SEO RANKING ISSUE | Category Page Trumping Homepage

[JMSCC]

This post is deleted!

[Jono_M]

In the situation of a user searching for grapes and getting to your home page, is their next likely click going to the grapes category? If so, Google's saving users a click by getting them right to where they want to be. I'd recommend working on that page to improve engagement & conversion before trying tactics to force visitors to your home page.

[JMSCC]

Hi Jono,

Thank you so much for your response. My reports have been showing substantially higher conversion rate for traffic landing on the homepage versus the category page. This is why I'm considering tactics to force visitors to the homepage. I believe the category page is structurally desirable to Google's crawlers but the homepage steers users to actually convert.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Jonathan,

There are normally a couple of reasons for this happening.

1. The category landing page is more suited to the users search intent, or
2. There is some keyword cannibalisation going on so Google returns the page it deems best

The fix for 1) is often to devalue the page that you don't really want appearing. This is done in a number of ways, but you will know best regarding the product.

The fix for 2) is to make sure that only 1 page is trying to get that key phrase, rather than both of them. Keyword duplication is a very common issue in these cases.

It sounds to me like 2) is your problem, but kinda hard to tell without seeing. If it is, you might also want to think about creating a strong internal linking strategy.

-Andy

[JMSCC]

Hi Andy,

Thank you for responding. The category page consists of links only and how would I devalue a page?

Thanks again,

Jon

[Andy.Drinkwater]

The best thing I would do Jonathan, is take a look at this Whiteboard Friday from Rand, because it should answer a lot of questions that you have. It is specifically about what to do when the wrong pages rank.

From what you are telling me, it sounds like the category page might be a doorway page, but clearly Google isn't seeing it as such.

Would I advise pointing it with a canonical tag? Probably not, but I would work on making your homepage much better. Look to add not only amazing content, but do some keyword research and add in synonyms / LSI / similar keywords to help Google better understand what the page is about.

-Andy