Homepage not ranking main keywords - structure error?

[advertisingtech]

Dear, Moz community

We have an issue. We have a classified advertisement website. Our website is built like this**homepage (**Optimized for main keyword, has latest listings from all categories ) - category 1 (we did not want to add alteration of the keyword we want to rank homepage, as we thought this would "compete" with homepage) - category 2 - category 3 - **category **4 The listing URLs look like this www.example.com/categoryname/listingname Now the issue is that the homepage is not ranking at all for the main keywords. When we used URL structure like this "example.com/main-keyword-listing-id" homepage was ranking (other sites).  Now with new site we used the best practice and added url's as described above (/categoryname/listingid).This caused our homepage not to rank at all for the main keywords.What did we do wrong? We want our homepage to rank for the main keyword and categories for theirs. Should we 1. Change the category 1 name to main keyword (maybe some long tail) so we have the main keyword in URLs? So at least one of the main categories has the main keyword in the listing URLs2. Should we change the category listing urls all back to /main-keyword-listing-id? We thought that this was a bit spammy, so that´s why we used categories. _This means that all listings have same URL name and not best for ranking cateogries_3. Just link back to homepage internally with the main keyword and google should catch that? _Currently in menu you go to homepage clicking HOME but we can add for example our main keyword there - Latest car advertisements _I would be happy of any feedback.

[Moreleads]

Hi Advertisingtech,

So first of all is the new site not ranking for any of the main keywords or is the problem that other pages are ranking for them but not the homepage.

in the first case this could be due to a number of reasons but with a new site authority (inbound links) could be a maior issue.

If pages are ranking but just not your homepage that you should thoroughly analyse your onpage content  and see why google thinks these pages are a better match and amend the content accordingly.

Your strategy for url´s structure is correct and follow best practices as you said, this wouldn´t be the issue.  You could use sa part of the url the main keyword. e.g:

a real estate classified website: category url for family homes in palm springs --> xxxx.com/real-estate/family-homes/palm-springs

[advertisingtech]

Hello,

None of the pages are ranking for the target keyword.

I must add that category pages are ranking fine for their Keywords, but as I optimized my homepage for the main keyword im having an issue.

I do not want to optimize homepage for some random keyword and then the category for the MAIN one. So I´m thinking - make one of the categories with similar name as the main keyword - this will result in quite a few listings with the keyword in url and give homepage the relevance? But if the main keyword is lets say Cars in Florida then i could name the category itself Florida car advertisements ? They should not compete and give relevance?

[Moreleads]

Hi Advertisingtech,

I´m not so sure today about this technique (though i have used it much in the past) and i do think they could compete.  As usually is the case the main keyword for the homepage is more general and more competetive i still think authority strength could be the issue, and increasing relevance wouldn´t solve this.  Since it is called search engine optimisation though,nothing keeping you from implementing your idea and see the results.

Let me know if it worked out

[Rajesh.Prajapati]

Is your site appeared with brand name and domain name? If no then share your domain name or if yes, then update with unique keyword which don't have any other page.