Unexpected ranking

[Substance-create]

We recently built a page for a client which consisted of a one paragraph of about 30-40 words, We weren't expecting this to rank, but it has ranked at #3 on UK Google.

So, we are now trying to work out the likely reason for this, as pages which we have optimised do not rank this well.

We realise there are a number of factors which influence ranking, but on this particular page we have a news module at the bottom of the page containing 8 short intros to other related content.

Could it be that  search engines are ranking for the main content shown by the menu link and the 8 short intros associated with that main content?

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks

Ian

[RickyShockley]

Could you share the page and the keyword you're ranking for? Pretty impossible answer without that info..thanks!

[Ria_]

Could be anything really... Maybe the page which is supposed to rank for that query (but was previously ranking poorly in comparison) is over-optimised, so Google prefers the new page created. Google will also be crawling the supplementary content on the page, such as the modules and menus you mentioned, though this should have less weight than the main content itself.

But as Ricky said, without knowing the page and keyword, it's hard to say. There might be something really obvious.

[Substance-create]

Hi Ria.

This is the page, we have used the term in link and H1 , but not overly optimised the page content.

But I am more interested in whether search engines are taking into account everything that is seen on screen along with the main content.

If they do, then should I be giving more consideration to the content of the modules that display with the main content, to influence page rank?

http://www.laughology.co.uk/teacher-workshop-s-inset-days/inset-days

Term: inset days workshops

[RickyShockley]

Hi Ian,

Unfortunately, no one call tell you exactly why you're seeing so much success with that page for that term, but we can give our best guesses based on what we do understand about Google's algorithm.

Some contributing factors from what I can tell...

1. You have clear on-page targeting (title, heading, url) related to the exact keyword in question that seems to be lacking (fully) on other pages showing up on page one.
2. Your domain authority is on-par with other pages ranking toward the top of page 1 for that term (26).
3. Your page has a very large number of internal links point to it (396) vs other pages showing up on page 1.
4. The fact that this topic is mentioned in several places through your site may be helping (http://www.laughology.co.uk/teacher-workshop-s-inset-days/inset-days)
5. User behavior/experience seems to be good (the fact that you have all of these other resources linked may be contributing to longer time on site, high user satisfaction etc...signals we BELIEVE Google is using to some degree).

One thing I also checked was site speed...to my surprise your page speeds were VERY low..so you're winning despite that at this point. I wanted to point that out though because it could be something that helps improve performance of other pages for other terms!

[Substance-create]

Thanks Ricky,

Good observations - particularly about the modules keeping people on the page longer, never considered that.

The page speed issue is a problem at the moment. JCH optimise seems to crash the site. We will have to get to the bottom of it soon.

So you don't think Google is taking into consideration the content of related modules?

Ian

[RickyShockley]

I don't think there is a definitive answer there, but my gut would be that those links out to relevant content are helping the credibility/quality consideration of your page and that they may be helping time on site and user engagement data as I mentioned before.

What you might want to do is test adding that similar feature to a couple of other pages and monitor ranking impact!

Best,

Ricky