The vast majority of internet users, over 95%, find what they're searching for by using the top six search engines. It's a widely accepted fact that if your website doesn't appear within the top 10 or 20 results for a keyword search on these leading search engines, your target audience is unlikely to discover your site. This is where the concept of Doorway Pages comes into play.
Doorway Pages, also known as bridge pages, portal pages, jump pages, gateway pages, or entry pages, are a strategic solution for many website owners aiming to rank well for a specific keyword. These pages are specifically designed and optimized for a particular keyword phrase and a specific search engine, and they provide a link back to your main website.
The design of a doorway page should make sense to the viewer. If the content on the doorway page isn't engaging and compelling, the user is likely to simply hit the back button on their browser and move on to other sites.
The first step in creating a doorway page is to decide on the exact keyword phrase you wish to target. This is a crucial step as each doorway page will target a specific keyword phrase for optimal results. It's recommended to never use more than seven keyword phrases on a single page.
When creating a doorway page, it's best to avoid using the following components:
There are several key areas to focus on when optimizing your doorway page for search engines. These include the page title, meta description tag, meta keywords tag, meta robots tag, headings, alt text, body text, comments, hyperlinked text, and file and directory names.
The page title is one of the most important factors for ranking highly in search engines. The title should start with the keyword phrase and be about 7-9 words in length.
The meta description tag should describe your webpage with the keyword phrase at the beginning, and be about 15 words long.
The keyword phrase should be placed at the start of the meta keywords tag. It's best to keep the number of meta keywords to around six words.
The meta robots tag allows you to specify that a particular doorway page and linked pages should be indexed by a search engine.
Some search engines give extra relevance to keyword phrases that appear within a heading tag. The best doorway pages will include an H1 tag with the keyword phrase and one or two subtitle tags containing other key phrases.
The alt text defines the text to display for a graphic if the user has graphics turned off, or if they hover over it in a web browser. Some search engines look for keywords in the alt tags.
The body text should contain about 200 to 400 words of content where the keyword phrases are repeated three or four times in different ways.
You can insert hidden "comments" into your page that are not visible to the user. A few search engines will read this text.
Use one or two hyperlinks to avoid being considered "spam".
Be descriptive with your file and directory names. Make sure at least one keyword phrase appears in the folder and file name and try to put it at the beginning. Always use hyphens or underscores to separate the words in your file and directory names.
Before you create your doorway page, make sure you visit this site where you can find an example of a doorway page.
Consider placing copies of your doorway pages on a different server. They will have a different address but will perform the same in bringing you extra visitors.
