An e-commerce client I've been working with had to remove all of their informative content pages (blog, how-to guides etc.) from their shop *for reasons*.
They decided to redirect the URLs of the removed pages to the home page.
Here's what happened to their SEO performance:
They decided to redirect the URLs of the removed pages to the home page.
Here's what happened to their SEO performance:
They obviously lost all organic search traffic to the removed pages.
Their home page and category pages also lost their best rankings (and organic search traffic and revenue).
Before, their home page and category pages had great rankings and generated very good SEO revenue:
Their home page and category pages also lost their best rankings (and organic search traffic and revenue).
Before, their home page and category pages had great rankings and generated very good SEO revenue:
Let's say they sold sunglasses. Their home page was consistently ranking on position 1 for "buy sunglasses" & on 2 for "sunglasses" in their country & most of their category pages had top 3 rankings for keywords like "oakley sunglasses", "kids' sunglasses" & "running sunglasses".
The informative content pages generated a lot of organic search traffic themselves (very high bounce rates, close to zero conversions) and they had contextual internal links pointing to important landing pages across the shop and backlinks from other websites pointing to them.
A few days after removing the informative content pages, most of the rankings and organic traffic and revenue of the shop are gone.
It's not really surprising, but it's still interesting to see a case that confirms something lots of SEOs are probably already convinced of:
It's not really surprising, but it's still interesting to see a case that confirms something lots of SEOs are probably already convinced of:
Informative content on an e-commerce site helps pages that generate sales rank better.
Blog articles and how-to guides often generate traffic that doesn't convert, so their value isn't always easy to show internally. It's difficult to *prove* that they help other pages rank.
Blog articles and how-to guides often generate traffic that doesn't convert, so their value isn't always easy to show internally. It's difficult to *prove* that they help other pages rank.
The above case seems to confirm the following:
Informative content pages help category pages and the home page of an e-commerce site rank better if the former contain contextual internal links pointing to the latter and if they attract links from other domains.
Informative content pages help category pages and the home page of an e-commerce site rank better if the former contain contextual internal links pointing to the latter and if they attract links from other domains.
The real value of informative content pages doesn't always lie in the traffic they generate themselves, but in the additional traffic and revenue that the shop's converting landing pages generate thanks to their existence.
Any thoughts?
Any thoughts?
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