Sticky situation

[Axxe]

Hiya folks,

Have a specific question here. I expect to draw some attention of copy writers and SEOs, but of course, other opinions are also appreciated.
Ok. So I’m from Lithuania and I need to know which keyword “meeting places” or “meeting venues” represents better such places as conference halls, restaurant and clubs.
The reason I’m asking this is because on our website we represent these places as “meeting places”, but as one English man told me this keyword does not represent it. He recommended using “venues” instead of “places” and I must say that I would change it if not the page rank of this page. We have PR 3 and if we would change this URL we would lose it.
So what would be your suggestion? Should I leave ”meeting places” and expect our visitors to know what we want to tell or should I replace it with “meeting venues” and loose my PR? :|

Can’t wait to hear your opinion

Cheers,
Donatas

[darren atkinson]

Hi

There are two options really.

Change the name of the link to Venue's or whatever you decide and change the content on the page to represent this, but leave the page url as 'products-meeting-places'.

Depending on the CMS software you are using this might not be possible.

Second option is to rename the page, but put a '301' redirect on the current page to indicate to the search engines that the page has permamently moved to its new url. This will ensure that all inbound links and PR are transfered to the new url.

Again it depends on your CMS functionality, if your cms isn't able to offer this your hosting could sort it out for you with modification of a .htaccess file (Linux Hosting) or a redirect setting up on the server (Windows Hosting)

Do you have external links from other sites directly to that page? If you don't then deleting it and using another url will in time have little effect as all the 'pr' value is derrived from your home page anyway so the newly named url will also pick it up.

If you do have external links directly into that page you definately need to either keep it the same, or do a 301 redirection of some type for the search engines.

One final option might be to delete the page then modify your 404 error page to include some text saying something like 'looking for meeting places page? It has been renamed the meeting venues' with a link to the page.

Thats all I can think of at the moment.

*EDIT* By the way, 'pr' has no effect on ranking really so don't worry too much about it. Also when checking keywords 'meeting places' is far more searched for than 'meeting venues' but the keyword 'venue' has the largest search results of all 3, however you have to consider your target audience and what they would be looking for, would someone typing in 'venue' be interested in your company? maybe / maybe not thats for you to consider.

Regards

Darren

[Axxe]

Hi Darren,

Thanks for the information. It is very much appreciated.

I‘ll see which option we can apply to this situation.

Cheers,
Donatas

[PlainText]

Just had another quick look at your site - I'd suggest grouping all the conference halls etc under one button Venues. And splitting off bars and restaurants and adding a new button Going Out for this new section. It's more logical that way. If people are coming over to Lithuania for meetings, they will search for venues, but for relaxation, they will want to see a separate section on options for eating and drinking and other entertainments.

Meeting Places, to me, suggests where you arrange to meet someone before going somewhere else (for example, meeting place is the railway station then we will go to the theatre...).

[Axxe]

You’re right Plaintext. Our main fear was exactly what you just mentioned.
People will not be able to realize that under the button “meeting places” they will find conference halls.
So thanks again for your suggestions and I can’t wait to work with you one day.

Kind regards,
Donatas

[PlainText]

Lol, I await your call Donatas!