Which page will rank higher, my main article or the sub article linking from it?

[Leebi]

Hi all,

Can you help me figure this one out?

I'm currently creating content for my website and I very badly want to know which page will rank higher in Google, my main article that has some keywords that are and links to my sub-article, or my sub-article which is optimized for those keywords?

I will demonstrate with an example since I'm not sure my question is clear: If I have an article that talks about different kinds of candy and it links to a sub-article that will elaborate on specific candies like a mint candy ,which page will rank for mint candies.

Until today I believed that if my sub-article which is linked from my main-article will rank for mint candies since it gets the support from my main article.Lately when experimenting this I found my thoughts to be wrong.

Can anyone help me with this one?Any insights?

Thanks,

Leebi

[EGOL]

Google uses a lot of factors to determine which page or pages of a website will rank for a specific keyword.   To make a very simple example, which is probably realistic in most situations, we can attribute the ranking of a webpage for Keyword X mainly to two factors:   the strength of the page, and the optimization of the page for the specific keyword.

Let's assume that Google uses (strength * optimization).

By that, a weak page with perfect optimization, could be outranked by a strong page with weak optimization.   This is probably what you are seeing on your site right now.

Most sites have homepages that are stronger than interior pages, so seeing the homepage outrank an interior page is not uncommon.  It is expected to happen a lot.  When it happens for you, it means that your interior page doesn't have the strength to compete, and in that situation you should give thanks that your homepage is ranking because otherwise your interior page would be buried.

You should give thanks for another reason.  When your interior page gets strong enough to rank on the first page, you will probably have a double listing (two pages on the first page of the SERPs for that query).

If you want to change this outcome, the best work to do is to get more internal and external links into your interior page to improve its strength.

[Leebi]

Thanks for your time Egol!

[Smileworks_Liverpool]

It's right what you say but i've seen some evidence that google is going even further now.  It's about establishing what are the doorways into your site from the serps.  Some people might be looking for just 'candy' and they may see your site in the serps.  But probably not since that's supremely competitive.

So the most efficient way I've found is to divide all the content up into 'categories' or topics.  So these could be toffees, mints, chews etc. Then you must take a view on what the user wants.  Do you think there are people out there who want to see pages about only hard mints with soft mints on another page.  Or have both of them on the same page. If you get too granular then you might fall foul of the new maccabees update that penalises for having loads of articles targeting keyword variations.

To give you an example from my business, I have veneers, dental implants, whitening and routine dentistry.  Then on each of those pages I have before and afters, prices, procedure, and pretty much everything on there using H2's and schema to pick up specific queries in blue as hyperlinks in the serps.

Comprehensiveness is very important. If I want my pages to rank they must include EVERYTHING users want to know about that thing. So for 'mint candy' i'll want to see hard, soft, sugar free etc etc.

Always be testing. I've had success incorporating reports and videos into the pages too.  So you could have a report about how your candy is made or a commercial from a mint candy company or whatever.

But most important is to model the topics of the high performing competitors and be comprehensive and helpful and answer the query. Don't worry too much about internal linking so long as the links are natural, use anchor text and obey your structure and hierarchy of topics.

My home page doesn't rank for anything. But we make millions of pounds a year from our Veneers, Implants and Whitening pages. So maybe you need to focus less on the homepage.

[Leebi]

Hey Ed,

thanks for clarifying this.