Why is google ranking me higher for pages that aren't optimised for keywords those that are?

[Towelsrus]

I am finding that our homepage and other pages are being ranked higher against keywords that we have optimised other pages for.

e.g Keyword: Luxury Towels

Google Ranks our homepage http://www.towelsrus.co.uk at 20 for this and the page I am trying to rank for it is nowhere to be seen http://www.towelsrus.co.uk/sport-spa/luxury-towels/catlist_fnct498.htm

Why is this and is this why our position for certain keywords fluctuates? How do I remedy this problem?

[SEOAndy]

The short and long of it is that Google seems to find your homepage more relevant than the page you linked. Maybe that's through keywords and content. Also the second page you want to rank for, the URL is very strange with the catlist at the end.

Is it a page that is standalone and static or is it a page that just grabs all the products in the list and puts them together in a template page? (if that makes sense)

[Towelsrus]

Hi Simon,

Understood. These pages are category list pages so when a new category is product the template pull that data in. So the majority of page we are using to rank end with this catlist (70/80 categories). URLS are auto generated based on the category titles and product titles.