New Keywords stealing juice?

[Boodreaux]

I already rank on the first page for all 13 of my main keyword terms.  Is it possible for me to start ranking for additional key words on those page by adding additional content on the pages?   How much impact will this have and will the new keywords still juice from my already good keywords?

Also if I am already ranking well for those key words...with really horrible URL's.  Would it be possible to add my new key words into the URL's?  Since the current URL's seem to have nothing to do with my current rankings maybe I can keep my current rankings but then also get a huge boost for my new keyword rankings?

Thank you,

Boodreaux the novice.

PS.  I have already heard the great advice of keeping my old site map up for a while after I change the URL's in order to let google catch up and re-index the site.

[AlanMosley]

You do run the risk of changing the meaning of the page if you add content relative to new keywords, I would include a new page. it depends on the keywords and the content of cause.

Adding keywords to the url would not be enouth by itself and changing the urls would mean you would have to do a 301 and a 301 leaks link juice.

[EGOL]

We have a lot of short articles on our site that were first posted several years ago.  We are enhancing them with much more substantive text, more images and captions.  All of this information is on the same topic - just greater detail.

As we add this new information we see an immediate increase in long tail traffic as search incorporates the new words that appear on the page and new images get into image search.  We also usually see improved rankings.

[Boodreaux]

Thanks for your response Alan!    The new keyword is related strongly to the old keyword and has just as much traffic and same difficulty as my term.

My site has been up for only  4 months. Will I still have to use the 301? Why not just put the new page out there without a redirect? Maybe have both pages with duplicate content and remove the old one once the  the spiders/crawlers pick it up?

Here is an example of my the end of my url after my domain name. It has no relevance or meaning whatsoever.

/search/index/subspecialty/262043

[AlanMosley]

if you have links, then you can use a 301 to redirect the links, if there is no links then yes make the changes now before you get links, and there is no need for the 301.

My point is 301's leak link juice, they also become hard to manage after a time, so use them sparingly.

[Boodreaux]

Okay...so 301's are for links....gotcha.  My 12 pages do not have any external  links on them except for internal links.  Are 301's necessary for internal links?

[Boodreaux]

Thanks....EGOL,  I have started to add some substantive text in the form of a  "page envelope" that you had mentioned a few weeks ago and it seems to be really helping right now.

I can't wait to start adding images. (fast loading ones)  When you say captions do you mean just captions under the images?

[AlanMosley]

No, you should change your internal links,

A 301 does not pass all the link juice, so you should avoid them.

With internal links you have the power to point them at a new url or remove them, but with external links you for the most part do not have the power to change the link, so them it may be necessary to use a 301.

Many people over use them, they use them willy nilly.

[EGOL]

Yes.... we place a lightly colored box under each image and use that as a space to give a generous keyword-rich description.  We also use that space to attribute the image to source or creator - sometimes with a link.

A typical article might have 2000 words, six images and several hundred words of image descriptions.

We also love to include data tables in our articles.  These could be locations, numbers, names, etc... .whatever small data summaries that might add interest to the article.

[AlanMosley]

Egol have you thought about marking them up with schema.org

they have a schema for datatables also

i use html5 artcle tag, also the article schema, and relate the images to the article, by using the imageOject representativeOfPage property

[EGOL]

That is a good idea, Alan.

So far I have not been using schema... but google does grab some of my tabled content for display in the SERPs.

I have not used schema because I honestly don't want to figure it out and procrastinate that job by writing content.

I wake up in the morning and look at my job list and say... "I should do schema today." .... then.... say... "I don't want to do that, I'll work on an article instead".

I really should do it... thanks for the push.

[AlanMosley]

Its a lot of work, but you can copy and paste or use other ways of reusing code.

one day hay