Furniture Website Key Pages: Discover, Improve and Create Your Website V.I.Ps
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- by furniturefuel.com
Table of Contents
Keyword 101 series
Welcome to Part 4 in the Keywords 101 Series on how to Identify, improve or create key pages on your furniture website. Although identifying key pages is technically a part of keyword research, we decided to make it a standalone post because it deserved to be discussed more than we could have in our Keyword Research Guide.
Website Key Pages - Key Takeaways
- Definition: Key pages are important web pages that significantly contribute to your business goals.
- Examples: These pages typically include the homepage, product or service pages, category pages, blog articles, and landing pages.
- Identification Tools: Use tools like Google Search Console and paid SEO tools to identify your current key pages.
- Prioritisation: Focus on pages with high traffic and conversion rates in addition to their strategic importance.
- Optimisation vs Creation: Decide whether to optimise an existing page or create a new one based on its performance and your keyword research.
- Internal Linking: Enhance user navigation and SEO by strategically linking key pages within your website.
- Continuous Improvement: Regularly monitor and update key pages to align with evolving consumer preferences and SEO best practices.
Why Identify Your Website Key Pages
In the competitive world of online furniture sales, prioritising the right pages can make or break your business. By focusing on these high-impact pages, you can optimise your time and resources effectively, ensuring your efforts lead to the greatest rewards. That’s why identifying key pages isn’t just a part of keyword research—it’s a crucial strategy that deserves its own spotlight.
In this article, we’ll explain key pages, their importance, and how to identify and prioritise the ones that will give your business the highest returns.
What Are Key Pages on Your Website?
Key pages, or as we often call them, V.I.Ps (very important pages), are pages on your website that are important for achieving your business goals. These pages can be considered your website’s workhorses. They attract potential customers, drive conversions, and contribute to your overall success.
Key pages will vary depending on your specific business and goals. It is important to remember this when doing competitor analysis. Study a competitor’s key pages, but do not directly copy them. Their goals may differ from yours.
So, what makes a page a key page? They could be pages that have,
- High Traffic: These pages attract a significant amount of organic traffic (visitors from search engines) who are potentially interested in your products or services.
- High Conversion Rates: They convert visitors into paying customers, leads, or subscribers, depending on your business goals.
- Strategic Importance: These pages might not currently have the highest traffic but could be strategically important for your business, for example, products or services you wish to promote.
- High Rankings: They rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords, making them more likely to be found by potential customers searching online.
- Strong Click-Through Rates (CTR): They have a high click-through rate, meaning a significant portion of users who see them in search results click through to visit the page.
User Engagement Metrics
In addition to traffic and conversions, consider user engagement metrics like time spent on page and bounce rate. High bounce rates can indicate several factors, including misleading titles, slow loading speed or low-quality content.
However, a very high bounce rate combined with low time spent on page could suggest the content might not be relevant to the user’s search intent. A low bounce rate and high time spent on page can indicate the content is engaging and informative, potentially making it a key page for your target audience.
Examples of Key Pages
- Homepage: Often the first impression for visitors, a strong homepage clearly communicates your brand and value proposition.
- Product or Service Pages: These pages provide detailed information about your offerings and encourage conversions.
- Category Pages: These pages group similar products or services, making it easier for users to navigate and find what they need.
- Blog Articles: Informative and engaging blog content can attract organic traffic, establish authority, and convert readers into leads.
- Landing Pages: Designed for specific marketing campaigns, landing pages capture leads or promote special offers.
Homepage
- Function: The main entrance to your website, providing an overview of your business, products, or services. It should be clear and concise and create a positive first impression.
- Optimisation Focus: Strong call to action (CTA), easy navigation, and a compelling introduction to your brand value proposition.
- Example: A furniture e-commerce store’s homepage might feature popular product categories and new arrivals, highlight a seasonal sale on outdoor furniture, and offer a “Shop by Room” navigation menu for targeted browsing.
Category Pages
- Function: Group similar products or services together, helping users navigate and find what they’re looking for efficiently.
- Optimisation Focus: Clear category titles, relevant product listings, and filters to refine searches by material (leather, fabric), colour (grey, blue, brown), and price range.
- Example: A furniture store might have category pages for “Sofas,” “Living Room Furniture,” “Sideboards, “Oak Sideboards,” “Dining Room Tables,” and “Outdoor Furniture.”
Product Pages
- Function: Provide in-depth information about a specific item, including detailed descriptions, high-resolution product photos from various angles, dimensions, materials used, assembly instructions, and customer reviews.
- Optimisation Focus: Compelling product descriptions highlighting features and benefits (comfort, durability, storage options), clear calls to action (buy now, add to wish list), 360-degree product views to showcase details, and customer reviews emphasising user experience.
- Example: A product page for a sofa might showcase, in addition to the sofa, its plush cushions, sturdy frame, and available upholstery options. It could also include customer reviews praising its comfort and style, along with a clear “Add to Cart” button.
Landing Pages
- Function: Standalone web pages designed for a specific marketing campaign or promotion of a particular item of furniture, collection, seasonal sale, or clearance event. Often reached through targeted advertising or email marketing campaigns. It can also be a lead magnet page for collecting email addresses.
- Optimisation Focus: Eye-catching visuals featuring the promoted furniture collection, persuasive messaging highlighting the offer (discounts, limited-time deals), a clear call to action (shop now, explore collection), and a streamlined form for capturing user information (email sign-up for exclusive offers).
- Example: A furniture store might create a landing page for the “Athens Oak Furniture Sale” featuring discounted chairs, tables, and lamps. The page would have a countdown timer to create urgency and a clear “Shop the Sale” button.
A landing page for a free guide, “How to Decorate Your Home,” might highlight the guide’s benefits and include a form for users to enter their email address in exchange for the download.
Blog Posts
- Function: Provide valuable content related to furniture and interior design. This attracts organic traffic, establishes your brand as an expert and a thought leader, and potentially leads to furniture sales.
- Optimisation Focus: Informative and engaging content targeting relevant keywords addressing user search queries (e.g., “Living Room Furniture Ideas for Small Spaces”), high-quality visuals (pictures, videos) showcasing furniture pieces in room settings, with internal links to relevant product pages on your website and social sharing buttons.
- Example: A furniture store’s blog post could offer tips on “Creating a Cosy Living Room Oasis”, featuring suggestions on choosing the right sofa, incorporating accent chairs, and using throw pillows for a comfortable and stylish space. The post would include links to relevant furniture pieces featured in the tips.
Common Key Pages in the Furniture Industry
Remember, the pages considered key will differ depending on the individual business. Use the insights from your competitor analysis to inform and inspire, not dictate, your strategy. However, during the research phases, we see that furniture e-commerce sites often compete on mainly on either:
- Category Pages: These group similar furniture types together (e.g., dining tables, sofas, and bedroom furniture) to help users navigate and find what they’re looking for efficiently.
- Product Pages: These provide in-depth information about specific furniture pieces, including detailed descriptions, high-resolution photos, dimensions, materials, and customer reviews.
Category and product pages can be decisive battlegrounds and very lucrative key pages for your furniture business. They usually target keywords near the bottom of the funnel, aimed at attracting customers with commercial or transactional intent.
The Image shows results for the search “oak bedroom furniture”. The SERP shows category pages and the Google Business Profile for Oak Furniture land.
The Image shows results for the search “bergen sideboard”. The SERP shows product pages.
The results will differ depending on the intent of the search and the person’s location. The first search can be classified as commercial intent; the person has narrowed down their search to oak bedroom furniture. The second search can be classed as transactional intent; the person knows they want the Bergen sideboard and is looking for it, possibly to compare the price. If you haven’t been following the series and want to know about the different types of intent, you can read our article on search intent and keyword length.
Category pages serve as essential entry points for visitors interested in specific types of products. By optimising category pages for relevant keywords, furniture e-commerce sites can improve their visibility in search engine results for broader product categories. This strategy helps attract potential customers searching for products within those categories and directs them to the relevant product listings. Additionally, optimising category pages can enhance the overall SEO performance of the e-commerce site by creating a logical structure and hierarchy that search engines can easily crawl and index.
As discussed in the following article on content creation, it is important not to neglect traffic from the top and medium of the funnel. If you can get this traffic early enough with information/educational content, answer those consideration/evaluation research questions, and help them get to the buying stage. Doing so can benefit your business more than just getting a sale or conversion.
Identifying Key Pages
Usually, unless there is an urgent need to promote a particular product, the best approach is to identify the current key pages that are valuable to your business first. Improving these pages can often result in them performing better on the search results page.
Additionally, knowing what pages are currently beneficial to business allows you to see if there are any weak links. Are a select few pages doing the heavy lifting for your entire website? What happens if they get affected by an algorithm update? Whilst a complete loss of traffic is rare, your pages could see temporary or permanent ranking fluctuations of your key pages, decreasing traffic to your site.
Algorithm Update Risks: While a complete traffic loss is rare, algorithm updates can significantly impact websites. For example, the March 2024 Help Content Update (HCU) negatively affected many affiliate sites, with some reporting significant or total traffic losses. This highlights the importance of a diversified SEO strategy.
How To Find Key Pages on Your Website
Using Google Search Console (GSC) to Find Key Pages
As mentioned above and in our previous post, Finding the Right Keywords for Your Furniture Business,” Google Search Console (GSC) is a powerful tool that is extremely beneficial for many aspects of website discovery and monitoring. They can also help you to identify key pages.
- Access Google Search Console: Log in to your Google Search Console account. You may only have one website (property), but if not, select the property you want to view.
- Navigate to the Performance Report: In the left-hand menu, click on “Performance.”
- Select Landing Pages: Once in the Performance report, click the “Pages” tab below the main graph area.
- View Performance Metrics: The table below the graph lists your site’s landing pages and various performance metrics. Metrics include Total Clicks, Total Impressions, Average CTR (Click-Through Rate), and Average Position.
- Analyse Key Metrics: Look for top pages with high clicks, impressions, and average positions. These pages are likely already performing well in organic search results and can be considered key.
- Apply Filters (Optional): There is the option to apply filters to the table to focus on specific metrics or time periods or filter by a particular keyword or search query to see which landing pages are performing best for that keyword, but if you are unsure, keep it simple for now. You can also get to grips and apply filters later.
- Identify Opportunities: Look for pages with high impressions but low clicks. This could indicate an opportunity to improve the page’s click-through rate and drive more traffic to your website.
Find Key Pages Using Paid Tools.
So far, the above steps do not require paid tools. However, using page tools can save you a great deal of time and can simplify the process.
All the tools differ in what information they provide, but most allow you to find a website’s highest traffic.
There are many paid SEO tools to choose from, but for this example, we will use Ubersuggest, which is popular with beginners. Let’s look at IKEA’s top pages by traffic.
An image showing IKEA’s top pages in the UK by traffic using Ubersuggest.
An image showing IKEA’s top pages in the USA by traffic using Ubersuggest.
You can see how using paid tools, although not a necessity, can give you additional insight. A sofa that turns into a bed is a sought-after product in the UK and the USA. This commonality but different language used to describe the product reinforces that you need to know the terms used locally or nationally for the product you’re selling. Sofa beds in the UK and sleeper sofas in the USA.
Using paid tools to find top-performing pages lets you compare your business to your competitors, helping identify gaps you can exploit. Once you have identified your top traffic pages, check them in your Google Analytics account to see how well they convert. Having this information will help decide what pages to prioritise.
Example - Paid Tools Estimated Data
You will see from the screenshot above that all the volume estimates are the same, and the visitor estimates are similar. Remember from the last post, the keyword research guide, that the data you see is estimated, so paid tools are not 100% accurate. The same or similar numbers in the above screenshot could be due to limited data, a grouping of similar keywords, but more than likely algorithmic estimations/limitations.
Prioritising Your Key Pages
Now that you’ve identified your key website pages, it’s time to prioritise them. This prioritisation involves a strategic balancing act, considering three key factors:
- Traffic: High organic traffic indicates that the page is attracting a significant number of potential customers. Prioritise pages consistently attracting high volumes of relevant searchers. The quality of traffic matters just as much as quantity, though, so make sure the drivers of the traffic align with your offering.
- Conversion Rate: This metric reveals how effectively the page converts visitors into leads or sales. Pages with high conversion rates are crucial for driving revenue. Focus on optimising pages that already attract a good audience but underperform in conversions.
- Strategic Importance: Some pages, even with lower traffic, might play a strategic role in your overall business goals. Examples include:
- Brand Pages: These showcase your company story, values, and differentiators, building brand awareness and trust.
- Informational Content: Blog posts on furniture care, interior design trends, or buying guides can establish your brand as an expert and attract potential customers even if they don’t convert immediately.
- Landing Pages: Designed for specific marketing campaigns, landing pages might not receive a lot of organic traffic but can be highly valuable for lead generation or promoting special offers.
- Brand Pages: These showcase your company story, values, and differentiators, building brand awareness and trust.
Finding the Perfect Balance
The ideal scenario is a page that scores high in all three categories. However, resources might be limited, so you’ll need to prioritise strategically. Here’s a suggested approach:
- High Traffic, High Conversion Rate: These are your golden pages. Proceed with caution when optimising these pages. Take note of any “improvements” made, as these may have a negative effect. Consider A/B testing to measure the impact of changes accurately.
- High Traffic, Low Conversion Rate: Focus on improving the conversion rate of these pages by strengthening calls to action (CTAs), optimising product descriptions, or enhancing product visuals. Consider performing usability tests and analysing user behaviour using heatmaps to identify friction points.
- Low Traffic, High Conversion Rate: These pages are converting well, so consider these pages can be leveraged more effectively, perhaps by internal linking or promoting them through other channels.
- Low Traffic, Low Conversion Rate: A deeper analysis might reveal whether these pages are not aligning with user intent or are poorly optimised for search engines. Determine whether they can be optimised, removed or merged with other pages.
- Strategic Pages: Evaluate their strategic importance and allocate resources accordingly.
Remember: Monitor the performance of your key pages regularly and adjust your strategy as needed.
Promoting Vs Creating Key Pages
Pages to Promotion
While some pages might be obvious contenders for promotion due to high traffic or conversions, your keyword and key page research might reveal hidden gems within your furniture offerings. These could be:
- Products: Under-promoted products that consistently receive positive reviews.
- Informative Pages: Show high time spent on the page but have low conversion rates, indicating the potential for stronger calls to action.
- Entire Furniture Ranges: Styles or functionalities resonating strongly with customer searches but not yet prominently featured.
New Keywords, New Pages
If your keyword research identifies terms that don’t fit on existing key pages, it’s time to create a new page specifically targeting those keywords.
Optimising or Creating New Key Furniture Pages
The question now is to optimise existing pages or create new ones.
Optimise Existing Pages
If a key page showcasing your best-selling sofas, for example, already ranks well but doesn’t convert visitors into buyers as effectively as you’d like, focus on optimisation. This might involve improving content clarity, adding visuals, or strengthening calls to action.
- Enhancing product descriptions: Go beyond basic features. Highlight how the sofa’s plush cushions provide ultimate comfort for movie nights or how its durable fabric is perfect for families with pets or sticky grandchild fingers.
- Adding high-quality visuals: Instead of generic stock photos, showcase your furniture in inspiring room settings. Include high-resolution pictures or 360-degree views so customers can virtually experience the piece in their own space.
- Strengthening calls to action: Don’t leave customers guessing. Make it clear what you want them to do next with prominent calls to action like “Add to Cart,” “Learn More About Financing Options,” or a specific offer like “Free throw pillows with sofa purchase this week!” Ensure the phone number is prominent so they can phone for more information.
Showcase Your Expertise: If you have a furniture piece on display, showcase your expertise. Create multiple settings featuring the same piece styled differently using various cushions, side tables, coffee tables, etc. This demonstrates your design knowledge and positions you as an expert who can help customers achieve their specific look.
Create New Pages
If a key customer segment is interested in, for example, painted furniture but your website lacks a dedicated page for this style, consider creating a new one. This could be a category page targeting the relevant painted furniture-related keywords and include a variety of painted dressers, nightstands, bookshelves, and other pieces to cater to their preferences.
Consumer preferences and design trends in the furniture industry can shift over time. To ensure your website content stays relevant and attracts potential buyers, regular review and optimisation are crucial. The frequency of these reviews depends on a few factors:
- Product Trends: The emergence of new popular furniture styles (like a surge in rattan furniture) might necessitate more frequent content updates compared to timeless staples like dining tables.
- Content Purpose: Informational pages like “Choosing the Right Dining Table” might require less frequent updates than those focused on promoting specific furniture collections or seasonal sales.
Internal Linking: Weaving Your Website Together
Internal linking is another powerful tool at your disposal when optimising your furniture pages. This involves strategically placing links within your website that connect relevant pages. Here’s how it benefits you:
- Improved Navigation: By linking related pages, you make it easier for customers to navigate your website and discover other furniture pieces that might interest them. For example, on a sofa product page, you could link to a page about coffee tables that complement the sofa style.
- Enhanced User Experience: Internal linking creates a smoother browsing experience for customers. They can easily explore different furniture categories and products without having to search through the entire website.
- SEO Boost: Internal linking signals are important to search engines and users. By linking relevant pages within your website, you can help search engines understand your website structure and content and potentially distribute page authority from one page to another.
Here are some suggestions for internal linking within your furniture website:
- Within Product Pages: Link to relevant accessories that complement furniture pieces. For example, a dining table product page links to dining chairs or table decorations, such as bowls, vases, etc.
- Informational Pages: Link to relevant product categories from informational pages. For example, link to your dining table category page on a “Choosing the Right Dining Table” blog post. You could also link from text underneath the images that showcase your tables.
- Blog Integration: Link to relevant blog posts from product pages. For example, on a sofa product page, link to a blog post about “Creating a Cosy Living Room.” This might be highly relevant to a searcher considering buying a sofa, and it can reinforce the value proposition of the specific sofa being viewed.
Ready to Furnish Your Website for Success?
Now that you’ve identified your key furniture pages and understand their potential, it’s time to transform them into conversion powerhouses! Remember, creating a successful furniture website is a continuous journey. Continuously checking your key pages and making improvements can ensure your website attracts the right audience, effectively showcases your furniture, and ultimately unlocks its full revenue potential.
But it doesn’t stop there! The furniture industry constantly evolves, with new trends and customer preferences shifting. Commit to ongoing content creation and website optimisation to stay ahead of the curve. The following article in this series dives into content creation specifically for furniture businesses. By incorporating valuable content alongside optimised key pages, you’ll create a website that converts visitors into customers and establishes your brand as a trusted authority in the furniture industry.
