Why does Google pick a low priority page on my site?

[isaac663]

Hi Guys.

One of my pages ranks quite well for "mid year diaries 14-15" on Google.  The problem is it's a really specific product page (A4, Hardback, day-to-a-page diary I think).

It would be much better for the user to land on our mid-year diaries category, not really deep into the site.  Why is Google prioritizing this product page over our general 'mid year diaries' category?

Especially when the category would relate to the search more accurately?

I work for TOAD diaries and I think our page rank is 10 for this search.

Eagerly awaiting some insight

Thanks in advance everyone!

Isaac.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Issac,

Keyword cannibalisation is pretty much exactly that. This is why it is important for pages to be as unique as possible.

The two below are sort of a similar thing, except the first one refers to linking to your key pages from a product page by way of a short sentence that has a link with some nice on-topic anchor text leading off.

• On your product pages, have a text link back to the key page that isn't the crumb-trail. You can also do this from other pages closer to the homepage
• Internal Links to your key pages

-Andy

[isaac663]

Hi Andy!  Thankyou sooooooo much!  I'm kinda new to this.  I worked for them for while as a product guy. I realised the SEO was lacking and so I've sorta stepped into that role.

Makes a lot of sense, I will defiantly be implementing some changes.

Not sure what you meant by links that aren't the 'crumb trail'.  And also what did you mean by keyword cannibalisation?  Is that just having more than one page that you try to optimise for the same keywords?

Again thankyou so much.

Isaac.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Issac,

In these circumstances, there are a few things to look at.

• Internal Links to your key pages
• External links to key pages
• Add some unique content to these pages. There is no content currently on them http://www.toaddiaries.co.uk/shop/custom-diaries/mid-year-diaries-14-15
• On your product pages, have a text link back to the key page that isn't the crumb-trail. You can also do this from other pages closer to the homepage
• Make sure there is no keyword cannibalisation going on that could cause Google to choose one page over another
• There is no rel=canonical on any of the pages. Add these so that they self canonicalise
• Check to see if your key pages are indexed by Google. This often goes unnoticed and can have you chasing your tail

See how you get on with those. There are other lesser possibilities, but these should give you some good starting points.

-Andy