axessJosh
asked on
Google Search Result question
I was just checking how a post was ranking for a specific title I wrote about. I found that I am showing on the 2nd page of Google for the keywords "Periscope for Churches". This is a small victory for me as I am just getting myself up to speed with SEO and best practices.
However, my question is a bit of a concern as well, while the site shows well, the page indexed for the keywords is my main blog page that shows all my posts, not the specific post.
Is that something I should be concerned about?
However, my question is a bit of a concern as well, while the site shows well, the page indexed for the keywords is my main blog page that shows all my posts, not the specific post.
Is that something I should be concerned about?
ASKER
Thanks Jason.
I am using the Yoast SEO plugin and did a bunch to the post to try to optimize as well.
Is there anything I should do to the main blog page perhaps to "force" the posts higher? I can see that being a huge no-no since that page is ranking.
I am using the Yoast SEO plugin and did a bunch to the post to try to optimize as well.
Is there anything I should do to the main blog page perhaps to "force" the posts higher? I can see that being a huge no-no since that page is ranking.
I'd have to see the site to give a definitive answer. Also, what's your current bounce rate?
ASKER
Okay, so /blog/ is the page of concern?
It's kind of what I thought...you are publishing the full post on /blog/ so there is no real reason for users to click through to the post itself. Is the 65% bounce for the site an overall bounce or is that specific to /blog/ ?
I'll take a wild guess that average time on page for /blog/ is a minute or more?
It's kind of what I thought...you are publishing the full post on /blog/ so there is no real reason for users to click through to the post itself. Is the 65% bounce for the site an overall bounce or is that specific to /blog/ ?
I'll take a wild guess that average time on page for /blog/ is a minute or more?
ASKER
yep.
should I setup the blog page to only have a short snippet of the article? I didn't realize it was doing that.
I put on my twitter feed the link to the actual post.
should I setup the blog page to only have a short snippet of the article? I didn't realize it was doing that.
I put on my twitter feed the link to the actual post.
Not sure what you should do at this point, because /blog/ is ranking. Any change will likely result in a drop while Google figures things out and re-ranks.
Having the full post on /blog/ isn't the end of the world, it just causes the behavior you are currently seeing. If you want to switch to image/snippet/link, you will need to pay close attention to the bounce/exit metrics on blog to make sure you aren't losing people before they go to the post and also pay attention to fluctuations between /blog/ and the post's rankings to make sure the change is having the desired effect.
How often are blogs posted?
Having the full post on /blog/ isn't the end of the world, it just causes the behavior you are currently seeing. If you want to switch to image/snippet/link, you will need to pay close attention to the bounce/exit metrics on blog to make sure you aren't losing people before they go to the post and also pay attention to fluctuations between /blog/ and the post's rankings to make sure the change is having the desired effect.
How often are blogs posted?
ASKER
right now, my posts are very sporadic.
As part of my goal to increase our SEO results, I am working to get much more consistent and I can foreseeable handle weekly posts. Definitely not there yet but just started a couple weeks ago.
when the site was built, SEO was not factored in so I am having to go through now and divide up pages to be better optimized for keywords and such.
As part of my goal to increase our SEO results, I am working to get much more consistent and I can foreseeable handle weekly posts. Definitely not there yet but just started a couple weeks ago.
when the site was built, SEO was not factored in so I am having to go through now and divide up pages to be better optimized for keywords and such.
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Google tends to give the main page more weight anyway, so if your main page is all of the posts or all recent posts and you are not publishing tons of new content, I would expect to see the main page outrank the single post page.
The "bad" part of this is that you could be on page 2 of the results because this looks like duplicate content and/or the content is seen as stale.