinks to your site to be competitive.  Below are a few resources on link building.

• http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies
• https://moz.com/blog/the-noob-guide-to-link-building
• http://www.paddymoogan.com/

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I would take a look at this KISSmetrics post on eCommerce SEO; it provides a ton of valuable tips and opportunities for you to take advantage of.

I would also look into building a sitemap as it appears you don't have one at the moment. I would then make sure it is uploaded to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools.

By the way, your Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Disclaimer, Payment Methods, and Shipping & Returns pages are noindexed. I would index these pages and build them out a bit more - Google and users take notice of this trust signals for rankings and action, respectively. I suggest you take advantage of it.

I would also work on your on-site SEO to spice your title and content. Some of these titles are a bit too close for comfort to me and almost look spammy.

These are just my opinions! Hope they help! Good luck!

[Mike.Bean]

Hello,

Make sure you have no errors in webmaster tools. Then, Link building is a MUST! Open Site Explorer will help you with that A LOT.

thanks,

- Mike Bean

[donford]

Laura's answer is great spot on about the age and link building advice.

I will also emphasis a point she made about your statement that you said you're not doing any link building until you page is ranking.

You don't wait for a page to rank to start link building, you start link building to get a page to rank.

Other questions about is it over optimized: Moz's Page grader shows a couple issues.

• Avoid Keyword Stuffing in Document (Ref Rand's Post Here)
• Optimal Use of Keywords in H1 Tags

One other suggestion I have that is not in the page grader, and I have seen this a lot lately, is the way this template is putting the main text way below the header and image elements. You want your unique text to be above these elements showing it is important not tucked away under a ton of images and links. It would be much better to get your internal category images and links section off the main page all together (you already have them in the navigation).

Hope this helps,

Don

[donford]

Need to follow up on myself here.

I also noticed that you use the keyword "Pashmina" in almost every single one of your page titles. Along with "cashmere" they are very likely making your site a victim of keyword cannibalization.

Small list of titles:

• 100% Cashmere Pashmina - Blue Shadow
• 100% Cashmere Pashminas (2) - Pashmina-Boutique.com
• 100% Cashmere Pashmina - Violet Tulip
• 100% Cashmere Pashmina - Wild Dove Grey
• 55% Cashmere/ 45% Silk Pashmina - Blue Shadow
• 80% Cashmere/ 20% Silk Pashmina - Blue Shadow
• About Chyangra - Pashmina-Boutique.com
• Black Cashmere Pashminas - Pashmina-Boutique.com
• Blue Cashmere Pashminas - Pashmina-Boutique.com
• Cashmere & Silk Pashminas (2) - Pashmina-Boutique.com
• Cashmere & Silk Pashminas - Pashmina-Boutique.com
• Orange Cashmere Pashminas - Pashmina-Boutique.com
• Pashmina Shawls & Cashmere Scarves - Pashmina-Boutique.com
• Yellow Cashmere Pashminas - Pashmina-Boutique.com

Hope it helps just had to add this info..

[Andy.Drinkwater]

One area that is often overlooked, and that is hugely powerful for any site, is internal linking.

An internal link to a page will tell Google that you consider it to be important, based on the phrase you are using. Remember that with internal linking, you should be as descriptive as possible.

I often point people towards this document, as it contains so much valuable information:

https://econsultancy.com/blog/65433-why-internal-links-and-hub-pages-are-a-major-factor-in-seo-success/

-Andy

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I want to say cannibalization isn't a bad thing if it's done in a well structured and thought out way. Here's a more recent Whiteboard Friday regarding this topic, along with targeting and density.

I would agree with you that "pashmina" is a little overused on this particular site and should be cleaned up.

Just wanted to add that Whiteboard Friday here.

[Mr.1000]

Thank you for answering.

"pashmina" isn't that competitive. In top 100 results, you'll find so many, many low quality websites.

I know that the others rank better because it's long tail, yes, but by this time I would think our homepage would be good enough to rank 4-5th page.

What I said about linkbuilding, was to explain that there wasn't any white/grey or black hat linkbuilding done to our website.

[Mr.1000]

Hi Patrick!

Thank you for answering. We will build a sitemap, thanks for the reminder.

I am going to fix these pages, letting them all getting indexed.

We just changed our homepage title, a bit more SEO driven, to see if that would make a difference. We are currently working on our content. What do you mean with the titles looking spammy? Yes they are 'basic', just describing the page like "white cashmere pashminas" but this isn't spammy. We will mix it up a bit.

Thanks for the help though, you gave some good tips that I will use for sure!

[Mr.1000]

Yes, hosting is currently a problem that we are working on. Linkbuilding is up next :).

I just thought there was some issue with the homepage, that's why I didn't build links yet.

Thanks Mike for responding!

[Mr.1000]

Thanks Don for your answer.

Yes, we are going to build links. Don't worry :).

However I don't agree to the following statement you made "_Y_ou don't wait for a page to rank to start link building, you start link building to get a page to rank." I thought I missed something, that there might have been a technical issue that the homepage wasn't ranking, over-optimization or anything like that. The reason why I believed it was almost impossible to not be included in the top 100 results, was because I noticed websites showing up that were having really low-quality content.

I already checked the Page Grader, we are going to lower the amount of keywords in our text.

Good point about the position of the homepage text. Maybe we will put it above the product carrousel.

[Mr.1000]

@Don's second post:

Yes, I was thinking about keyword cannibalization too. Lowering the amount of the main keyword alone [pashmina] on a different page than the homepage is what we want to achieve, but not always possible. Take Casemate or Otterbox as an example, the keyword [cases] is probably their main keyword, or [smartphone cases]. All over their site you can see that they use it in every category, every page, about everywhere. Neil Patel made a nice post the other day about this. The more common a keyword (phrase) is used over the whole website, the better it ranks. (Without going to far and getting keywords cannibalized.

[Mr.1000]

Thanks, going to watch it for the second time

About the cannibalization of the main keyword, yes we are going to lower the amount of our main keyword. BUT if Moz their primary keyword would be "SEO", then all other pages on their website - and I bet that atleast 95% of their pages contain the keyword "SEO" - would rank lower or the homepage would rank lower. But this isn't the case, it makes it stronger because your whole site talks about this topic / keyword.