What to do when the wrong pages rank highly for your keywords

Imagine you’ve spent countless hours perfecting your website’s content, optimising it for specific keywords that your target audience frequently searches for. Yet, when you finally check your rankings, you discover that the wrong pages are showing up for those important keywords.

This frustrating scenario happens more often than you might think.

For instance, a local bakery aiming to rank its “custom wedding cakes” page may find that its “daily specials” page ranks instead, leading to missed opportunities and confused potential customers.

This can also have a damaging effect on your SEO efforts.

When the wrong pages rank highly for your keywords, it can negatively impact your clickthrough rate, increase bounce rates, and send negative signals to search engines about your site’s relevance.

But don’t worry – there are practical steps you can take to fix this.

Why Does This Happen?

Search engines like Google use complex algorithms to determine which pages to show in search results, based on a mix of relevance, content quality, and user engagement signals. However, these algorithms are not perfect and sometimes promote the wrong page. The following issues contribute to this:

1. Lack of a Focused Page: You may not have a dedicated page optimised for the specific keyword you want to rank for.
2. Keyword Cannibalisation: Multiple pages on your site are optimised for the same keyword, causing them to compete with each other.
3. Content Ambiguity: The page content may not be clear enough about its focus, leading search engines to misinterpret its relevance.
4. Improper Internal Linking: Internal links may be pointing to the wrong page, confusing search engines about which page should rank for the keyword.
5. External Links: Other websites may be linking to the wrong page, boosting its authority for a keyword it wasn’t intended to rank for.

Step-by-Step Guide to Fixing the Issue

1. Identify the Problem

Perform a Site Search: Start by running a search query using site:yourdomain.com keyword (inserting the appropriate domain address and keyword, as appropriate) into Google.

This will bring up a list of all the pages from your website that Google might return in response to a search using that keyword or phrase.

Can you see the page you want to rank for that keyword or are other, less relevant pages more prominent?

As you can see from the image below, performing the site search for our website with a relevant keyword for this article brought up this article first. This is the most relevant page.

Many businesses find it helpful to create a keyword map of their website. This means drawing out the structure of the site and identifying the focus keyword for each page, then performing a search for each keyword and seeing whether the right page appears in SERPs.

Check Google Search Console: Another option is to log into Google Search Console and look at the site’s performance to examine which pages are getting impressions for the keywords in question. Are these the right pages?

2. Optimise the Right Page

Ensure Focused Content: Make sure you have a page that is highly relevant to the keyword and covers the topic in detail. The content should be unique, clear, and focused on the keyword’s intent.

Improve On-Page SEO: Update the title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and alt tags on the page to better match the keyword.

Add Internal Links: Use relevant anchor text to link from other pages on your site to the page you want to rank.

Check Technical SEO: Ensure the page is crawlable and not blocked by robots.txt. Make sure it loads quickly and has no technical errors.

3. Degrade the Wrong Page

Adjust Content: Modify the content of the wrongly ranked page to remove or reduce the focus on the target keyword.

Update Internal Links: Change internal links that are pointing to the wrong page, directing them instead to the correct page.

External Link Outreach: Politely request any external sites that are linking to the wrong page to update their links to the correct page.

Consider Redirects: If all else fails, consider deleting the wrong page and using a 301 redirect to point it to the correct page.

Real-Life Example:

Let’s consider the case of a home decor retailer with an online store. They notice that their general “wall decor” page is ranking for the keyword “wooden picture frames,” even though they have a specific “wooden picture frames” product page. To fix this:

1. They optimised the “wooden picture frames” page by adding more detailed content, including customer reviews, high-quality images with alt tags, and relevant internal links.
2. They adjusted the meta title and description to make it more appealing and relevant to searchers.
3. They identified that several blog posts were linking to the “wall decor” page with anchor text related to wooden frames. They updated these links to point to the correct page.
4. They monitored Google Search Console to track changes and eventually saw the “wooden picture frames” page climbing in the rankings.

Above all else, when optimising your pages it’s crucial to focus on the searchers’ intent:

• What does someone using a certain keyword expect to see on your website?
• What information or product are they looking for?

Small changes that are designed to improve the user experience can make a big difference in which pages rank in Google and other search engines.

Conclusion

When the wrong pages rank highly for your target keywords, it can be frustrating and damaging to your SEO efforts. By identifying the issue, optimising the right pages, and carefully degrading the incorrect ones, you can steer your SEO strategy back on track. Keep in mind that these changes might take time to reflect in search engine rankings, but persistence and careful monitoring will yield results.

If you’re struggling with this issue, consider reaching out to us and we’ll help diagnose and correct the problem, ensuring your website performs at its best.

Call SEO+ on 01626 270085 or fill in the form on the contact page