Added a few paragraphs with header tags targeting a keyword and dropped immediately!

[vtmoz]

Hi all,

Our website homepage doesn't contain much content associated with our primary keyword or product, it's mostly explaining our features. So we tried adding a section at bottom of the homepage which explains the about our services like "what is seo" and "how seo helps business". We are trying to rank for this primary keyword like "seo" with generic content and we dropped immediately after this deployment. Any suggestions on this why and how to proceed?

Thanks

[Joe_Stoffel]

Did traffic to the homepage drop or the rankings you are tracking? If rankings, is this just for a single head term or a grouping of related keywords? Also, how long ago did this change happen?

Ranking fluctuation for a page that was recently updated is not uncommon. I would review impression and click data in Google Search Console to see how this has changed. Your ranking for the head term "SEO" dropped but you very well could be picking up more 'SEO' related long-tail queries.

I assume you did not keyword stuff this content or add it in the footer which could potentially cause this issue. If you are seeing ranking, click and impression decreases for a grouping of keywords for an extended period of time, I'd take the recommended actions in Moz's SEO Rankings Drop Guide

[vtmoz]

Hi Stoffel,

Thanks for the answer. As you asked, I would like to give more info on this for better understanding of the scenario.

> Did traffic to the homepage drop or the rankings you are tracking? If rankings, is this just for a single head term or a grouping of related keywords? Also, how long ago did this change happen?

Ranking and organic traffic, both dropped, especially for one keyword we tried to rank by adding content. It's just a 3 letter word. We added the content on our homepage exactly a week back and we dropped immediately the same day after getting indexed by Google. It was confirmed as per search console data too.

I believe it's due to keyword stuffing even though it was really unexpected. The reason I believe this is, as we have this keyword in page title and H1 also.

I am planning to change some of the header tags by removing this keyword from them rather than removing this recently content. Any suggestions?

Thank you

[Joe_Stoffel]

Hi there,

Apologies on the delayed reply! It's hard for me to say it is keyword stuffing without seeing the content of the page.

In all honesty, I feel you will be better off building out an internal page with targeted SEO content. I don't think the homepage is the best place to present this sort of information, I feel that should be more about your brand and an overview of the services you provide. Even if you take a look at the first page of search results for "SEO", you don't see homepages ranking. You see content-heavy, internal pages being returned (see Moz and Search Engine Land results).

My suggestion, move that copy to a new 'SEO' targeted internal page. Make sure the page title, header tags, copy, internal linking, alt= tags, meta description etc. are all optimized for SEO terms. Expand on the copy that you currently have to be more valuable and/or informative (not to say it is not already valuable). To do so, look at queries that are returning instant answer results and look at the 'People Also Ask' recommended questions provided by Google. Include answers to these questions within your copy under header tags that essentially mimic the question. Remember, long-form content tends to perform better in organic. From there, work on promoting this content and pushing natural links to this page from authoritative, relevant resources.

Hope this helps!