BACK TO BASICS: Building a Web Site Theme with Silos, Part Four B: Link Structure

by Bradley Leese, August 31, 2007

A large majority of established Web sites, though carefully marketed and honed for a target audience, fail to understand the logic behind why pages are interlinked throughout their site. Interlinking a minimum of two pages causes their subjects to become connected and will either improve or degrade subject relevancy. Internal site linking philosophy contends with many potential obstacles towards creating and maintaining subject theming silos. Throughout this article series, I have asked you to clearly envision your site and ask yourself are these pages compliant with theming basics. I am willing to bet most will come to the conclusion that their site organization is not focused clearly enough for the search engines to award high subject relevance.

Silo Maintenance

If all that was considered when building the most recent version of your Web site was how users will browse your site, then there are bound to be multiple infractions that cause your silos to be diluted if not completely irrelevant. It is absolutely critical that a clear outline be made of your site and that steps are taken to render that ideal by carefully maintaining silos, pruning back and then expanding silos to improve subject relevance.

Let's go back to our example of Heifer International whose site unfortunately is a perfect candidate for silo maintenance. Let's briefly review Article 3, Building a Web Site Theme with Silos, Part 3: Folder/Directory; we discussed how Heifer.org uses the following themes throughout their site: Ending Word Hunger, Get Involved, Heifer Donation, How to stop World Poverty and Heifer Projects.

On the surface, these terms appear very much inline with what a user would expect to find when looking at a nonprofit Web site. However, in reality these terms are vague and fail to create clear subject focus for the purpose of attracting donations to their cause.

How then do we clarify Heifer's site link structure to increase donations to ending world hunger? The first step is to identify new silos as we have done in Article 3, the main subject silos that will replace Heifer's vague Navigation elements. The first level of site organization is deemed the primary or top level silo and this will be the most broad and highest activity of keyword phrases. The items that are grouped within each of the primary subjects are the secondary level of the site.

Primary Silos

In Article 3, I identified 7 primary subjects that I feel best represent the target audience of heifer.org and feel will bring the maximum boost in targeted traffic to the site. The purpose of this subject shift is to make heifer.org easy to find for individual, corporate and governmental organizations who want to give to charities. Instead of focusing on the workings of the organization, I am focusing on the resources they are trying to attract. Below are the primary terms that we previously identified.

Charity Giving Philanthropy, Estate Planning, Governmental Giving, World Charities, Religious Giving / Charity, Corporate Giving, Fundraising

After doing research and selecting the primary subject, you need to decide if these are the correct keyword or keyword phrases to label this silo. You may need to shorten or more clearly label the best phrase for the subject. Remember these phrases must be used throughout your entire site from navigation elements, directory structure, Meta information (Title, Description, Keywords) and on page headings and in the content. All elements must work together in as consistent a manner as possible.

Example:

Primary Subject	Focused Primary Silo
Charity Giving Philanthropy	Philanthropy

Despite giving up the possible silos: "Charity" and "Giving", we are retaining the most important focus of this silo which is to appeal to philanthropists, a very narrow subject. Since the entire site is about "charity giving", ranking well for this phrase should be achievable by incorporating it throughout the site.

Secondary Silos

The subcategory level subjects further clarify or support the intended meaning or definition of the primary silos. These subjects will reside within menu drop downs as well as the directory structures when possible and within their own directories and page names. Each secondary element will support its own grouping of information that further defines or classifies the primary subject. Below are the primary and secondary subjects are identified in Article 3:

Charity Giving Philanthropy

Celebrity, Advocacy, Philanthropy, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Benefactor, Altruistic

Estate Planning

Charitable Trusts, Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust, Charity as a Beneficiary, Charitable Donation, Wills and Estate Planning, Estate Taxes, Charitable Giving, IRA money, Contingent IRA Beneficiaries, Retirement Accounts, State Estate Tax

Governmental Giving

Surplus, Poverty, Aid, Charities, Advocacy, United States of America, Nonprofit, Non-Profit Organizations, Donations, Tax Deduction, Property Law, Tax Exemption, Atonement, Humanitarian Aid, Bureaucracy

World Charities

Africa Charities, Asia Charities, AIDS, Africa, Agriculture, Malaria, Apartheid, Genocide

Religious Giving / Charity

Christianity, Judaism, Catholic Charities, Lutheran, Roman Catholic

Corporate Giving

Corporate Identity, Commercial Law, Corporate Social Responsibility, Capital Gains Tax, Tax Deduction, Atonement

Fundraising

Fundraising Ideas, Fund Raising Ideas, Fundraiser Ideas, Fundraising Companies, School Fundraiser, Churches, Church Fundraiser, Sports Teams, Day Cares, Charities

Again it is important to decide if these secondary keywords phrases best define the supporting subjects. Often it is necessary to rename the secondary silo label or better focus the subjects to better match the content within your site or, in the case of a new site, to write content that is even more targeted to your audience.

Example:

Primary and Secondary Subjects	Focused Primary and Secondary Silos
Estate Planning	Estate Planning
Charitable Trusts, Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust, Charity as a Beneficiary, Charitable Donation, Wills and Estate Planning, Estate Taxes, Charitable Giving, IRA money, Contingent IRA Beneficiaries, Retirement Accounts, State Estate Tax	Charitable Trusts , Charitable Donation, Wills and Estate, Estate Taxes, IRA Money, Retirement Accounts, State Estate Tax

Silo Expansion

Commonly site owners ask "how should we modify our site to better focus our silos without losing rankings?" There are many different ways to approach this problem, but my preferred method is to think of your site as a constant work in progress. In order not to alienate visitors and keep your traffic consistent, consider expanding or growing your site one or two silos at a time and then analyze how each change affects your rankings. Don't change the site in one update and hope everything is re-indexed properly. There are hundreds of configurations of this premise that may end up being a better fit in the short term and allowing towards total site restructuring.

Subject Theming

Just as a site can benefit from slow growth, a critical part of maintaining any site is cutting back or pruning parts of the site that have diluted subject relevance. Another way of looking at silo pruning is as protecting silo subjects when launching a special user-centric promotion by implementing code to stop the spider from finding this link or indexing the new pages. Make it a routine part of site maintenance by remove links that draw away subject relevance.

Navigation Linking

The first thing that users will become aware of when visiting your site will be the navigation organization and layout. There is a lot to be said for studying how human users navigate your site and layout the navigation as clearly as possible; however, if usability is the only deciding factor then keyword ranking in the search engines will stagnate and possible decline in rankings. Search engine optimisation does not necessarily conflict with usability but sometimes decisions must be made to serve two masters. The menus must reflect the primary, secondary and detail pages that make up the core of the site. Navigation must be translucent with subject focus and organization, keyword density and site structure.

Primary Level Navigation

How do site users and engines navigate around your site? In the example of Heifer International, the navigation appears at the top of every page right where the user would expect to find it. This is virtually the first element the spider sees on the home page and the result is the user can rollover the menu item they are interested in and a drop down displays the secondary navigation for that primary item.

Top Level Navigation with Secondary Rollover

What is the first impression you have of these navigation elements? Right from the start, we recognize that the primary or top level navigation elements require subject focus. Other issues that you may notice are that the different items in the drop down do not help focus that subject to either the user or the spider. (See Cross Linking below for more explanation) So the first level navigation serves two equally important purposes: to inform both the user and the spider of the site construction and information architecture of the entire site.

The first step then is to update the top level navigation by replacing the menu links with primary silos keyword phrases. As we discussed in the Silo Maintenance, choose the most broad highest activity categories to the main navigation.

Philanthropy | Estate Planning | Governmental Giving | World Charities
Religious Giving | Corporate Giving | Fundraising

Secondary Level Navigation

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 Web site. The very elements that exist in the drop down elements are rendered on the page within the most appropriate way possible. Take the green "Learn" menu item on the current Hiefer.org site.

The left navigation is a perfect example on how to outline secondary silo elements on the primary silo landing pages. It tells both user and search engine alike exactly what the user can expect to see when further explore that information category. Below is further rendering of our recommended primary and corresponding secondary silo sub categories.

Primary and Secondary Silo Categories

Philanthropy	Celebrity Advocacy | Philanthropists | Foundations | Become a Benefactor
Estate Planning	Charitable Trusts | Charitable Donation | Wills and Estate | Estate Taxes | IRA Money | Retirement Accounts | State Estate Tax
Governmental Giving	Government Surplus | Poverty Aid | US Nonprofit Organizations | Tax Deduction Property Law | Tax Exemption | Government Atonement | Humanitarian Aid Bureaucracy Issues
World Charities	Africa Charities | Asia Charities | Latin American Charities
Religious Giving	Christian Charities | Jewish Charities | Hindu Charities | Muslim Charities
Corporate Giving	Corporate Identity | Commercial Law | Corporate Social Responsibility Capital Gains Tax | Tax Deduction | Corporate Atonement
Fundraising	Fundraising Ideas | Fundraising Companies | School Fundraisers Church Fundraisers | Sports Team Fundraisers

How can interlinking or cross linking thoughout a Web site damage subject relevancy? Moving beyond mere navigation implementation is the philosophy behind reducing cross silo subject dilution.

Cross Linking Philosophy

The way that pages are linked throughout the site has a direct impact on subject relevance. Either the links between pages help to combine and aggregate subjects, or they damage and dilute subject relevance. Learning to write your site's own interlinking guidelines will better insure that both subject theming will remain and improve focus.

Subject Dilution Solutions

To get an understanding of the difficulty of cross linking and how subject dilution commonly occurs, take the example of the main navigation on heifer.org. The top multicolored navigation essentially links to the entire site, making the identification of the major subject very difficult. It is the goal of siloing to clearly identify the structure or organization of information on the site. By not controlling how pages are interlinking, this delineation between subjects is lost. Examine the cache text of the home page of heifer.org to get an idea of how a search engine spider sees the top menu.

Google Text Cache: http://www.heifer.org

The categorization that the menus provide is completely lost when the spider indexes the page and siloing is eliminated from the link structure in as far as primary or secondary emphasis. You may be asking how then do you maintain the look and feel of the navigation and draw emphasis to the correct categories. Again there are hundreds of ways this can be accomplished, but the theory is that from the home page you link to just the top level silos and from the secondary navigation elements you try and link just to the pages with in that silo.

Cross linking Legend

Primary Silos	Secondary Silos	Block Link
Estate Planning	Charitable Trusts	Corporate Social Responsibility

The table below documents the new recommended drop down menu identifying that the home page should link to just the top level silos clearly categorizing the primary silos.

Heifer Home Page Drop Down Menus

http://www.heifer.org/index.html

Philanthropy	Estate Planning	Governmental Giving	World Charities	Religious Giving	Corporate Giving	Fundraising
Celebrity Advocacy	Charitable Trusts	Government Surplus	Africa Charities	Christian Charities	Corporate Identity	Fundraising Ideas
Philanthropists	Charitable Donation	Poverty Aid	Asia Charities	Jewish Charities	Commercial Law	Fundraising Companies
Foundations	Wills and Estate	US Nonprofit Organizations	Latin American Charities	Hindu Charities	Corporate Social Responsibility	School Fundraisers
Become a Benefactor	Estate Taxes	Tax Deduction Property Law		Muslim Charities	Capital Gains Tax	Church Fundraisers
	IRA Money	Tax Exemption			Tax Deduction	Sports Team Fundraisers
	Retirement Accounts	Government Atonement			Corporate Atonement
	State Estate Tax	Humanitarian Aid
		Bureaucracy Issues

The next table documents how the "Estate Planning" page drop down should be linked drawing emphasis to just the link structure relevant to that silo and blocking cross linking between unrelated or less related primary subjects.

Heifer Estate Planning Silo Drop Down Menus

http://www.heifer.org/estateplanning/index.html

Philanthropy	Estate Planning	Governmental Giving	World Charities	Religious Giving	Corporate Giving	Fundraising
Celebrity Advocacy	Charitable Trusts	Government Surplus	Africa Charities	Christian Charities	Corporate Identity	Fundraising Ideas
Philanthropists	Charitable Donation	Poverty Aid	Asia Charities	Jewish Charities	Commercial Law	Fundraising Companies
Foundations	Wills and Estate	US Nonprofit Organizations	Latin American Charities	Hindu Charities	Corporate Social Responsibility	School Fundraisers
Become a Benefactor	Estate Taxes	Tax Deduction Property Law		Muslim Charities	Capital Gains Tax	Church Fundraisers
	IRA Money	Tax Exemption			Tax Deduction	Sports Team Fundraisers
	Retirement Accounts	Government Atonement			Corporate Atonement
		State Estate Tax	Humanitarian Aid
		Bureaucracy Issues

Despite a best effort to be as specific as possible, I could write another hundred pages on the subject of interlinking and still not have covered it all. Consider this a mere beginning to lead you down the path of the Bruce Clay Methodology towards the flowing stream of search engine analysis. Use this framework as a starting point to improve internal linking structures throughout your site.

Next: Part Five: Keyword Rich Content

 

Everything has been leading to this moment and the time has come to discuss how to put the content that the search engines want to see on your site and how to keep site users coming back again and again for all your good content. It's always about balancing incoming traffic all the while assembling your site into a reference site that everyone goes to when they need information about your specialty.

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