Wordpress SEO: Category page + Product page or only category page?

[daimpa]

Trying to improving my website's ranks on google for a specific keyword (e.g. Samsung S6), I'm thinking about doing some experiments. I've a wordpress based blog. Now, I've the category "Samsung S6" (url: example.com/samsung-s6), with only the latest 6 news (with excerpts) + pagination. This ranks good, but it's a bit ugly as a landing page and I want a better rank. I could improve this page by customizing the template and adding some static text, but it could be a time-consuming solution considering that I'm using a third party theme and I should check this every update. Also, it's harder to customize this page then the next solution:

I'm thinking about creating a new page Samsung S6 (url: example.com/samsungs6). This page will contain a product overlay (e.g. RAM, HD, screen size etc.), + product description with features and a small review of it's elements (e.g. camera description with results, suggested applications etc.) + some images/youtube videos + latest 6 news (without excerpts) + some links to other relevant pages in my website for that product, including a link to the category page.

What will happen in terms of SEO? Any idea if the new page could rank better than the category page, considering that it has more static elements? Not sure if google could detects duplicates, or two page comepting for the same keyword on the same website is a bad thing. Which are your ideas? Is it ok to have two pages competing for the same keyword on the same website?

[webtheoria.com]

To atart with the anwser, not recommended. Is best to have one single page ranking for such an important keyword. I would not worry so much about duplicate content, but more towards wasting your time and money.

Another solution is to develop this page, but force the page to take the roll of the category page. Maybe by issuing a 301 or just replacing the page. Am sure there is an easy way your developer could do this.

[daimpa]

First of all, thanks for the reply. There's a problem: from an user point of view, the two pages would have a different utility. Users who know the product are only interested in the latest news, and would prefer the simple news list like it's in the category page. They don't want to read the specifications pf the product every time. On the other side, users that don't know the product would be more than happy to find a full description of it, with highlights on the features.

So, for the users, the two pages approach should be preferable. Mixing all the content in just one page could be bad for the user experience, with too many informations in just one page. Do you agree?

About wasting time/moneys: moneys aren't a problem, I'll do the edits by myself. Time, it is, but the quickest solution is the two page approach: I just need to do this once forever, while editing the category template in wordpress means to be forced to check it at every theme update.

[webtheoria.com]

I am now thinking the possibility of using a canonical tag, so for Google there is only one page, the new one that you are trying to promote. So both pages should have as a canonical the URL of the newly designed page! hope this helps

[daimpa]

Ok, this is an option in the Yoast plugin so this can be done. Just one thing: in this way, the category page won't rank high, right?

What if I change the title of the category page to Samsung S6 News?

So:
Category page: title (Samsung S6 News), url (example.com/samsung-s6)
Product page: Title (Samsung S6), url (example.com/samsungs6)

Couldn't this work?

[webtheoria.com]

Yes if you apply the canonical, it will not appear in the SERPs.

By changing the category page to Samsung S6 News you could have the following results:

• The rankings will remain for the same category page.
• There will be a change towards the new product change but only if you allocate many links from the website but from other websites.
• Or, it could destroy even the current rankings as none of the two pages maybe fit to rank high for the given keywords.

Every change requires taking a risk. My action plan would be:

1. to have many links from all the websites to this newly designed product page.
2. ensure you have checked that technically the new page is optimised accordingly.
3. issue a canonical tag from the category page to be the same as the product page.
4. monitor and apply changes according to rankings

Hope you are successful at your task!

[daimpa]

Ok, thanks for your help. Canonical seems to be the way!

Just the final question: from what I knew, canoncial should be used for duplicate page content. Fact is, page content will be quite different. Is this a problem?

I'm also thinking that, being in wordpress, every article will have a link to the Samsung S6 category (wordpress shows a link to the category that an article belong to). I can't remove it, neither change this with the page url. Mmh. Best solution should be to be able to rank both pages, but I'm afraid a lot about penalization. I'll add a link to this new page in the menu.

[webtheoria.com]

If you wanna take it safe, promote both pages and apply the canonical in few weeks if you see that the product page has not managed to over rank the category page. Also note that internal penalisation is only to the newly added page and not to all the website.