SEO Siloing: How to Build a Website Silo Architecture - Search engines assign top keyword rankings to the website, proving that it is best suited to the topic and intent of the user query . As a result, the main goal of search engine optimization (SEO) is to improve the website so that the website is about more than targeted keyword phrases - it is about the topics that match those keywords.
In most cases, a website is a non-contiguous collection of information with no clear central theme. Such a website suffers from search engine rankings for searched keywords.
The siloing of a website clarifies its technical relevance and lays the foundation for a high keyword ranking. It is a central building block for SEO and usually an advanced topic.
The term siloing was used to describe the concept of grouping related information into different sections within a website. Similar to a chapter in a book, a silo represents a group of topic-related or topic-specific content on your site.
The reason why this grouping has such a high SEO priority is that search engines assign keyword relevance in their index based on the page and the rest of the website with the most supportive relevant content. This contributes in particular to the fact that Google evaluates the know-how of a website as part of the EAT quality factors (expertise, authority and trustworthiness).
Bruce Clay siloing the quote.
Well-rated websites are based on the concept that a website should be physically organized like a dissertation. A dissertation has a clearly identified title, a summary, a table of contents and then a content that underpins the overall topic of the entire dissertation, with all references and footnotes supporting the topic.
There are often great websites that are hidden from the spread of search engine results pages (SERPs). They may lack a strategy for organic search engine optimization, or their strategy may not contain enough attention to clarify the relevance of the topic or the silo.
In this document you will find a strategy to improve the clarity of the general topic of a website through siloing. The goal is to improve the keyword rankings of the website.
Introduction to silo overview
The silo of a website requires a multi-stage planning and implementation process.
Step 1: set the website design
Start the silo process by setting the theme of your website. Answer questions including:
Which subject areas are currently ranked for your website?
Which topics are legally relevant to your website?
How would a user search for your content (main searches)?
How can you implement clear subject areas?
Step 2: create a website theme with physical silos
Consider whether you can implement physical siloing through the site's directory structure and apply it if possible. We will later discuss the practice of the virtual silo, determine the topics when navigating and linking.
Step 3: create a website theme with virtual silos
Carefully examine the link structure implemented on the website, using linkage techniques between pages that reinforce the website's themes.
Step 4: creating keyword-rich content
Publish relevant, expert-quality content, including targeted keyword phrases in appropriate silos.
Step 1: set the website design
Google's mission on the corporate information page is to "organize the world's information and make it accessible and useful."
There are many factors of different importance to consider when it comes to how search engines rank websites and determine the relevance of each website for search queries. However, the specialist knowledge and clear topics of a website are of great importance for the ranking of the website.
In order to be ranked for keywords in Google and Bing, a website must provide information that is organized in a structure and format that is understandable to search engines.
If a site's information has been removed from its design and layout, is it the most relevant of all websites with similar topics? If so, there is a high likelihood of achieving high rankings. Search rankings, in turn, enable a website to attract customers who are looking for and buying products and services.
Siloing isn't all there is to ranking, but without it, the on-page relevance battle is lost.
The on-page process to achieve high rankings begins with a clear understanding of a site's topics. When Bruce Clay speaks at conferences and in training, he often explains the importance of creating topics or silos using the analogy that most websites are like a glass of marble. He states that a search engine can only decipher a meaning if the topics are clear and unambiguous. Look at the picture of a glass with marbles in Figure 1 and consider how search engines classify the "subject" of this glass.
Figure 1: Mason jar with mixed marbles
In the glass we see green marbles, old marbles and yellow marbles that are mixed together without order or stress. It would be reasonable to assume that search engines would classify the topic as glass marbles.
If we divide each group of colored marbles into separate glasses, they are classified as glass of green marbles, glass of red marbles and glass of yellow marbles (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Glasses with separated marble
However, if we wanted to combine all three marbles in a single jar, we could create different groupings in the jar (Figure 3) that allow the topics as green marbles, old marbles, yellow marbles as well as generic marbles to remain separate term marbles.
Figure 3: Glass with silver marbles
The first mixed glass of marbles (Figure 1) is a non-isolated website. The three separate glasses represent three separate locations (Figure 2). The last glass corresponds to a site with topics that are divided into topic-specific categories or silos (Figure 3). The goal for a website that wants to evaluate more than one general term is to selectively decide what the website is about and not.
Rankings can be damaged in two common ways: 1) including irrelevant content or 2) too little content on a topic. Avoid these mistakes by knowing the focus of the site and avoiding irrelevant topics.
What topics is your website currently ranked for?
The best place to identify the relevant topics for a website is to examine the website's historical traffic data. First, examine the data from the following sources:
Google Search Console
PPC-Programme
Tracked keyword sets
Keyword research
Each of these sources of information provides information about who visits the website and why. It doesn't directly explain why the site wasn't ranked for the keywords you want, but it will help evaluate what topics the site recognizes to search engines.
Google Search Console
Organic queries appear in the Google Search Console performance report for queries. You can see which search queries have resulted in your pages appearing in the search results (impressions) and which Google searchers have actually led to your website (clicks) in the past three months.
Note: If you have not already done so, you will need to set up Google’s Webmaster Tools, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics. You can also set up Bing webmaster tools for additional data. These free tools provide you with valuable analysis that you need.
PPC-Programme
When you use Google Ads or Bing Ads to run pay-per-click advertising, you get even more insight into which keyword phrases work exactly to attract users to your website. You can also use PPC as a test environment by bidding on phrases for which you want to be relevant in the organic search field, but which for one reason or another have not yet been classified as organic.
Tracked keyword sets
The last and most accessible way to identify the most important topics of your website is to ask your company's employees which keywords are most important. When you interview the President, Marketing Team, and Sales Managers, you can often get an idea of what the company wants to rank for in organic search results. The phrases used generally match the content. Therefore, it would be helpful to check expectations based on the reality of the website.
Keyword research
Now that you've created a list of 10 to 100 non-branded keyword terms that seem most relevant to your company's products and / or services, it's time to start keyword research.
During this research, the first goal is to keep the keyword list as large as possible. Treat as many relevant topics as possible, even those that have little to do with the topics of the website. Use keyword detection tools to identify every possible synonym, even if it is remotely related to the topic of the site.
For SEO ToolS® users, after creating a list that is as large as possible, enter all your keywords and keyword phrases in Keyword Management and provide a name for this keyword list. (You can set up multiple keyword lists.) Next, run a ranking monitor on the selected keyword lists. You can click the Activity column to see the words sorted from the highest query activity to the least searched terms. You can use this information to identify the words with low activity (typically fewer than 100 searches per month unless it's a very targeted and relevant term) and possibly remove them from your list. In the "Pages" column
After answering the question of where the site is currently located, you have identified two main factors: 1) you know what you are classified for, and 2) you know what you are not classified for in search engines. The next challenge will be to understand what topics your website is legally relevant to and why you have your current rankings.
Which topics are legally relevant for your website?
There may be a big difference between a site’s potential and its current status. This can affect your company. Wisdom is knowing how to determine what a site is really about after all the visual components have been removed. The ability is to identify topics for which a website currently has no ranking and which have the potential to achieve a better ranking and recognize the relevance for search engines.
Single Page Analyzer
It is best to start a single page analyzer (SPA) in the SEO Tool Set ®. (Those who are not subscribed to SEO ToolS can use the free tool on our free SEO tools page at http://www.seotoolset.com/tools/free-tools/.)
The SPA shows the general characteristics of word usage, such as: B. The distribution and frequency of the keyword phrases used on the page.
If you search the main pages of the site with this tool, you can determine whether the main topics are used throughout the page in the meta tags, headings, alt attributes and text content. If the terms targeted to the page don't seem to exist, make a note that the keyword usage for that page is too low. Rate the number of times a phrase is repeated in each important page element and note the frequency, including frequently repeated phrases and rarely repeated phrases. Are all terms summarized at the top of the pages? If so, note that the distribution may be further distributed.
More page analysis
After evaluating the pages on your website that are fully keyword-relevant, compare your pages against the top-ranked competitors for each of your most important keyword terms.
Open the "Research Summary" tool in the SEO ToolS, enter the first search term and click on the "Research" button. This process shows the top-ranked sites and the most common URLs for that term in non-localized Google and Bing searches. Click the button at the bottom of the report to perform a multi-page analysis (Figure 4).
SEO Tool Sets Tool for research summary.
Figure 4: With the "Research Summary" tool from SEO ToolS you can identify, select and quickly analyze high-ranking pages as a group.
The Multi Page Analyzer summarizes the high-ranking pages for your keyword (Figure 5). More importantly, it gives you an overview of the general characteristics of the top pages. With this data, you create recommendations to design your own page for this keyword in the way that Google already rewards.
Multi Page Analyzer.
Figure 5: The results of Multi Page Analyzer show the keyword usage behavior of the pages with the highest rank.
Search engine index tools
The final test is to rank the major search engines using advanced search operators, which are explained in detail in our advanced search operators guide.
One of the most important factors in search engine rankings is how much content a website contains on a topic (also known as depth of content). Use the site: search function to search for content only within a domain. For example, the query site: domain.com peanut butter shows the pages of a domain that the search engine considers the most relevant to peanut butter.
Use a website: query to check your domain or your competitors' domains and see the important pages on each website that rank your terms. You should check these pages and note their offer. Do you have a lot of content? Videos? Charts? Interactive elements? In order for your site to be competitive, try to make it the best site for this query. How can you better meet your users' needs?
How can you implement clear subject topics?
You now know which keywords the website is classified for, for which topics the website is considered relevant and how your most important pages behave in comparison to the competition. You want to make your website as good as the competition first. Then you have to make your website better than the competition. You want search engines to see you first among peers - the most relevant resource on the web. It is important at this point to identify the gaps in your silos: areas that are relevant but that are not yet supported by obvious content on the site.
Think about what your website is not about and which terms are not important. Is it worth creating content for these pages? Would you like to dilute the topic of your website with non-topic-related content so that your website appears less relevant for important terms? It is important that you make these decisions now and consider the impact of each topic-based keyword phrase decision.
Define a clear topic
There are many ways to set a clear topic. Using an organization chart template or a simple outline list in a word processor, you can visualize the primary and secondary categories your website is about (Figure 6).
Subject organization chart.
Figure 6: Organization chart of the subject
Once the themes and subtopics of a website have been determined, it is time to apply the themes to the website in a recognizable way. By creating topic-based silos on a website, search engines and users can be clearly conveyed the relevant topics of a website.
There are two different methods of siloing: physical directory silos and virtual silos.
In both cases, website owners can use strategies to create tight topics. However, they approach the concept very differently. Virtual siloing is essential. physical siloing reinforces the issues, but is not always feasible. Regardless, if possible, you should design the silos before creating the website. This gives you more control over your design process.
We developed our silo technology after realizing that many of our customers had difficulty ranking both the general keywords of their website (e.g. jelly) and certain page terms (e.g. organic strawberry jelly) create. We found that customers watered down the topic of their website by accidentally referring to unused (or even partially related) websites. This, in turn, resulted in lower rankings because the search engines couldn't see what the website was supposed to be.
By implementing a proper silo, website owners can improve the ranking of their pages for topic-specific keywords as well as general website keywords. In the SERPs, isolated sites can become dominant for important keyword phrases.
Step 2: create a website theme with physical silos
Directory silos reinforce topics by grouping similar content pages in a highly organized directory. At least five content pages are required to create the topic, each of which must be named to clarify the topic. On websites without a clear directory structure, visitors and search engines can easily overlook the purpose and subject of the website.
Imagine a directory silo like a filing cabinet. For the archive to take effect, everything must remain tightly grouped in its place and stored under the corresponding structured heading. Each individual category has its own heading. That means if you are a site specializing in peanut butter, all the pages are packed with creamy peanut butter and all the pages with chunky peanut butter are grouped together.
The two would never be mixed as content or networking. A creamy peanut butter silo might look something like this:
A creamy peanut butter silo might look something like this:
Peanutbuttersite.com/creamy/traditional/
Peanutbuttersite.com/creamy/organic/
Peanutbuttersite.com/creamy/lowfat/
Peanutbuttersite.com/creamy/jellyhybrid/
Peanutbuttersite.com/creamy/honeyroasted/
In the example above, each page is named so that the search engines can recognize the common topic. Using the System directory name, you can see that these pages are all about creamy peanut butter. Sticking to this format prevents your topics from blurring.
Most websites will find that their topic is wide enough to break it down into multiple topics. If you find that your creamy peanut butter silo can be shared even more, you can create multiple subsites, but the number remains within limits. We recommend storing the sub silos in two or three directories. If you go deeper, deeper pages may not get enough inbound link values to be considered relevant.
Additional silos offer more space for keywords and synonyms. The narrower your silos, the more likely your topic-specific keywords, especially long-tail keywords, will be rated. Just make sure you don't forget your more general terms. Your silos should target both sets of terms.
Once you've created your own designs, you may find instances where you want to combine them for the benefit of the user. For example, suppose your peanut butter site contains a silo about the health benefits of different types of peanut butter. If you have a page that specifically addresses the health benefits of creamy peanut butter, it may make sense to refer to both the health benefits section and the creamy peanut butter section on that page. The best way to do this without watering down your topic is to link from the creamy peanut butter side to the landing page with the health benefits. This shows the motors that you have two unique silos, and makes it easier to highlight both sides. Linking at will can cause confusion for search engines as they try to decipher what your page and site are about.
Later in this article, we will use the historical views of the Heifer International organization's website as a case study to assess best practices for siloing. Although the following specific recommendations apply to Heifer.org, the general principles of silo construction apply in general.
Physical siloing on Heifer.org
Most organic search visitors visit Heifer.org with terms related to the Heifer brand name. Although these terms generate highly active traffic that deserves the high profile of this charity, these keywords attract few new visitors who are not familiar with Heifer International. It is important to find out how this website does not use unbranded terms with a high search volume in order to attract and attract new visitors to the website.
Heifer.org covers many topics on its website and documents the success of charities and the impact they have on ending hunger in Africa. However, all this information is not organized in a way that is easy to understand, nor does it explain to the visitor whether it is humans or spiders, what advantages a donation to Heifer International has for government, corporate, philanthropic, religious or donation groups , In other words, the site does not target the people they hope to donate to, which prevents large groups from ever coming into contact with Heifer International.
To learn from Heifer.org, we first examine the directory organization of the website.
URL-Structure
The page URLs are numeric page names and do not contain a logical grouping of topics:
Homepage: http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.183217/
Our work: http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201470/
Get involved: http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201471/
Under each main navigation section there are subcategories: Our Work, Participate, Give, Learn and Inside Heifer. While these topics may make sense for a human visitor, they do not make a significant contribution to strengthening the website in search engines according to topic-specific terms with a high search volume. After reviewing the site and ranking it for each major section, we see that it is neatly divided into five major parts and the homepage (Figure 7).
Figure 7: Navigation from Heifer.org
Subject categories
Each main category is relevant to a main topic so that the site can be organized as shown in Table 1:
Heifer.org's Top-Themenbereich Motiv Fokus
Home heifer branding
Our work Join us
Get involved Get involved
Give heifers donation
Learn How To End Poverty In The World
In Ferry Ferry projects
Table 1: Primary category pages for Heifer.org
At first glance, the categories above seem appropriate; On closer inspection, however, the categories lack options for which a top-class charity website is relevant.
Due to the grouping topics used on the website, Heifer International misses thousands of monthly visitors and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from wealthy benefactors, government funds, corporate donations, fundraisers and individuals. The Heifer.org website serves as an educational tool for your own charity, but offers little for the people whose donations they need to help them achieve their goals.
Brand keywords
Heifer.org does not have the problem that the site is badly placed. In fact, we see that they are classified for some high activity terms. The problem is that 80 percent of these terms are brand terms, while the other terms are search terms that are not aimed at potential donors.
It is important that each charity is ranked by name. But if these keyword phrases are everything the site ranks for, important traffic opportunities will be missed. Table 2 shows the terms Heifer.org stands for. Note the spread of brand terms.
Activity keywords Google Rank
3,881 Lot 1
3,880 ferns 2
3,289 ferries international 1
1,417 heifer project 1
1.416 mince Project 2
1.416 Färsenprojekte 2
425 Ferry project international 1
346 Help for the needy 15
222 heifer.org 1
158 Heifers Foundation 3
97 das Ferry project 1
47 What is a heifer? 6
24 heifers international project 2
16 Catalog Fare 4
4 Ferry donation 1
1 charity donation heifers international 1
1 Spende Färse international 1
1 Donate Mince 1
1 give heifers international 1
1 Gib Grease 1
1 animal gift heifer international 2
1 heifer international donation 2
1 Ferry Catalog 2
1 International ferry project 2
1 target heifer 3
1 hungry peach 6
Table 2: Brand-related search terms for Heifer.org
Heifer.org also performs well on a number of medium-activity keywords that are not brand-related (Table 3).
Activity keywords google
207 Gift catalog 2
146 Welt Hilfe 8
100 charitable gifts 4
87 the gift that keeps giving 15
67 international gift 7
39 Earth ended 14
14 international charities 7
8 Help for world hunger 12
3 give charity gift 2
Give 1 animal gift 2
Table 3: Night market related search terms for Heifer.org
Attract target groups
To promote the maximum number of donors for Heifer International, the main areas of the website should be dedicated to attracting and converting visitors into donors. Rather than expanding the website by discussing the charity's organizational structure, a higher ranking benefit would be gained if multiple pages with keyword-rich content were added to explain why giving to Heifer.org is in the donor's best interest. In fact, Heifer International discusses these main groups, but at a much lower frequency than is required to rank and be relevant to donors.
The following are the main categories Heifer needs to focus on to increase the number of potential donors who visit their website.
Generic Charity / Individual Donation
The entire website should focus on the type and benefit of giving. When discussing the larger organization, care should always be taken to ensure that individuals give what they can and how easy and rewarding it is to do so. There should be general information about charities, what a charity is and how it works, with an emphasis on using a common language for charities to make the site relevant to all common keywords for charities.
Add 5-10 items to the / charity giving / directory using the following keywords:
legal profession
altruistic
charitable purposes
Charities
charity
donation
give
charitable
poverty
volunteer
Celebrity / philanthropy
Much of the website should target wealthy families, celebrities, and philanthropists who welcome them and invite them to donate. All legal and related information should be discussed to fully explain the benefits of a donation.
Add 5–10 articles to the / philanthropy / directory to identify these keywords:
legal profession
altruistic
benefactor
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
celebrity
Philanthropy
Estate planning
Create several pages with the answer to the question “Why should Heifer.org be a benefactor in my will?” Use case studies or specific examples to explain why Heifer International should be a “non-profit trust” within a will or inheritance.
Add 5-10 articles to the / estate planning / directory that focus on the following keywords:
Charity donation
charitable purposes
nonprofit memory annuity trust
charitable trusts
Charity as a beneficiary
possible IRA beneficiaries
estate taxes
IRA Money
retirement account
state property tax
Wills and estate planning
Government donations
Explain the nature of nonprofits and the benefits of charities under federal and state law. Explain the profitability of charities, why governments can donate more, or what problems are associated with charitable donations.
Add 5-10 articles to the / nonprofit / directory that target these keywords:
legal profession
Help
atonement
bureaucracy
Charities
donate
humanitarian aid
charitable
nonprofit organizations
poverty
ownership
excess
tax deduction
tax exemption
United States of America
Step 3: create a website theme with virtual silos
A website can be viewed both as a single entity that is part of the Internet and as a group of individual pages that make up the website. Search engines try to categorize the information on individual websites into content groups. Search engines regard links between and within websites as a strong signal for the relevance of the topic.
Virtual silos use a drilldown networking structure to create different subject categories. In other words, the top landing page topic is supported by relevant pages that link to it. Virtual siloing can be useful for an established site for which no directory file system is set up or which cannot break established page positions to change the site architecture.
In a virtual silo, each support page is linked to the target page of the category and also to the other support pages for this topic. The topic of the silo is generated and reinforced by this type of networking of the pages. With virtual siloing, the pages do not have to be in the same directory to be in the same silo. The topic is created exclusively through the use of links.
Suppose you want to create a virtual silo for crispy peanut butter by using the following five pages for crispy peanut butter as support pages:
Peanutbuttersite.com/crunchy/superchunk/
Peanutbuttersite.com/crunchy/lowfat/
Peanutbuttersite.com/crunchy/organic/
Peanutbuttersite.com/crunchy/jellyhybrid/
Peanutbuttersite.com/crunchy/almond/
To create the virtual silo, all five pages are linked to the target page for crispy peanut butter. This informs the search engines that these pages are linked to and support the topic displayed on the target page. Each page should then also contain a link to every other support page in the virtual silo. In this case, each support page is linked to the four other support pages of the silo. The easiest way to do this is to include navigation on the page to link the pages together, and essentially create a category sitemap on the page.
If you link to other pages on the site, you have to be very careful to compromise the integrity of your silo. To link two related peanut butter sites that are in separate directories, link only the landing pages of the category. If you link in this way, you can define the subject of each silo. As already mentioned, when linking, make sure that you do not address your general keywords.
If you stick to the simple example of peanut butter, say that your website sells a jelly flavor that goes particularly well with creamy peanut butter. It may be appropriate to link from your side with peanut butter to the side with flavored jelly. Since the jelly side is a supportive side in the jelly silo, you want to link your side with creamy peanut butter to the landing side of the jelly silo instead of the page with the special taste of the jelly.
By linking the support page to the support page in different silos, the topics of both silos are watered down. By linking to the top of the jelly silo, you not only maintain the integrity of the two silos, but also help set up the jelly landing page as the main page for this silo. If you absolutely need to link the creamy peanut butter side to the flavored jelly side, you want to do this with a rel = "nofollow" link attribute. The link attribute rel = "nofollow" is a signal to the search engine, the PageRank, the indicator for the link value or the relevance, not to be passed.
Cross-silo and inner-silo links, collectively referred to as internal site links, are an important part of best practices for the virtual silo. The three main types of links that affect high keyword rankings are: inbound link, outbound link, and internal location link.
Virtual siloing on Heifer.org
We still use a historical version of Heifer International as a case study. Heifer.org will improve its topic relevance through virtual siloing practices, including improved anchor text, inbound linking, outbound linking, and internal linking.
Anchor Text
The anchor text has a direct impact on the subject relevance for all types of links. As already mentioned, Heifer International chooses an anchor text on the entire website that does not appeal to the target group, which makes the website relevant to the wrong target group.
Choosing the most appropriate keyword phrase as anchor text not only helps improve keyword rankings, but also promotes targeted fundraising on the website by bringing donors together with a good cause that is in line with their interest in donations and social justice , Improving the link structure brings the most relevant target groups / visitors to your website. Visitors click the search result much more often if it contains the most relevant search term.
Incoming link
The majority of websites that link to Heifer.org (Figure 8) only use the company name "Heifer International" in the link text, which helps the website rank for the company name. In order to obtain a ranking for subject-related terms, the site can benefit from inbound link anchor texts that contain subject-related keyword phrases. However, this should not be enforced or repeated too often. The wording must be natural and have a certain deviation, otherwise Google suspects that the website is buying or manipulating links.
Figure 8: Incoming links to Heifer.org with the anchor text of each link
Google assigns a value to incoming links that is referred to as PageRank (PR). Google considers a hyperlink to a page to be a "poll result" to support that page. Every website on the web has a certain amount of PR based on these votes and how much PR the linked pages have. The PageRank is distributed on all websites on the basis of which links to third-party websites and via the website's internal links are established.
What possible factors does Google use to determine the value of an inbound link?
Keyword-rich Anchor Text
The link text should contain relevant keyword phrases (e.g. donations to charity, religious purposes). The link text must also match the subject of the page to be relevant as the subject.
Relevant websites Link to relevant categories
A relevant website linked to the most relevant category on the website has the highest value. A link from a page that has little or no relevance can impair or water down the link value or the entire website.
Natural Link Acquisition
It is important to have other high-ranking websites that point to your website. However, if the only websites that refer to your website are expert quality, it can appear artificial or suspicious to search engines. It is a more natural pattern if a large number of new and established websites linked to your website are acquired over time and not immediately.
Don't buy links
The most important guideline for building links is not to buy links. Buying links is one of the tactics Google is trying to eradicate from the Internet. Buying links for the purpose of handing over the PageRank can result in severe penalties for search engines.
Outbound link
Links to other websites are referred to as outgoing links and are the least understood elements of the link structure.
Often, efforts to create inbound link campaigns dominate link structure projects, while outbound links are ignored and misunderstood. In particular, companies are concerned that they may lose traffic and customer revenue if they refer to relevant information, products or services on other websites. As legitimate as these concerns may be, most websites are unaware of the harm of not linking to their search engine rankings.
It goes without saying for an expert to connect with other experts (see Figure 9). The effort to build outbound links is only effective if it is matched with suitable outbound links that are evaluated using the same type of keyword focus factors. You have to act as a hub for other authorities, otherwise you are not a big expert.
Figure 9: Outgoing link text on heifer.org
Outbound anchor text
The anchor text that refers to another page must be evaluated with the same check that incoming links receive. Assessing competition is critical to understanding why a website has high keyword rankings.
The keyword phrases used as anchor text should reflect the same keyword type that the site is trying to evaluate for itself or to identify the brand or domain. You want your users to see what they see when they click a link. For search engines, it strengthens your expertise. If you want to be an expert on a subject, link this silo to other experts on the same subject.
Link to relevant compatible websites
In order to determine the relevance of the topic, it is not necessary to access your direct competitors. Instead, choose compatible and related websites. Specialists are often educational or news sites, or compatible services that complement a website's products or services.
Don't sell links
Finally, heed the warning and do not sell links to other websites without using the rel = "nofollow" link attribute for those links. For example, no ads will appear on your website.
The practice of selling links that transmit PageRank, no matter how tempting it may be, can result in very high penalties for search engines and possible bans that can remove the website from the search engine. Remember that Google's quality formula EAT includes trustworthiness as the cornerstone.
Internet site link
The topic relevance can be built up on site using the navigation and onpage elements. Arrange the main topics in the most rational way (based on the search for people) to improve the relevance of the topic. Organize menus to categorize the content and categories of the site.
The browser renders the code, including the site menu, in a visually appealing way, as shown in Figure 10. However, search engines often see a page without images and graphic elements, as shown in Figure 11.
Figure 10: The Heifer.org homepage is rendered by a browser
Figure 11: Heifer.org homepage cache
The difference between a search engine viewing this menu and a human viewing this menu in a browser has both positive and negative aspects. It is good that all links can be followed and that the site is easily indexable. That the link structure of the menu does little to clarify the main themes of the website is a missed opportunity.
Hierarchical top level and sublevel navigation
As mentioned above, the menus are fully indexable. However, the menus do not help classify the main themes: charities, philanthropy, wills and estate planning, nonprofits, world charities, church fundraisers, corporate responsibility, and fundraising ideas. The categories above should replace the top-level navigation elements as anchor text (see Figure 12).
Figure 12: The Heifer.org subnavigation
It is recommended that the sub navigation elements are topics that support the main category. In this example we replace "Give" with "Philanthropy" and change the subnavigation as follows:
celebrity
legal profession
Philanthropy
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
benefactor
Altruistic
Menu items should support the main category and contain links that are relevant to the topic category. For example, the topics of corporate responsibility and individual giving can only be reconciled in the narrowest sense.
The second level navigation represents the individual landing pages of the primary silos and the purpose of this navigation is to focus on the subcategories or secondary silos of this section of the website. The elements that are in the dropdown elements are rendered on the page in the best possible way. Take the green menu item Learning on the Heifer.org website.
The left navigation (Figure 13) is a perfect example of the structure of secondary wooden elements on the target pages of the primary silo. It tells both the user and the search engine exactly what the user can expect if he further examines this category of information.
Figure 13: Secondary navigation from Heifer.org
Networking
When you create internal links within the site, link related topics together and break down unrelated categories. Use the Structure link to channel relevance, and be careful not to link topics that divide or water down topics.
Rel = ”NoFollow”
When you link different silos within the site, you can usually always link to a target page. If the link between silos and the landing page is not a landing page for which we want to rank, we use a nofollow link attribute in this case. Add the rel = "nofollow" attribute to prevent PR from being passed outside of silos when connecting two people. In this way, pages that are not linked can be linked without confusing the relevance of the topic. A rel = "nofollow" removes the PR relationship between two or more pages.
Possible alternatives to avoid excessive navigation or networking
If it's not possible to remove menus that conflict with relevant categories, use technology to block the search engine spider from indexing these specific items to maintain the relevance of the quality subject.
A balanced relationship between these elements of the link structure, including inbound linking, outbound linking and internal site linking, ensures maximum topic relevance. Learning to control topic relevance requires that you know your topic well and who you want to include in your link network.
Step 4: creating keyword-rich content
Content is king. At least we have told others about it over the years. The truth is that the importance of content needs to be qualified.
Content is king, but not all content is the same. Your content must be written with certain characteristics in mind to meet the standard that search engines are looking for today. It must meet a number of guidelines before it is considered worthwhile, and even then, it may not be enough to meet your ROI in improving your ranking.
content requirements
The first step in creating keyword-rich content is to examine how much content needs to be written or otherwise provided to compete for the top results.
Knowing exactly how much content you need to get a top search engine ranking can be incredibly helpful. While the content alone is not sufficient to rank well in search engines, "enough" is important to be at the top of the search results.
You can also calculate the amount of content rewarded for each keyword phrase. Even a competitor with thousands of pages is vulnerable if the secret of its ranking is revealed.
We have spent a lot of time with Google as the optimization for this search engine is the greatest potential reward for the effort. How can you tell how much content a website needs to effectively keep up with Google? The answer is to use dedicated Google operators to find the data we need to determine competition and content volume, and then analyze those pages as a community in our Multi Page Analyzer.
Google Operators
One way to determine how Google rates the content of a website is to use Google operators (see list here: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433). For example, you can use a search operator to find out how many pages a website can contain in total or on a specific topic in the Google index.
Site Command + Keyword Phrase
The first operator is the "site:" command. In combination with a keyword phrase, you can use the “site:” command to roughly determine how many pages a particular site has that particular keyword phrase (Figure 14).
Example: site: fundraising-ideas.org Fundraising ideas
Site command.
Figure 14: "Site:" command in the Google search field
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afundraising-ideas.org+fundraising+ideas
Alli Title command
The second operator is "allintitle:" and specifies on how many pages in the Google index the keyword expression within the title tag is used (Figure 15).
Example: allintitle: fundraising ideas
Alli Title command.
Figure 15: Allintitle command: in the Google search field
https://www.google.com/search?q=allintitle%3A++fundraising+ideas
The combination of these two search engine rating methods gives you a good idea of how much content is likely to be required to keep up with the top rated pages. It can also remove a bit of the mystical quality of search engine rankings and put critical information in the hands of the site owner.
Content measurement and evaluation
Let's revisit the Heifer.org nonprofit website and examine a selection of its primary and secondary silo categories. We use the two operators above to determine how much content is required to compete for a particular keyword phrase.
Typically, a charity website contains some existing content that focuses on many of the key fundraising and charity issues that it targets. In the case of Heifer.org, however, the website can do little to describe the people from whom they ask for donations. Below is a possible breakdown by audience type and some possible related keywords.
Charity Giving / Individual Giving Schlüsselwörter
Giving, Charity, Poverty, Volunteer, Charity, Donation, Nonprofit, Advocacy, Nonprofit, Charitable, Giving, Altruistic
Keywords for celebrities / philanthropy
Celebrity, Advocacy, Philanthropy, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Benefactors, Altruistic
Estate Planning Keywords
Charitable foundations, non-profit pension insurance, beneficiary charity, charitable donation, wills and estate planning, estate taxes, charitable donations, IRA funds, conditional IRA beneficiaries, pension accounts, state estate tax
Governmental Giving Keywords
Surplus, Poverty, Aid, Charity, Advocacy, United States of America, Nonprofit, Nonprofit Organization, Donations, Tax Deduction, Ownership, Tax Exemption, Reconciliation, Humanitarian Aid, Bureaucracy
World Charities, Africa Charities, Asia Charities Stichwörter
AIDS, Africa, agriculture, malaria, apartheid, genocide
Religious giving / charity keywords
Christianity, Judaism, Catholic charities, Lutheran, Roman Catholic
Corporate giving keywords
Corporate identity, commercial law, corporate social responsibility, capital gains tax, tax deduction, atonement
Fundraising-Keywords
Fundraising ideas, fundraising ideas, fundraising ideas, fundraising companies, fundraisers for schools, churches, fundraisers for churches, sports teams, day care, charities
Competitive research for content measurement
Not only do we have to measure the number of pages, we also need to examine the quality of the content on the average page of a particular site. We will use the fundraising silo to evaluate how many words should be used per page and how complex the content is on the page.
Secondary silos site + keyword (body content) (keyword in the title)
Fundraising-Ideen fundraising-ideas.org (439)
fundraisinghelp.com (
3,040 ) easy-rundraising-ideas.com (585) 33,100
Fundraising-Unternehmen fundraisingweb.org (194)
fundraisingdirectory.com (23)
fundsnetservices.com (49) 1,7700
School Fundraiser school-fundraisers.com (28)
childparenting.about.com (42) 6.430
easy-fundraising-ideas.com (255)
Church fundraisers easy-fundraising-ideas.com (284)
withinhisgrace.com (171)
fasttrackfundraising.com (186) 310
Fundraisers for sports teams sportsfundraisers.com (5)
fundraisingzone.com (74)
mysportsdreams.com (18) 19
Church fundraisers easy-fundraising-ideas.com (284)
withinhisgrace.com (171)
fastrackfundraising.com (186) 310
Fundraisers for sports teams sportsfundraisers.com (5)
fundraisingzone.com (74)
mysportsdreams.com (18)19
Table 4: Data on the relative competitiveness of keywords in the fundraising silo
Check the tables to see how much content is required to compete for a particular keyword phrase. Use these examples to estimate the amount of content the website needs to compete for the best results.
Remember that ranking a website is more than just writing content. The higher the rank of the website, the more likely it is to contain the most pages on a topic. Other factors, such as the overall authority of the site, also affect the ranking of individual pages.
These content estimates must be subject to the same level of testing that you set for each other silo category and must be considered as a factor in the overall silo design.
Competitor analysis: fundraising-ideas.org
Let's look at a competitor, the fundraising-ideas.org site (see Figure 16).
Figure 16: Homepage of fundraising-ideas.org (historical view)
There is a large amount of text on this website on the home page (Table 5) that highlights two main factors. First, fundraising ideas may be a very competitive term. Second, much of this information is likely to be created by volunteers. The information is long and very general, with little regard for an actual institution. This indicates that they were written by well-meaning teachers and other types of educators for school programs.
Gauging
Keyword phrase content on the first page Number of pages with keyword phrases
Fundraising-Ideen 699 439
Table 5: Content on fundraising-ideas.org
Competitor analysis: fundraiserhelp.com
A second competitor of Heifer.org in terms of SEO is fundraiserhelp.com (Figure 17).
Figure 17: Homepage of fundraiserhelp.com (historical view)
The fundraiserhelp.com homepage acts as a directory rather than an actual guide and has a generous content (Table 6). The supporting pages usually contain far less than 50 to 100 words. However, there is no doubt that the homepage of a site optimized for "fundraising ideas" must have a large content on the homepage.
Gauging
Keyword phrase content on the first page Number of pages with keyword phrases
Fundraising-Ideen 1068 3,040
Table 6: Content on fundraiserhelp.com
Competitor analysis: easy-fundraising-ideas.com
A third SEO competitor is easy-fundraising-ideas.com (Figure 18).
Figure 18: Homepage of easy-fundraising-ideas.com (historical view)
Most of the content on easy-fundraising-ideas.com is displayed at the end of the homepage. Every site has numerous links on the page, but this site far exceeds the recommended norm of less than 15 percent.
Gauging
Keyword phrase content on the first page Number of pages with keyword phrases
Fundraising-Ideen 585 921
Table 7
Use of competitor analysis
From the results of our competitive analysis, we can determine a range of content that we want to fulfill. Use the lowest content measurement in the top 10 as a milestone. When you start budgeting for the lowest denominator, you can aim to aim higher over time. It's much more important to be in the game than being overwhelmed by the seemingly impossible task of being the best right away.
Providing the best content that meets a seeker's intent is key. Of course, it's about more than the amount of content or the use of keywords. So you might be wondering whether it makes sense to pay close attention to these numbers. However, this data is particularly valid in very competitive industries, with all other things being the same. Many competitors are likely to implement such strategic recommendations. And study after study has confirmed the ranking of longer and shorter content.
First set yourself realistic goals. Start somewhere and record the progress of the site with any major content addition.
Keyword density
The keyword density itself is not a meaningful number when considering many keywords. However, it is a useful statistic to characterize a single keyword or phrase. In addition to understanding the volume of content of your own website and your competitor's website, it is also helpful to evaluate and understand how keywords and their related words are used on the website's content pages for each keyword.
Although there is no “perfect” keyword density, this number can be used as a model when writing and planning content. You need to understand the focus of the fundraising ideas theme, as it is commonly used on most high-profile websites. Remember to pay more attention to the percentage of density and the frequency or repetition of keywords used across the entire content page.
In the SEO ToolS you can use the "Research Summary" tool to identify the top 10 ranking sites in the search engines and then analyze them with the multi-page analyzer (see examples in Figure 4 and Figure 5).
After you submit the keyword, the Target report shows recommendations for using keywords in various page elements (title tag, meta description, body, etc.).
The density alone is not sufficient to increase the relevance of the topic and this report should only be used as a guideline. However, it can help you to create content that is in the search engine master data for the natural behavior of the top pages on this keyword.
Content-Building-Strategien
After following the steps above, we know how much content we need to write and what it takes to be competitive. Often, writing so much content involves hiring a publishing staff and spending a lot of money. This may be a wise move for many companies in the long run, but it isn't always possible for smaller companies. A small business won't be able to compete with organizations with an apparently huge website and budget unless they get creative. A small shop doesn't have the budget to hire a full-time writer to create the content as a large company would. However, there is another answer and here are some ideas for researching content writing for the new generation.
Traditional articles, newsletters, blogs
Articles and blog content are a traditional way of creating relevant content on a website.
Figure 19: Article page on heifer.org
While blog posts are often created by employees, authors don't necessarily have to be dedicated authors. Every employee in an organization can be a disguised article author or blogger who is able to write about their area of expertise.
Alternatively, blogs and articles can be written by customers, brand followers, or anyone willing to share their story or write content on the website.
User-Generated Content Building
A content creation philosophy solves the problem of small and medium-sized business websites. There are ways to increase relevance by encouraging users to actively deal with the brand. Customers can contribute through a review, testimonial or comment, or they can contribute their own ideas for creating content through creative projects.
Reviews are of great importance for the credibility of construction products and websites (see example in Figure 20).
Amazon Review page.
Figure 20: Amazon.com customer review page
Reviews are a great way to get users to create content-rich extensions to your website, but they can only go so far. Let's face it - how can we get users to create content practically free of charge and increase the link popularity of your website's expertise?
Creation of custom content
For some websites, it makes sense to give users direct access to the website with profile pages and digital identities. Then the site can encourage them to write about their authentic experiences. Search engines and website visitors consider these experts content about your products and services.
Build a growing and active community that keeps users on your website and creates unique content with lots of keywords. Give your community the opportunity to provide compelling testimonials for their dedication and commitment to the organization. Give users the freedom to expand their own communities within the website and create content that goes beyond a passive testimonial.
An example of an active community that creates content is Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers combines all the elements that define a web community, meet the requirements for content creation and support the authority of the subject.
Yahoo Answers Page.
Figure 21: Yahoo Answers page
Knowing how search engines rate, categorize and decode content brings to light an apparently mysterious method. Trying to compete with only the best results can lead to frustration. Instead, measure the group of top competitors and choose the attainable goal. Get an accurate picture of keyword density when writing content to increase the relevance of keywords and topics. Finally, write high quality content that users want, or let your users create their own content in their own personalized area.
Sitemaps
Having a sitemap in the root directory of your website has long been central to helping search engines identify all of the important areas of your website. An XML sitemap is a text file you have created that lists all the URLs that search engines should index. It is used by search engines for indexing purposes.
You can run a free tool that recognizes your website and outputs the logical structure of your website in the form of an XML sitemap that can be sent to search engines.
In addition, an HTML sitemap is a page on your website that both human visitors and search engine spiders can access. Usually a website-wide "sitemap" link is part of the footer navigation.
You want to set up your HTML sitemap to illustrate how the content of your website is organized.
Very large websites can contain multiple XML sitemaps and HTML sitemaps for different areas or the website and / or different types of content. Format them so that they best match the topic relevance of your website.
For more information, see our How to Create a Sitemap article.
Silowartung
Creating physical and virtual category silos, managing inbound, outbound and internal links, and creating supporting content for a site require careful planning and implementation. With so many resources being used to set up silos on a site, it is as important to maintain them as competition research and additional content continue to shape the site.
It is important to have a clear overview of your site and to take steps to maintain the ideal silo structure. In order to maintain silos carefully, you should cut back the silo content and then expand it to improve the topic relevance of your site.
primary Silos
We previously identified Heifer.org’s audience communities that maximize targeted traffic to the site. As explained earlier, Heifer.org should not focus on how the organization works, but on the resources they want to attract. We have identified the following key terms: Charity Philanthropy, Estate Planning, Government Donations, World Charities, Religious Donations / Charities, Business Donations and Fundraisers.
After researching and selecting the main topic, decide at regular intervals whether these are the right keywords or keyword phrases to be targeted in a silo. You may need to shorten or label the best phrase for the topic. Remember that these terms must be used across your entire website, including navigation elements, directory structure, meta information (title, meta description, meta keyword tags), page headings, alternative attributes and body text. All content elements must work together as consistently as possible to clarify the relevance of the page.
Secondary Silos
The subjects of the subcategory level further clarify or support the intended meaning or definition of the primary silos. These topics are located in drop-down menus and, if possible, in the directory structures and in their own directories and page names. Each secondary element supports its own grouping of information that further defines or classifies the primary topic.
It is important to decide whether these secondary keyword phrases best define the supporting topics. It is often necessary to rename the secondary silo label or to better focus on the topics in order to better coordinate the content on your site, or in the case of a new site to write content that is tailored more specifically to your target group.
Silo extension
Website owners often ask, "How should we change our website to better focus our silos without losing rankings?" There are many different ways to solve this problem. However, the preferred method is to think of your website as ongoing work. In order not to alienate visitors and keep your traffic constant, consider expanding or expanding your website by one or two silos at a time, and then analyzing how each change affects placement. Don't change the site in an update and hope everything is re-indexed properly. There are hundreds of configurations of this premise that may work better in the short term.
Subject theming
Just as a site can benefit from slow growth, it is vital for maintaining a site to shorten or crop portions of the site that affect the subject's relevance. When you launch a user-oriented special action, you protect the silo subjects by implementing code to prevent the spider from finding this link or indexing the new pages. Make it a routine part of site maintenance by removing links that show the relevance of the topic.
Silos are the recommended way to design the content of your website so that search engines recognize the relevance of the topic. Start the silo process by defining the goals topics taking into account the target group and the competition. If possible, implement silos using the site's physical directory structure or the Structure link, or both. Create content for the site and encourage users to create content that supports the silos category of the site. And then you maintain the website with constant research and analysis. This process gives your website the authority and technical relevance determined by search engines.
Silos are the most significant architectural advance in the interactive marketing industry. They enable the creation of a website that is based on the way users search and enable you to be clearly recognized by search engines as an expert on important keywords that convert.
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