Say, for example, you were optimizing a site from the ground up for the NFL. For the index page, to which you have sought out a ton of backlinks, you have optimized for all the key search terms (nfl, national football league, pro football, etc...) relating to football. For my question about sub pages I'll use the individual teams as an example.
Say someone searches for "Philadelphia Eagles". You have a link to thesite.com/philadelphia-eagles.html on the home page, but nothing else that specific to the Eagles in particular on the homepage. Will the chances of thesite.com/philadelphia-eagles.html ranking high for a SERP depend mainly on the "power" of the home page, or would it depend more on how optimized for "Philadelphia Eagles" that specific page is? Also, after conducting an extensive link campaign for the home page, would you in turn have to go out and get links to each specific team page on your site?
My particular case is for a law firm site. For the past few months we've been working on optimization and now I got the firm to start writing content for each individual practice area. So instead of trying to squeeze specific practice areas into the optimization of the home page, like, say, using H2 tags for every team in the NFL for the example above, now we can start optimizing each practice area page for the terms specific to each practice area. So, for my case, I shouldn't start link campaigns for each particular area, right? It should all come off the "power" of the home page from what I gather. I'm basing this off my actual 9-5 job's company's site, which is a PR7, and we have pages that haven't been updated in two years that maybe 10 people visit a month, which are PR5's.
it depends on how competitive "the eagles" are and how "powerful" the home page is. usually most commercial sites of that nature also would want to build links to their internal pages.
So, for my case, I shouldn't start link campaigns for each particular area, right? It should all come off the "power" of the home page from what I gather.
it depends on how competitive "the eagles" are and how "powerful" the home page is. usually most commercial sites of that nature also would want to build links to their internal pages.
Well, the home page isn't that powerful, per se, so I guess I'll try a getting a few external links to one of the sub pages and compare to the other sub pages without external links and see what happens.
Could anyone elaborate more on this topic. My site is different from the site mentioned above. I have a new site. Am I better off just optimizing the homepage and the sub pages at the same time?
Also, say your home page is optimized for NFL and your sub pages are for titanium bats. Would it be helpful to swap links for sites that are about Titanium and also for sites that are about Bats?
One way of doing it, which seems more effective today than it did in the past, is to get a lot of links to the home page, with all the different keywords in them.
In the past, it worked best to get the links to the specific pages. So, if I wanted to rank for "Suzuki Bikes", I would get links with that anchor text to www.suzuki-bikes.com
Thanks John I appreciate the reply. That will definately help. I'm kinda new at SEO.
Also, as an example. Would getting links from sites that are based around bikes such as Beach cruiser bikes also benefit you? Or do they need to be really specific and be about motor bikes? Im just trying to find different sites to get links from that wont just copy my sub pages themselves.
"Relevancy" is in the eye of the beholder. Irrelevant links can help, but I would say the best links are the ones that come from pages with your keyowrds in the title. Just a hunch there, but I would recommend any kind of relevant links.
I have noticed with my blogs that Google likes tight little packets, so if I want to be found for "circus tents" the index should be focused on tents in a tight little wiki, like that suzuki bike example John shows.
If you are then interested in selling suzuki mufflers a subpage will work after your site has:
1.) age
2.) aged backlinks
3.) developed a site flavor
On the site flavor thing ask yourself, does Google know who I am? If the answer is "yes" then you are ready to build out, if the answer is "no" work on developing you relationship with the engines more.
I see that Google knows the suzuki site is about "suzuki bikes" but not much else yet correct?
I see that Google knows the suzuki site is about "suzuki bikes" but not much else yet correct?
Haven't looked into it. I worked on that site some two or three years ago, and then stopped altogether because it gets good traffic without my help. Often times it gets more traffic than even v7n.
I have seen sites like that, it is best to sometimes leave them alone if they have solid traffic. A guy who I know owns a lawn care site that is 2-3 years old, he recently put a few links to other sites at the bottom of his index.html and it dropped off the charts, removed them and it returned. Fluid algorithm.
I would go with external links to the content pages. Varying the anchor text to your index is important as well, but not always practical. On my ESL site I have a content page about writing business emails. I want it to rank for business emails and similar terms but for my homepage I want to rank for ESL and English as a second language...
I'd go with John here get mixed links to the homepage - particularly helpful if dealing with new sites - then move on to internal linkage which can be more time-consuming as not all webmasters are familiar with linking to internal pages.
Ranking with the internal pages is much like a homepage - its all down to how competitive your phrases are.
(also you will get auto-link forms that wont cater for the internal extensions)
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