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A talk given at Interactivity Digital 2013 in Miami, FL. In this presentation you will find site architecture best practices and a case study.
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Optimizing Your Website’s Architecture for SEO
JOHN DOHERTY – INTERACTIVITY DIGITAL MIAMI 2013
JOHN DOHERTY
Head/Senior Consultant, Distilled NYC
@dohertyjf
This is my conference
shirt.
Site Architecture is critical to SEO
But a bad site architecture is the #1 issue I see on
many websites.
It often looks something like this.
What’s this guy
doing?
What’s this guy
doing?
Are all of these pages really the
same value?
Categorize and Prioritize
A page that is linked to by many pages with high PageRank receives a high rank itself. If there are no
links to a web page, then there is no support for that page.
This applies to both external and internal links. Internal linkbuilding can be very effective as well!
Categorization
Categorizing your pages into “types” will help you to organize your site
architecture and provide more internal links to your important pages to
help them rank better.
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Categorization
Linking from down in the architecture back up to pages higher in the
hierarchy prioritizes the higher pages for competitive terms. If you’re
having issues with the wrong page ranking, your site architecture is
probably wrong.
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Categorization
Categorization
Homepage
Deeper pages
Categorization
Homepage
Deeper pages
Longtail
Site Architecture Best Practices
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
The higher the page is in your
architecture, the stronger it will be.
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond
Most powerful
Categorization
This one
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond
Most powerful
Second powerful
Categorization
These guys
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond
Most powerful
Second powerful
Least powerful
Categorization
This little guy
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond
Links to
category
Links to deep
and home Links to category and home
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Competitive pages must be linked from
strong and many pages internally (just
like external links)
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Some of the strongest pages on your
site will be category or hub pages.
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Use the anchor text you want for rank
with in your internal links.
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Use top navigation sparingly, and it may
not pass much juice equity.
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
It can work though.
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Breadcrumbs are a great way to link up
the architecture, providing both more
internal links and a way for the crawlers
to navigate your website.
Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Sitemaps by category (if your site is big
enough) can help to make sure that all of
your pages are indexed (doesn’t help
with ranking).
Prioritization
Site Architecture Toolbox
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Visio LucidChart
Screaming
Frog Excel
Ranking Pages with Excel
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Using some Excel magic you can find which pages you should
prioritize internally. Download the spreadsheet here.
Ranking Pages with Excel
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Crawl your site with Screaming Frog
Ranking Pages with Excel
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Download HTML and delete all but Level
and Inlinks
Ranking Pages with Excel
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Input Target Keyword, Volume, and
Competitiveness for all terms.
Ranking Pages with Excel
@dohertyjf http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/understanding-
site-architecture-with-xenu-and-excel/
Get averages of Level and Inlinks, then
add together to get final score.
Ranking Pages with Excel
@dohertyjf http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/understanding-
site-architecture-with-xenu-and-excel/
This are the pages that will be crawled
most often on your site and pass the
most internal link equity.
Quick Case Study
Had a client with architecture issues
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Not going
to rank
We implemented internal links to the page.
@dohertyjf John Doherty
We saw great improvements in rankings.
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Tell me smart linking
doesn’t work
In Conclusion
Site Architecture Best Practices
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Quantity + quality
of internal links.
Link with authoritative pages to pages
you want to rank.
Breadcrumbs link
up easily.
More competitive terms on top pages,
long tail terms on deep pages.
Site Architecture Best Practices
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Go Forth and Optimize
@dohertyjf John Doherty
Download The Excel Sheet!
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond
