Homepage Focus Keyword?

[jross]

Hi All,

When focused on onsite SEO, should your homepage focus keyword be your brand or a keyword for your business?

Specifically, I manage The Magnes Group, an insurance broker with four offices across Canada. Would I be better served using 'Magnes Group' as our homepage keyword or 'insurance broker'?

Are there pros and cons to each?

Thank you

 

[Tim Kahlert]

Hi jross!

Whenever your brand name contains the keyword you can simply try to rank your homepage for that term as well. If the brand name doesn't contain the keyword I would advise everyone to avoid optimizing the homepage for a money keyword. The reason for that is because the homepage is supposed to reflect your brand and inform visitors about your business in general. If you then try to optimize the homepage for another money keyword, the relevance of the page decreases. Not only the target group will find it more irrelevant but people who directly search for your brand might be confused as they expected a more broad range of services and instead get a quite specific page about only one service. Another con is that you prevent yourself from promoting an expanded business on search. If you want to expand and focus on a quite different market and your homepage ranks for a specific service, that´d be a bad situation.

I'd make sure to promote your services as best as you can in terms of internal links and descriptions so that you make it easy for people who arrive on your brand page (homepage) to find whatever they hope to find.

That whole scenario changes if your brand name contains the keyword by nature because then all people already know about the major service you offer. Having the keyword inside the business name often makes sense for companies with a very small range of services. A good example would be a towing service that mostly offers towing and maybe roadside assistance but nothing else in particular.

 

[jross]

Hi jross!

Whenever your brand name contains the keyword you can simply try to rank your homepage for that term as well. If the brand name doesn't contain the keyword I would advise everyone to avoid optimizing the homepage for a money keyword. The reason for that is because the homepage is supposed to reflect your brand and inform visitors about your business in general. If you then try to optimize the homepage for another money keyword, the relevance of the page decreases. Not only the target group will find it more irrelevant but people who directly search for your brand might be confused as they expected a more broad range of services and instead get a quite specific page about only one service. Another con is that you prevent yourself from promoting an expanded business on search. If you want to expand and focus on a quite different market and your homepage ranks for a specific service, that´d be a bad situation.

I'd make sure to promote your services as best as you can in terms of internal links and descriptions so that you make it easy for people who arrive on your brand page (homepage) to find whatever they hope to find.

That whole scenario changes if your brand name contains the keyword by nature because then all people already know about the major service you offer. Having the keyword inside the business name often makes sense for companies with a very small range of services. A good example would be a towing service that mostly offers towing and maybe roadside assistance but nothing else in particular.

Hi Tim,

This is fantastic - thank you! I really appreciate the guidance here.

 

[Tim Kahlert]

Hi Tim,

This is fantastic - thank you! I really appreciate the guidance here.

You're very welcome!