Today’s Ask an SEO question comes from Nafsika from Hamburg, Germany, who asks:
I have two pages in order for the same keyword: a product page and a glossary article.
The glossary article ranks better, but the product page is more important (and therefore should rank higher).
Is there a way to make the product page rank higher without hurting the performance of the glossary article? “
Nafsika, this is a great question and a pain point for many SEO professionals.
Emmanuel in London asked me a similar question, namely: How can I drive more traffic to targeted landing pages?
Many of the same principles apply but I’ll link specifically to product pages and informational articles (eg glossary articles).
Here are some things I will do.
1. Analyze top ranking pages
If you haven’t already, identify the pages that rank in the top 5 to 10 positions in search results.
I would suggest you use an SEO tool to help you in this task.
For example, you can use files SpyFuAnd SERankingAnd smrash or Ahrefs (I could keep using tools… there are many that can do this for you) to see which pages are ranking for your target keyword.
Then you will specify the following:
intention
When you look at the front pages, what is the purpose of the page? In other words, is there a “buy” intent or a “know” intent?
If your higher-ranking pages focus on information, such as articles or blog posts, this shows you that the search engine’s intent for that keyword is “know.”
You’ll need to get creative with your product page to rank higher than your glossary article, which I’ll get to later.
You can read more about intent in my other article: How to Drill Down for Keyword Research: Navigation Tools and Techniques.
Side note: I’m pretty sure I mention intention in almost all of my articles.
Yes, I’m a record breaker, but for good reason.
Search engines do their best to process the searcher’s intent, and so should we.
We need to ensure that the page the searcher finds satisfies his query.
The number of words
Word count is a bit controversial when it comes to SEO recommendations because there is no one-size-fits-all answer as to how many words should be on a page.
In addition, John Mueller told us last year that the number of words in an article is not a quality factor that Google considers.
However, I think word count plays a role when you look at the higher ranking pages.
There is usually normal behavior when it comes to higher ranking pages.
If these first pages are full of content, this could be a reason why the glossary article is outperforming your product page, assuming the glossary article has a higher word count than your product page.
2. Make edits to your content
Now, what do you do with the information from this analysis?
If you find the intent is “to know” or informative and the word count is higher on higher-ranking pages than on your product page, you’ll need to get creative with the content on your product page (since this is the content you want to rank for your target keyword).
One of the things I’ve done when working on e-commerce sites is adding frequently asked questions to category and product pages.
This adds more content in a useful way and can also improve conversions.
Also, make sure your page is marked up with structured data.
3. Focus on links
When I say to focus on links, I’m referring to backlinks and internal links.
Let’s start with internal links.
When linking to your internal pages, you should use optimized anchor text, i.e. your keywords.
In the case of the product page and the terms article, double check that you are not using the same keyword as the anchor text when linking to these pages. Also, consider linking your product page to your glossary article (again using enhanced anchor text).
This is where a keyword map, which maps keywords to pages, can be really useful.
Finally, have a look at the backlinks to the glossary article and product page.
Backlinks are one of the many ranking factors to consider.
If you find that your glossary article has stronger backlinks than your product page, that would be an area for improvement.
Watch this webinar, How to Create Links for Ecommerce and Affiliate Sites, to get some ideas.
4. Consider revising your keyword list
All of my advice is to help you get your product page to rank higher than your glossary article, but that may not be the best move.
Alternatively, you might consider finding new keywords to target and update your keyword mapping.
Aleh Barysevich wrote a great article on this topic that dives into keyword cannibalization: How to Identify and Eliminate Keyword Cannibalization to Boost SEO.
Nafsika Thanks for the great question, and good luck!
More resources:
- How to Optimize Category Pages for Ecommerce with Informational Copy
- What’s Best for Product Pages and SEO: Content or Backlinks?
- How to Do SEO Keyword Research: The Ultimate Guide
Editor’s note: Ask an SEO is a weekly SEO advice column written by some of the industry’s top SEO experts, hand-selected by Search Engine Journal. Do you have a question about search engine optimization? Fill out our form. You may see your answer in the next #AskanSEO post!
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