Content Layering :: Using Site Architecture To Improve SEO
by Guest Author on February 4, 2010
in Search Engine Optimization
Several times, a site gets very giant and its ability to rank well in competitive markets decreases in half because of the scale of the site. Whereas we tend to within the business grasp that content is king, more usually than not it is a mix of content and effective site structure that can ultimately help your pages rank.
In this article I have a look at how to most effectively structure your website to require advantage of this.
I browse this nice article on layering on the SEOmoz Blog http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=789 and whereas it will a smart job of explaining what content layering is, I feel it could be improved just a little bit.
I’m not saying it’s wrong in any way. After all the tactic outlined will be terribly effective for a little to medium sized site, however I’ve got additionally found another approach to organize your website that can be a lot of effective if done properly.
Within the article, it explains how you employ layers to arrange your site. Now we tend to’re not talking concerning CSS layering or anything like that. It’s more of a website structure issue than anything.
In keeping with the article, one can layer their site through the utilization of sub-folders. By creating layers of sub-folders and then putting all connected content among that sub-folder you can layer your website to assist specific sections of it rank higher.
This can be a great approach to organize a smaller site because it allows you to put topical pages along, and promote links within the pages to assist improve overall positioning of these sections.
More, it helps scale back the dilution issue often felt by sites that try to hide multiple topics in a very flat file structure.
For example, if you sell widgets you may organize the sections by some common element, like color. That approach your site could be: http://widgetts.com/blue/page1.html and every one blue widget pages would go into this sub-folder. You’d then organize all different sub-folders during a similar style.
Like I said, I think this can be a terribly effective strategy for a smaller or medium site. There would be a abundant bigger probability of blue widgets ranking highly in a structure like this.
However, I feel that for larger sites there’s a good additional effective method to organize your content.
Through the utilization of sub-domains one may additional organize this content. This is able to build it even more relevant to search queries and more likely to rank. If one sold a bigger variety of widgets however still needed to prepare them by color then the structure of the location would be: http://blue.widgetts.com and all website content regarding blue widgets would appear at intervals this sub-domain.
The explanation I say sub-domains would be more effective is as a result of search engines tend to treat a sub-domain as its own site. In alternative words, a search engine sees http://blue.widgetts.com and http://widgetts.com as basically a pair of totally different sites.
Keep in mind that such a method is of the most benefit to larger sites. If you do not have a giant web site, or do not foresee your website growing to become a massive web site then I would not recommend the sub-domain layering tactic.
This is as a result of, as I’ve said, the search engines will treat your sub-domain as a distinctive site. So if you’ve solely got 10 or 15 or maybe fifty pages in your sub-domain, chances are it will not rank as competitively as it would have as a sub-folder of a larger site.
Currently, to make your content even additional competitive, why not mix these two strategies – use a sub-domain and sub-folders to produce you even additional control in web site organization as well as a good bigger probability of ranking.
This is as a result of the broader sub-domain will rank competitively for the broader terms while the sub-folder content will rank competitively for the less broad, more specific terms.
What you’re doing by combining the two ways is obtaining a lot of bang for your buck. This is often as a result of you are covering more space on the web, permitting your website to rank for both broad and specific terms.
Then, with some sensible strategic interlinking you may be in a position to even additional promote the broad areas of your website by linking all of your internal pages to the pages higher than it.
While I am not entirely dismissing the layered content theory presented higher than, I am saying take into account your situation. If your site could be a smaller web site, by all means that use the layered content approach. If it’s larger then use the sub-domain approach.
Additionally remember that there might be multiple ways to prepare the same content.
As an example, additionally to organizing your sub-domains or sub-folders by color within the widget example, also contemplate organizing them by features. This method, a selected widget could be linked to from multiple connected categories.
Not only that however you have currently bulked up your site with a bunch of further pages. These new pages are needed to help create the sub-domains and navigation needed to drive guests to the individual widget pages.
This kind of multi-category linking is common among several massive sites. One smart example is Ebay. It organizes its high auctions into sub-domains like antiques, art, autos and clothing. Then, inside the categories the sub-folder structure is employed to any segment the site.
In conclusion, if you’ve got been trying for a method to most effectively organize your website whereas helping to boost rankings, think about these options. Through the use of sub-folders, sub-domains or a mixture of each you’ll be able to effectively organize your site, phase your merchandise and target searchers additional effectively.
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