I have been looking after my own websites for a few years. Not an expert by any means, but I found it was the best way to keep the content up todate (publishing content directly) and then took an interest in SEO generally. I have a main site which is really a brochure site for my business which is B2B focus for professional services. Let's say architects as an example. In an effort to improve my natural search rankings as well as my adword quality scores for some of my keywords, I have created specific landing pages for specific keywords. Let's say Architects Sydney. So, a couple of things are worrying me, the more I research. Where to put these landing pages in the structure of the site? My site has a fairly flat structure, with most of the pages in the root folder. I have a couple of other folders where I keep pages taht are in other languages. makes it easier to give translators access to those folders only. For these new landing pages, it might make administration easier if I put them all in a seperate folder, but will that impact their quality score/rankings? For example. A. architects.com/architects-sydney.htm B. architects.com/landingpages/architects-sydney.html Intuitively A feels better, but will B have any adverse effect? The other question relates to doorway pages. My specific landing pages havve the sole purpose of ranking well for a specific keyword and for making my adwords quality scores better for the same keyword. They have no inbound links from the other pages of my site, (they do not appear in the menu structure) but they do have the normal menu structure on them, for access to the remainder of the site. They have lots of relevant content, but the content is promoting one specific service, with the intention of getting visitirs to browse the site further for more information and hopefully then to contact us via email or phone. So. Are these specific landing pages really doorway pages? Will Google penalise me for them? I have tried to research the definition of a doorway page and they seem to meet the criteria. They are there solely to guide visitors to other pages in the site. They cannot be found via the site menu structure, only by following an adwords advert, or by finding the page on natural search. So are they door way pages in reality? Just want to make sure I don't get hammered by Google!
You will not get hammered. In the past I know google found "lonely" pages with no links from the site "weird" but I don't create my sites that way so I'm not sure of final the effect on SEO. Apart from the fact that they won't get spidered much (if at all) and will not get any page rank. It's just not good practice Definitely A. architects.com/architects-sydney.htm as a better option. But your site is definitely badly organised. You may try this approach 1. Home page - links to 2. "category" pages (with relevant useful content) linking to 3. More detailed pages That way your site becomes more useful and easier to spider. You may want to use a CMS such as wordpress and assign user levels to your translators. That way nothing will go on your site without your approval. Although Wordpress may be slower to load than static pages. Nevertheless a huge number of high ranking sites use wordpress. By not interlinking your pages you are , in effect, reducing your site relevancy - I can't imagine why you wouldn't do it. However this will not affect your Adwords campaign only your SEO. Sorry, if I haven't answered your question fully I'm half asleep - it's 4:23 am in the UK right now.