SEO

How to Optimize Content Themes on a Large Site using Content Silos Dr. Ralph F. Wilson - Founder and Editor, Web Marketing Today - May 26, 2009

The larger your website, the more sophisticated your search engine optimization (SEO) needs to be in order to avoid the problem of diluting or diffusing the focus of your website.

Let's say you have a sporting goods website selling equipment for a dozen sports -- football, basketball, softball, tennis, disc golf, etc. You have also written lots of content about each sport to attract search engine traffic -- good idea!

The problem is that people don't search on "sporting goods." They search much more specifically: "tennis balls." But your soccer section may be so well integrated into the rest of your site that the search engines don't see it as a main theme of your site. If each of your individual sports were represented by a primary color, when all dumped together, the site can appear "gray" or muddy to the search engines, with no single color standing out. How can you get rid of the mish-mash that the search engines see and create clearly-defined, tightly focused content themes, each of which rank high in the search engines?

The Problem with Microsites

Some people would give you this advice: Create many microsites, each focusing on a narrow theme or niche. The strategy might work for some people. Indeed, sometimes it's the right strategy. But I caution you to avoid it in most cases for these reasons:

1. Multiple microsites divide the "link juice" that is generated by links to your site into many domains. Rather than getting some site-wide, cumulative ranking lift from all the inbound links to the various parts of the larger site, microsites have to start from scratch each time to build PageRank.
2. Multiple microsites can be a headache to manage, since you don't usually have a single content management system that manage them all.
3. Multiple microsites divide your marketing time and energy. You can only do so many things well at the same time.

I own and manage three active, content-rich websites. Each has many different content categories or content themes. But each site is fortunate to have captured many top 5 rankings for the most important keywords in its sector. Each site generates a lot of targeted, organic search engine traffic .

Content Silos and PageRank Sculpting

The key to getting high rankings in each category or content theme in a large site is found in "content siloing." The strategy was pioneered by Bruce Clay, who explains it in two must-watch video interviews referenced at the end of this article. I've found content siloing quite effective.

I'm oversimplifying, but the strategy consists of four steps:

1. Create wise content categories or content themes
2. Decide on the desired landing page for each content theme
3. Focus internal "link juice" on the desired landing page for that theme (using a technique known in some circles as PageRank sculpting)
4. Develop an external linking campaign for the desired landing page

Let me caution you, however. If you are new to search engine optimization, don't start here. You will learn some important principles in this article, but work on the SEO basics before you try this at home.

1. Create Wise Content Categories or Content Themes

The first step is to create well thought out content themes for your site. For example, if your sporting goods store sells disc golf supplies, should you use the category of "disc golf" or "Frisbee golf"? Comparing the two terms at Google Insights for Search (www.google.com/insights/search/) shows that "disc golf" is searched for nearly three times as often as "Frisbee golf." "Disc golf" is the term used by most regular players, "Frisbee golf" by the wannabes.

Ask two questions: (1) The SEO question is: What would my target customer search on to find this content theme? (2) The usability question is: For a customer who is browsing through my site, which content theme name is most clearly recognizable? The questions you shouldn't ask are: How does our company traditionally organize our products? or How does the CEO want it done?

If you are designing your site from scratch, it's best to put all the pages for each content theme or category into the same subdirectory. But if you do this later, you can create virtual content silos by the way you internally link items in each content theme.

2. Decide on the Desired Landing Page for Each Content Theme

Once you've determined your content themes, you need to decide which single webpage for that content theme you would like to drive search engine traffic to. Pay Per Click campaigns often set up a different landing page for every campaign. And such landing pages usually aren't linked to from the website. But in this article, I'm using the term "landing page" in an SEO sense, the main page to which you want to funnel organic search engine traffic. Often this landing page is the sectional page for a content theme or content category. Sometimes it might be the product sales page for a closely related product or group of products.

3. Focus Internal "Link Juice" on a Desired Landing Page

The next task is to focus the internal "link juice" of each of your content pages for a particular theme onto the desired landing page.  I'm using laymen's terms here, not technical SEO terms. But there are two issues: (a) The keyword focus of the links to and from this landing page and (b) the ranking effect of links to this landing page.

a. Keyword Focus

To help you understand the theory, I need to explain something about how Google indexes or figures out the keyword focus of a particular webpage. In addition to looking at the keywords on the webpage itself (in the title, meta tags, headers, body text, etc.), it looks at the keyword theme of the webpages that link to the page AND the keyword theme of the pages linked from the page.

If all the webpages that link to a landing page, "disc golf", for example, are directly related to disc golf, then Google says: "Darn, I bet this page is about disc golf." Additionally, if all the links from the landing page point to pages about disc golf, then Google says, "Double darn! I'm sure this page is about disc golf." All these internal links reinforce the focus of this theme or category.

The average website includes links to its site-wide menu system that diffuse and dilute the clarity of the individual content themes. Pages on football, soccer, and baseball all have links to the disc golf landing page, and vice versa. Now Google says, "Huh?" The focus of the theme landing page is diluted and Google is confused about the clarity of its keyword focus.

The key is to make sure all the links on the disc golf landing page go to disc golf content pages, and vice versa.

b. Ranking Effect of Links

We've looked at the effect of links on the search engine's perception of keyword focus and clarity. Now let's look at the ranking effect of links to a page.

Google determines PageRank on the basis of the number of inbound links to a page (which add to PageRank) and the number of outbound links from a page (which tend to decrease PageRank). Of course, it's not that simple -- not nearly. The point is, however, that every link from a webpage decreases the potential PageRank of that page. Thus, if search engine optimization were your only concern, you would minimize links to any page that isn't absolutely necessary. (Of course, your linking strategy must satisfy your customer, too.) So how do you keep the "link juice" of your theme landing page from "leaking" away in outgoing links?

Strategy: Give Links Unrelated Themes a  rel="nofollow" Attribute

To keep "link juice" from leaking away, you set each outbound link that goes to an unrelated page to rel="nofollow". This "tag" (actually, this "attribute") is used to instruct search engines that a hyperlink should not pass PageRank to the target page. Here is an example of the syntax:

<a href="http://www.sports-site/football/" rel="nofollow">Football</a>

Thus, a link to "football" on the site-wide menu (with a "nofollow" attribute) would prevent any "link juice" from flowing to the football landing page.

If you have a small website, don't bother with this. But if you have a large site, this can be very important. As a rule, I put a "nofollow" attribute in each of my site-wide menu links. The internal links without a "nofollow" attribute go to and from tightly-focused theme landing pages and their related content pages.

The effect of this is to make sure that nearly all the internal links on your website: (1) reinforce the appropriate content theme, in this case, "Disc Golf," and (2) focus as much "link juice" (ranking value) as possible on the appropriate theme landing page.

Now when someone searches on "disc golf", your site's disc golf landing page is much more likely to appear among the top listings.

4. Develop an External Linking Campaign for the Desired Landing Page

The fourth step in getting higher ranking landing pages is to get external links pointing to each theme landing page. To learn how to get links to a page, take a look at some of the articles and videos we have on linking.

Okay, there's the theory. I know this is difficult to grasp. But hang on. Let me explain how I've applied this on my own site.

Example from JesusWalk.com

I've implemented the strategy of content siloing on my JesusWalk.com website, a site with about 750 webpages in all. It is an online Bible study site, containing about two dozen different Bible studies ("content themes"), each in its own subdirectory. The menu system is set up in such a way that none of the menu links passes PageRank, that is, all the menu system links include a rel="nofollow" attribute.

Created New Category

Recently I created a category for a curriculum to instruct newly-converted Christians. The terms usually used for this kind of instruction are "discipleship" and "spiritual formation." A comparison of the terms on Google Insights for Search indicates that "discipleship" is searched for much more often than "spiritual formation." People in different traditions or denominations use different terms, so both are important.

For the best SEO effect, I would have named the new category by one of these keywords, but that would have confused people browsing the site. My compromise was to name the category by the name of the curriculum, "JesusWalk: Beginning the Journey" (which will also be the title of a book I will publish this fall), but use the keywords "discipleship" and "spiritual formation" liberally in titles and internal linking anchor text.

There are currently about 20 webpages in this subdirectory. I added a regular link from the homepage to the sectional category page, my desired landing page. Then I added the category to the left-side menu (which appears on every page of the site) with a rel="nofollow" attribute (as is the case for all the menu elements). This way no keyword focus or link value is lost to the menu. Rather each content theme landing page in the site is linked internally only with other content pages in that content theme. Each is an independent content silo within the site.

Template for Content Pages within the Category

Next, I created a page template for all the webpages within the "JesusWalk: Beginning the Journey" category. The template provides the site-wide menu system (all with rel="nofollow" attributes), of course. But the links that "count" all point to the primary content theme landing page. The template includes:

• Header image, linked to the landing page
• H6 text link that reinforces the keywords, linked to landing page. Keywords in H6 text will emphasize the theme more than keywords in body text.
• A link at the bottom of the webpage to the landing page for people who happen to land on one of the content pages and desire to find the entire series.
• When the related book is complete, each page will have an image of the related book with a link to the product page where the book is sold. This technique has been quite effective in driving PageRank to product pages that people normally don't link to.

The effect of this template for all the content pages is to send the link juice of all 20 content pages to the primary theme landing page AND to the corresponding product page, and not diffuse it to the rest of the site. The anchor text of the links and the content on each of the pages also reinforce the theme of the entire category.

Get External Links to the Landing Page

120x240 banner linked to the discipleship and spiritual formation theme landing page

The final step is to promote the landing page in such a way that I get the maximum number of external links pointing to it. My promotion campaign so far is to provide:

• A linked 120x240 banner on the high-traffic homepage of one of my companions sites.
• A temporary promotion just under the headline in 90% of the webpages of this site -- with a rel="nofollow" attribute, so as not to dilute the focus and PageRank of the webpages where this link appears.
• An e-mail newsletter to 32,000 double opt-in subscribers with an article designed to drive traffic to the new content theme landing page.
• A bookmark request and graphic in both the newsletter AND on the category page to encourage readers to bookmark the site using AddThis. (By the way, if you visit the landing page, please bookmark it as a favor to me. Thanks!) I'm using slightly different anchor text in the AddThis buttons in the newsletter and on the landing page, so as to vary the wording in the incoming links to the landing page.

Promotions slated for later this year include placement in appropriate directories across the Web and a news release designed to drive traffic (and provide at some temporary links) from religious media sources.
 

If you are struggling at this point to wrap your mind around these concepts, I'm not surprised. Frankly, I found them hard to grasp the first time I encountered them. But read this article again and the references below, and you'll begin to understand. Happy content siloing!

Resources on Content Siloing

I hope my explanation gave you a good overview of the principles. But to obtain detailed information consult these sources:

Bruce Clay video interviews I conducted at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose, August, 2008:

• Creating Content Silos to Increase Keyword Ranking of Larger Sites with Bruce Clay. Part 1 (4:45)
• Creating Content Silos to Increase Keyword Ranking of Larger Sites with Bruce Clay. Part 2 (8:55)

Articles by Bradley Leese on the Bruce Clay, Inc. website:

• Building a Web Site Theme with Silos, Part 1, March 31, 2007
• Building a Web Site Theme with Silos, Part 2, April 30, 2007
• Building a Web Site Theme with Silos, Part 3: Folder / Directory Structure, June 30, 2007
• Building a Web Site Theme with Silos, Part 4A: Link Structure, July 31, 2007
• Building a Web Site Theme with Silos, Part 4B: Link Structure, August 31, 2007
• Building a Web Site Theme with Silos, Part 5: Keyword Rich Content, October 15, 2007
• Building a Web Site Theme with Silos, Part 6: Site Maps, January 31, 2008

Dr. Ralph F. Wilson is one of the pioneers of Internet marketing, founding the Web Marketing Today newsletter in 1995 at the beginning of the commercial Internet. In addition to developing scores of websites and online stores and consulting with many companies large and small, he is the author of hundreds of articles and more than a dozen bookson Internet marketing and e-commerce.