Optimizing for Date Sensitive Products/Services

[GroupPublishing]

We have a product that we currently rank number one for, but would like to capture the date modified variations of the term (such as event 2011 or product 2012). My question is - what would be the best way to optimize for a date senstive product/service?

Would it be better to include the date variation of the term on the main page for the product? Or should we create a new page entirely to capture this variation? I lean towards optimizing the existing page because the intent is the same whether a user is searching for product or product 2012.

I should mention that the previous year versions of the product are not available.

Merci.

Chris Thompson

[eyepaq]

That's a nice scenario.
My opinion is definitely to optimize the same page (no need to start from scrach and build a new one if you already rank for the main keyword) and that dosen't  necessarily means to edit it or do any on-page SEO sessions on it - although that will help.

My suggestion is to build a few links with the date after the main keyword in the anchor text. If you rank for productx and you need to rank with the same page for product x 2012 you should build a few links with a productx 2012 anchor text.
If you can include those years/dates within the page and maybe squeeze them into the title too that will help - but be aware nit to dilute the page to much so you won't lose ranking for the main keyword you already rank for.

If you rank for productx already, you probably rank for produc x 2012 too - but probabaly not on the top so you'll just need to light it up a little.

Hope it helps as an outside view.

[Dan-Petrovic]

If the term is not competitive you can do quite nicely by just mentioning the year specials on the page as part of the sentence and perhaps a sub heading (H2). However if it's a heavy term you might get some extra points if you have a dedicated title tag / url etc for it therefore a page for 2012 product would be beneficial. Google always says "think about what would be best for users." Perhaps that's something you should ask yourself also, would users benefit from separate pages? If a product page already ranks and has links to it it's much easier to get it ranked for new terms (especially if they are a variation) than pushing a new page from scratch. A happy middle would be new pages but interlinked across offers for different years, therefore passing votes across.

[GroupPublishing]

Love the suggestion to create an H2 and put some content around the dated version. This would make the most sense considering the intent is the same whether looking for our product or product 2012.

Merci.

Chris