We've all spent a lot of time optimizing for exact match keywords on specialized landing pages, only to see your homepage, which is typically surrounded by red tape, rank instead. What's happening?
We analyzed 1,000 software-related keywords to understand the current SERP landscape. Here's what we found.
The Most Popular Page Types in the Top 10 Results
- Dedicated Landing Pages: 41%
- Homepages: 26%
- Blog/Articles: 11%
- Marketplace/Affiliates: 9%
- Review Pages: 7%
- Forum/Discussion Pages: 6%
Three key takeaways
- Established brands with higher Domain Authority do better: For high-difficulty keywords (71-100), homepage presence jumps to 33.8%
- Dedicated landing pages aren't automatic winners: For software vendors, homepages perform better (avg position 6.48) than their landing pages (6.93)
- Low DR sites are more likely to rank with only homepages: 63% of sites with low DR (0-20) are ranking with homepages, versus 49% of sites with medium DR (21-50), and 33% of high DR (51-80)
Implications
Brand association is not just optimizing one landing page over and over—if that were the case, we'd be seeing far more dedicated landing pages ranking. When we conducted this study internally in previous years, we saw landing pages dominating at nearly +55%. With the rise of AI Search, it's increasingly important to build brand association through relevant supporting content and increasing brand mentions that influence both traditional search engines and LLMs.
Domain Authority still makes it easier to branch out beyond what brands are associated with. While targeting irrelevant keywords purely for vanity metrics is always ill-advised, we understand the appeal of pink cloud and TOFU content for building remarketing lists, capturing micro-conversions, increasing awareness, and other top-of-funnel benefits. That said, it's crucial to ensure these keywords remain aligned with your ICP so those supporting KPIs actually convert to meaningful business results.
