Better to try and rank for home page, or individual page?

Which is a more effective strategy? Trying to get your home page ranked for the top keywords in your niche (as it will likely have the highest native PR and value to search engines), or creating an individual landing page for each keyword and trying to get that page ranked?

I've been assuming that individual pages are the way to go, because you can more highly target a keyword and simply funnel that keyword from your home page to those landing pages... but is this the right way?

 

It's better to *try* to rank inner pages. I think that in the past few years, people who have been backlinking to their home pages have been getting more and more slack from Google...perhaps not as much with Yahoo, though.

Besides, if your inner pages are related to the home page and have gotten decent promotion, the home page will eventually benefit.

 

I would try to rank for BOTH - home page for main k/w and inner landing pages for individual products landing pages.

If you gain enough domain authority(trust), you should be able to achieve both. Best of luck!

ninja_va

 

I would aslo do both, main/top keywords for main page, and inner pages with relevent/secondary keywords, and remember to get link love to inner pages aswell as homepage.

 

Both, for their respective keywords. Write the content for each page for different 'Target Keyword'. Internal back linking of different pages also helps.

 

Homepage. As people are more likely to visit other pages if they get to your index.html . Also, the homepage will be more suited to your niche as a whole rather than a subniche.

 

home page for major keywords, then inner pages for additional keywords.
if you have category pages thats important as well.

long tail keywords are also important. traffic from long tail se kw comprises big chunk of the traffic for many websites.

 

Anchor text backlinks to both are the best way to go. As you gain related keyword links back to your site your home page will move up the rankings as will your related pages.

 

If your site is properly marked up and has the appropriate architecture navigation wise, your question becomes moot pretty quickly.

http://www.websitepublisher.net/article/optimizing-internal-links/
http://www.clickz.com/3629944

hope that helps,
Nigel

 

Long tail keywords for inner pages (such as product/service pages), and your "bread and butter" keywords for the home page. When creating a site with almost any amount of inner pages, you want to make sure you don't neglect those inner pages, as they are all possible "funnels" into your site. Imagine having a fishing boat on a lake - naturally the more lines and hooks you have in the water, the more fish you'll catch over time. Focusing all of your energy on the home page will probably leave a lot of customers/money/conversions on the table because you neglected the majority of your site (which comprises every page except the home page).

That's just my opinion, of course.

 

I think rank for individual pages is better...

 

Fir my opinion, both are the best way to get your site rank higher. But of course it depends on how much the competition there is on your home page keyword. For example, the keyword(s) on your home page is high, better target your inner page then. And using long tail is one way to it.