Hello YOUmozzers (somehow that almost sounds rude). This is my first post on YOUmoz, so please be scathing.

Recently I found myself trying to explain to my biggest client why it is valuable to have internal pages rank and not only the domain root. It was the first time that I've had to actually explain this, so I thought it might be a good idea to share.

Background

My client offers a number of services to an ever widening market. All of their efforts to date have been focused on ranking their homepage for ALL of their services and ALL of their markets. Obviously they have a high bounce rate on search terms apart from their brand terms. On top of this, their conversion rates for organic visits are extremely low.

First solution attempt

Initially I tried explaining that, bottom line, people search in order to find, not in order to search further. This didn't really get my message across; if anything, it gave them the impression they should target MORE keywords with their homepage.

Ok, next try

Maybe if I made a financial argument for the case, they'd understand it then; after all, it is also in my best interest that they have financial success. I explained that someone was more likely to buy a service if they were told about it directly than if they had to rummage for it. Well, this unleashed a torrent of ideas for putting dayglo starbursts on the front page with pricing information for every service and every market. My job was still not done.

Right, time for analogy

Not that they, or I, am greatly religious, but I thought of an analogy that I am quite proud of:

"Bob wants to know about Moses and the tablets of stone:

• If you tell him to look in the Bible, you will have helped him, but chances are he won't find what he is looking for and will ask someone else.
• If you tell him that he should look in the old testament, the chances of him asking someone else are slightly reduced.
• Tell him that it is in the Book of Whatever, he's much less likely to have to ask anyone else.
• If you can tell him it is the Book of Whatever chapter X verses 27-42 and you will have made sure he asks nobody except you.

Ok, now imagine that the Bible is your website, the old testament is a section aimed at market x, the Book of Whatever is a catalog of services aimed at market x, and the Book of Whatever chapter X verse 27 is a specific product."

Job done, at last

That may be a long-winded way of explaining the concept, but it got an important point across that otherwise would have not been understood.