© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Site Architecture and Internal Linking By Stephan Spencer, Founder &

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Site Architecture  It’s not just about inbound links; internal links matter too  Your home page’s PageRank gets distributed to your deep pages by virtue of your hierarchical internal linking structure  Links are the currency of the Web as far as search engines are concerned; spend it wisely w/in your site –Site hierarchy (tree structure) –Breadcrumb navigation –Site map –Tagging and folksonomies

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Let It Flow  Link juice dissipates due to –Dynamic URLs –Session IDs or User IDs in the URL –Superfluous flags in the URL  Link juice is typically blocked by –Links based in JavaScript, Java, or Flash –Overly complex URLs (e.g. 7 parameters in the query string) –Forms (including pulldown lists) –Temporary (302) redirects

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Let It Flow  Manage the flow using “nofollow” on unimportant links –  Does it flow? Tools to check –Poodle Predictor (www.gritechnologies.com/tools/spider.go) –Server Header Checker (www.searchengineworld.com/cgi- bin/servercheck.cgi) –SEOChat’s PageRank Lookup –Site: search on SEOChat’s PageRank Search

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com URL Testing & Iterative Optimization  URL affects searcher clickthrough rates  Short URLs get clicked on 2X long URLs (Source: MarketingSherpa, used with permission)

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com URL Testing & Iterative Optimization  Further, long URLs appear to act as a deterrent to clicking, drawing attention away from its listing and instead directing it to the listing below it, which then gets clicked 2.5x more frequently. –http://searchengineland.com/080515-084124.php  Don’t be complacent with search-friendly URLs. Test and optimize.  Make iterative improvements to URLs, but don’t lose link juice to previous URLs. 301 previous URLs to latest. No chains of 301s.

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Linking Structure  Anchor text is critical  Hierarchical –Through good site-wide navigational design in a header, sidebar or footer  Breadcrumb navigation –Good for users and good for search engines –Reinforces which pages are the most important  No flash-only navigation. Alt text on graphical links.  Mouseover nav - CSS, not Javascript  Most important deep pages should be minimal # of clicks from home page

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Pagination  Excessive pagination can cause numerous pages of product listings to not get crawled. Reduce # of pages in pagination system to improve crawlability & indexation  Next/Previous vs. page number list vs. Show All  Consider disallowing “View All” links and forcing spiders through subcat pages. Display as many products per page as possible (max 120) within 150K file size.  Fewer products per subcat = fewer pagination pages to crawl at subcat level for max product indexation

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Guided Navigation  Guided navigation, a.k.a. faceted navigation, provides clickable product inventory breakdowns, by brand, color, price range, etc. By doing so it creates into a huge number of permutations for the spiders to follow.  The problem is exacerbated by having column headings clickable for resorting  Nofollow all links that do price range breakdown, re-sorting and re-pagination

Categorization  Recruit a taxonomy specialist  Follow web standards in naming conventions –Readily understandable by most web users. E.g. ”About us”  Match up with keyword research  Legacy names / industry buzzwords as category names not always ideal –E.g. kitchen electrics vs kitchen small appliances –E.g. bespoke vs tailored  Goes into anchor! Also the title, H1, copy on the page, URL…

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Tagging  Great for deep internal linking, interlinking  Generates keyword-rich links  Display tag clouds of most popular tags  Link to "related tags”  Allow visitors to tag your stuff? (ie. “folksonomies”) –Customers use their own terminology / vocabulary  Mine your own weblogs to look for most frequently searched keywords and use those as tags  Also tag externally: reddit, delicious, digg, Technorati

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Internal Search Results Pages  Is it indexable content? Only if engines can find it through links.  Caution: Google’s new webmaster guideline

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Great Content, No Inlinks = Invisible  Home page attracts the most links  Internal linking structure helps with spending your PageRank internally  Don’t neglect building inlinks to deep pages too  When you rank well in the engines, their results get scraped and you get links  Don't put a barrier up to password protect your archives. Or if you must, let the spiders through without password.

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Multiple Copies of Product Pages  Duplicate content = BAD  Paraphrase and/or add additional unique content  On different sites –Does one site host the canonical version? If so, help the spiders figure out which one is canonical by linking to it from the others.  On the same site –Superfluous parameters in the URL (tracking codes, breadcrumb trail, session IDs, etc.)

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Rejig Internal Linking Structure  Tag clouds & tag pages & tag conjunction pages (e.g. “UTW Theme Compatibility Thing” WordPress plugin)  Related Posts (e.g. “Yet Another Related Posts” plugin)  Top 10 posts (e.g. “Popularity Contest” plugin)  Next & Previous / pagination (e.g. “WP-PageNavi” plugin)

Tags point to Technorati tag pages Tags point to internal tag pages

Title Tags  Blog name at the end of the title, not at the beginning  Tag name should go in title on a tag page  Customize with additional keywords for display only on your home page  Override title tags w/ custom one ( “SEO Title Tag” WordPress plugin)

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com “SEO Title Tag” plugin for WordPress  Free & open source  Allows you to override the title tag with a custom one on any post, static page, tag page, category page, etc.  Now updated to work with WordPress 2.3+  Can even define a custom title on ANY url  Reverses the order of the blog name and the title, or drop the blog name altogether, or replace it with a shorter nickname  Can use category’s description as the title on category pages  Has a Mass Edit admin and an Options page to change settings  Download at www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag-plugin/

Great name for the blog!

URLs  Subdomain? Subdirectory? New domain? Domain of your blog host? –www.metlife.com/blog vs. StayingFitBlog.com –Got a blogspot.com or wordpress.com URL? You benefit from their domain authority, but you’re forever wedded to them!  Rewrite to contain keywords, hyphens not underscores  Maintain legacy URLs even after switching platforms  Keep post slugs relatively short (e.g. “Slug Trimmer” or “Clean Trunks” plugin)

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com URL Testing & Iterative Optimization  Test and optimize URLs, but don’t lose link juice to previous URLs. 301 previous URLs to latest. No chains of 301s.  WordPress handles 301s automatically when renaming post slugs  Mass edit admin for URLs (post slugs) in WordPress – via the “SEO Title Tag” plugin (www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag- plugin)

Anchor Text  Make the post’s title a link to the permalink page  Use SEOMoz Backlink Anchor Text Analysis tool or BLA (tools.seobook.com/backlink-analyzer) to look for opportunities to request revisions to anchor text on inbound links  Internally link back to old, relevant posts within the body of a blog post. Don’t use “here” or “previously” etc. as the anchor text!

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com PageRank Sculpting Your Blog  My preference is to have rel=nofollow –On links in trackbacks, comments (by default on most platforms) –Where the link would be reciprocal –On links to date-based archives, assuming you have category and tag hierarchy (noindexing/disallowing is not enough!)

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com More Blog Optimizations  Heading tags –category name on category page –Yes for post titles, no for dates!  Emphasis tags within posts (bold, strong, etc.)

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com More Blog Optimizations  “Optional Excerpts” (to minimize duplicate content) –Write unique content (i.e. paraphrase), don’t just use the first couple paragraphs (i.e. Don’t use the tag!)  “Sticky” posts –Always appear at the top of the page –A way to add keyword-rich intro copy to a category page or tag page –e.g. “Adhesive” or “WP-Sticky” plugin  Author profile pages & author links (for group blogs)

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com More Cool WordPress Plugins  PodPress  Popularity Contest  EmailShroud & Transpose Email  ShareThis  MyAvatars  WordPress Quiz Plugin  WP-PostRatings  WP-Polls

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com sspencer@netconcepts.com Q&A!  For an ebook on Google power searching, SEO checklists & worksheets, and audio recording, executive summary & transcript of thought leaders teleconferences on SEO & blogging, drop me your business card or e-mail your request to seo@netconcepts.com  To contact me: stephan@netconcepts.com

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Site Architecture and Internal Linking By Stephan Spencer, Founder &

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Site Architecture and Internal Linking By Stephan Spencer, Founder &"— Presentation transcript:

Similar presentations

About project

Feedback

Log in

Auth with social network:

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Site Architecture and Internal Linking By Stephan Spencer, Founder &

Similar presentations

Presentation on theme: "© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Site Architecture and Internal Linking By Stephan Spencer, Founder &"— Presentation transcript:

Similar presentations

About project

Feedback