Why the Wrong Page is Ranking First in the Search Results (and How You Can Fix It)

You’ve used every ethical SEO tactic you know, put in hours of work, and what felt like forever, your page is finally ranking for one of your top keyword choices. Hurray!

There’s just one little problem. It’s the wrong page. The one you want people to go to is still listed a little further down the SERPs. What happened?

• Similar on-page optimization. If two pages have very similar optimization, with repetitive keywords, anchor text, descriptions, ect., it’s very likely that the two pages may also have very similar places in the SERPs as well. Make sure you have a definite idea of how you want each page to rank, and for what, and use keywords that are different enough to give you the results you’re looking for.
• Internal anchor text problems. If you want a page to rank for “bologna sandwiches”, that should be what your internal anchor links to that page are saying. If “bologna sandwiches” links could get you to one of several pages on your website, it won’t be very effective at getting traffic to the right page.
• External links. When external websites link to your pages, that can help to move the pages up in the SERPs. Sometimes this will work in your favor, but other times outside sites may be giving lots of ‘link love’ to the page that may not be your first choice for the top ranking position. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about this other than try to market your other (preferred) page a bit more.
• Relevancy issues. Search engines look at each site to determine how relevant the content is to the keywords being used. If you’re main keyword (used in meta data and anchor links) is “bologna sandwiches”, but most of your text is about bread varieties or different types of sandwiches, it won’t be as effective as if the main topic was bologna sandwiches. Your content should be centered on your main keyword or keyword combination.

Over 75% of the time, if your SEO efforts aren’t matching up with your results, it’s because you and the search engine are having a difficult time communicating. If you notice that the top search results for your site aren’t the pages you want to be featured, you need to go back through your on-site SEO and make sure you’re telling the search engines what you think you’re telling them.  If things aren’t matching up, reconstructing some of your SEO efforts may be all you need to get the correct page into the most prominent position on the search engine result pages.

Related posts:

1. Social Search: Google’s Personal Search Results
2. Social Media Influence Counts for Search Engine Page Rank
3. Search Operator Basics for SEO
4. Keywords for Mobile Search
5. How do Search Engines Work?