Blog Post, Landing Page, or Category Page? (Search Intent Quiz)

0:00If your SEO traffic is declining, I want you to try this exercise. Just go through your pages. Start with your most clicked pages. Your most clicked pages are highest priority because if your traffic is declining, these pages could be next and these pages are where you will feel it the most. So, start going through your pages. Ask yourself what primary keyword is being targeted with this page. Then check if you're using the right page type for the keyword. Not using the right page type is one of the most common SEO mistakes I see with sites that are on a steady decline. I see it over and over again. I saw it

0:36just a couple of days ago. It's why I'm making this episode. I was consulting this company. They have a few thousand pages. Several years ago, they were doing really well with SEO. But over the last couple of years, their traffic has been on this very steady decline down where now the only keywords that they are in position one for are branded keywords. They have lost all their number one non-branded positions. They thought that they were hit with negative SEO, with bad backlinks. It was an attack. It was a glitch. And so the first question that I asked them was cuz I looked at the site and I said, "Okay,

1:14I think this is an intent problem using the wrong pages and the wrong copy." So I looked at the site and I asked them, "When you are putting up new pages and you're targeting keywords properly, do your pages rank?" The answer was, "Yeah, they're actually ranking for the target keywords within 2 weeks. The site had over 40 domain authority and the new pages are ranking and then they're losing their positions. they're ranking and then they're not ranking or they're ranking and they're not getting to high positions. So, this said to me, okay,

1:42the site wasn't hit with some penalty. It wasn't a negative SEO attack. You're able to rank, but you're not holding your positions. And over the last couple of years, you've lost your positions and you've lost your SEO traffic. By positions, I mean your position in a Google search engine result. I see this problem all the time. So, on this episode of the show, I'm going to give examples in SAS, in services, in e-commerce, and you're going to play along with me. You're going to try to guess which page type each example needs, and then I'm going to explain why this is such a major problem. All right,

2:17we're going to start with SAS. The first keyword that we are looking at is top tenant screening tools. Top tenant screening tools. So, I want you to guess with me for all of these keywords. Does it need a blog post, a landing page, or a category page? Blog post, landing page, or a category page. So, top tenant screening tools. What does it need? And the answer is, the answer is top tenant

2:39screening tools should get a blog post. Somebody who is looking for top tenant screening tools. They're looking for a list of tools with features and benefits and pricing compared. That's well researched, that's hopefully kind of neutral. That's what people are looking for when they search top tenant screening tools. How about tenant screening software? Just tenant screening software, blog post, landing page or category page. And the answer is tenant screening software should get a landing page. Should get an SEO landing page. Someone who is searching tenant screening software, they know what they

3:12want. They're not looking for a list. They just want a brand to give them what they want. What about tenant screening software features? This one should be easier. Tenant screening software features. Blog post, landing page, or category page. The answer is a blog post. That one is way more top off ofunnel than tenant screening software and top tenant screening tools. How are you doing so far? Hopefully you are getting the predictions right. But if you're not, then hopefully you're learning. And by the way, now I'm going

3:39to give examples and services in ecom. You can give these examples to the LLM of your choice so that your LLM gets better at predicting what keywords need which page type. That way you can have LLM help you. All right, we're going into services now. Shingle repair Dallas. What type of page should that

3:57get? The answer is a landing page. They're in heat with that keyword. They need a company to come repair their roof. What about PR agencies for service businesses? PR agencies for service businesses. That one is a blog post. People want to hear about what the PR agencies are going to do. They want a list of agencies, where they're located, ratings, comparisons, case studies. It's somewhat high intent, but it's not as

4:23high intent as shingle repair Dallas. What about roof repair cost Dallas? It should be obvious that one is a blog post. You're going to give the costs for different services within roof repair within Dallas. You know, roof repair services in New York could be more expensive. So, you're going to share the prices for different services, the

4:44common prices for roof repair in Dallas. We're moving on to ecom now. The first keyword is handwoven storage baskets. What type of page do we need for this? Do we need a landing page? Do we need a blog post? Do we need a category page? Handwoven storage baskets. The answer is we need a category page for this. You want to see above the fold first. You want to see an H1. You want to see maybe one sentence of introductory text or two sentences. Then you want to see right there a bunch of different handwoven storage baskets with prices, maybe features. What about the keyword how to

5:19choose an ergonomic office chair? How to choose an ergonomic office chair. This one, it starts with how. It'sformational and that one needs a blog post. What about best office chairs for a back pain? Best office chairs for back pain. What does that get? That one gets a blog post or or a category page blog post hybrid that has extra detail. So, it could look like a blog post, but it has the items, it has their ratings, it has their price, it maybe has a few UGC reviews. You also tested them, so you're giving a short description. So, that one is a blog post or category page blog

5:58post hybrid. Two more keywords. And this one is an important differentiator. So, we have Salesforce alternatives. What does that take? That one takes a blog post because it's alternatives plural. People are looking for multiple alternatives with neutral recommendations. What about Salesforce alternative singular? That one takes a landing page. Someone isn't necessarily looking for a list. They might be really

6:23happy with the landing page with that. Now, there's a nuance here that's kind of cool. The nuance is often times targeting singular. So, alternative versus alternatives. Targeting singular can rank you well for the plural because when you do it right, people realize they don't want options. They just want one trusted one. And so, you get satisfied clicks, which means clicks that don't go back to the results to shop around. And then you rank above the listicles. You rank above these blog posts that are just lists of products or lists of companies. So, for example, somebody searches top tenant screening tools. That was the first keyword that

7:00we used in this exercise. Somebody searches top tenant screening tools. They see a page using my page title formula. The page title is tenant screening software. Then a vertical dividing line, fast background and credit checks, another vertical dividing line, and the brand name Landlord Shield. And then people click on this one instead because it's exactly what they need. And now they don't need to do as much research. They go to it, the price isn't egregious. They look at the above the fold. It's exactly what they're looking for. They see some screenshots. Maybe there's some reviews on the page. Oh, wow. This is exactly what I want. Maybe there's not even

7:36reviews, but it's just written exactly for the searcher and they say, "This is exactly what I'm looking for." And they don't have to do research. And so, this one is getting clicked and it's getting satisfied clicks. And so this one is ranking above top tenant screening tools where people have to do more work to sift through results or people just know that clicking on top tenant screening tools, it's not going to be neutral and so they would rather just have this firstparty landing page which at least explains things really clearly and makes it so they don't have to do as much research. The page title formula, I

8:11always share this. It's your target keyword, then a vertical dividing line, then you give the benefit or searcher's goal, another vertical dividing line, and then the brand name. There is another mistake that we need to touch on, and this one is also super common. This is using language improperly, especially in the top portion of your page. So if our keyword is tenant screening software, you want your keyword, you always want your keyword in the page title, the URL slug, the H1, the beginning of the first sentence. The mistake is having this wishywashy nebulous writing just to get the keyword in the first sentence. So the wrong way

8:48to do it is something like looking for tenant screening software. We've got you covered. The right way to do it is tenant screening software from Landlord Shield gives landlords fast access to background checks, credit reports, eviction history, and more. Screen applicants quickly and make more informed rental decisions from one place and then you just have a big call to action button there. Try it or sign up or demo or whatever. The reason that giving the wrong pages or the wrong language is a big problem, it's Google wants to give searchers the most relevant content that also gives the best experience. A lot of people don't even realize that search is that

9:28fundamental. The most relevant content that gives searchers the best experience. And over the last 5 years, Google's algorithms have gotten tighter around detecting mismatched search intent. This problem used to not lose rankings as fast a couple years ago. A couple years ago, you could have lots of pages with mismatched search intent. It wasn't as big a problem as it is now.

9:49Google is much stricter about that. Mismatch search intent. It means searchers are getting relevant content that leaves them unhappy. So, it's imagine you click on some page, it looks perfect, and despite it being relevant to what you searched, it just completely misjudged what you were looking for. And so, what do you do? you go back to the search results to click on something else. And Google sees that. It's called pogo sticking. It's one of the biggest signals that Google uses in judging if content is good. Google literally made Chrome to monitor this to monitor click-through rate to monitor if people are going back and clicking on other

10:27results. pages where people return to Google or to Bing, whatever they searched on, and then they click around without doing another search means that the page is leaving them unhappy. And pages where that doesn't happen, especially where a searcher clicks around on the site, but just a page that where they're not going back to the search results to click on something else, or if they do, they're doing another search. That's a lot better. To finish off this episode, go and do this exercise even if you're not on a decline. Better safe than sorry. Start with your most clicked pages. Ask yourself what primary keyword is being

11:03targeted with this page. Then check if you are using the right page type for the keyword and judge the language that you're using too. If you want to see exactly how I make these pages, these SEO landing pages, these SEO category pages, if you want to see how I find these high intent keywords, keywords where people want a landing page, they want to be sold to, how to structure your site for these SEO landing pages and these category pages, how to build links, how to do an SEO technical audit so you have a strong foundation to build off of, so much more. This is my SEO

11:36course, Compact Keywords, compactkeywords.com. And it is about doing search engine optimization that makes money, that leaves searchers feeling satisfied, satisfies search intent, and makes you money. Cuz come on, that's why we're doing SEO. That's why we're out here grinding at our laptops or at our desktops or whatever on our phones. That's why we're out here. So, my course is entirely about how to do SEO that gets paying customers, users, warm leads. If you haven't checked it out yet, you're going to love it. And that is everything that I got for you on this episode of the show. This is episode 1,188 of the podcast. 1,188 days in a row doing this podcast. If you

12:18watched this on YouTube, thank you so much for watching. If you listened on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you again tomorrow. Bye now.