Wrong page getting ranked

[jasef]

Hi all,

we have product category pages on our ecommerce web site and we also produce blog content (such as buyers guides, setup guides etc) to help with ranking and give our site some good quality, unique content. However we are sometimes finding that the buyers guide / blog content gets ranked by Google over our product category page.

I'm hoping, if I give an example or two, some one smart out there may be able to point me in the right direction as to how we can avoid this and get the product category page ranked instead? You will see from my examples we are linking internally using the keywords from the buyers guides to the product category pages in order to show the most important page to Google for these keywords and are trying to structure the product category pages as well as possible to make it the most optimized page for the term.

Example:

Keyword "twin dvd player"... product category page: http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/dvd/portable-dvd-player-car/twin-dvd-player/ ... blog page actually getting ranked for this keyword: http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/advice-center/dual-screen-and-twin-dvd-player-explained/

Keyword "site radio".... product category page: http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/audio/radio/site-radio/ .... blog buyer guide page actually getting ranked for keyword: http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/advice-center/Site-radio-buying-guide/

Any help / pointers appreciated. Thanks.

[KempRugeLawGroup]

I ran the two pages through OSE, which I'm sure you probably already did, I didn't notice anything there. When was your product page published? I noticed the blog post was published somewhat recently, so maybe it's a freshness issue?

My best guess,

Ruben

[Paddy_Moogan]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the question.

I'm not sure if you've made changes already or if things are fluctuating right now, but I see your category page ranking for the keyword "twin dvd player" - not the advice page. I am however seeing your advice pay rank for "site radio" and understand that this is a problem.

In case you haven't seen it yet, this post from Rand is an old one but still very relevant to this topic.

There are a few things that you can look at here that can play a part in the wrong page ranking:

• External links to the page - I can't see many links at all but this is definitely a big factor
• Internal links to the page - you mentioned this and your site architecture looks logical
• Content of the page - I'd look for ways of being unique, useful content onto the category page so that it becomes more than just a list of products. I'd look to incorporate things like unique reviews for the products on that page, extra content on how to choose the best product, technical considerations etc. I know this is tricky as you don't want to push the products too far down the page, but with some good design, it can be done
• Page title - I'd possible look at making the page titles of your advice centre pages a bit more focused on the types of keywords someone would use when looking for this content. For example one keyword may be "Tips for Buying a DVD Player" "DVD player buying guide" etc which may help Google undertstand that this page is more to do with advice and info rather than products themselves

The other thing I'd recommend (this isn't a long term solution but makes the best of the short term) is to add some product images to your advice pages so that you stand a good chance of getting someone to click through to the product page and convert. You could choose your most popular three or four products and list them at the side. At least this means that people landing on this page stand more chance of converting.

I hope that helps!

Paddy