A superior SEO system will always win out..
This is Part 2 of this SEO Tips series, part 1 is here, you should read it first.
Advanced SEO & Web Design Keyword Strategies
So following on from Part 1 where we discussed overall keyword strategies and how to think horizontally with keywords as well as vertically to obtain maximum longtail keyphrase coverage around your theme, today we’re moving on into structuring the site “as Google like it” from the beginning, as the fastest way into the SERP, and to ensure that you have ultimately have the best possible chance of eventually becoming “the authority” – as defined by sitelinks on the matter. It’s really very simple, and we think you’ll shake your head and wonder why you didn’t think of this before..
Use Google Related Search to tell you how to Structure your site
We want to be presenting the most “Google logical” site structure to Google, right from the beginning.
As time progresses on and you evolve the site (which you will need to, to reach the hallowed “authority” status) you will add in more and more content at deeper levels, so the initial structure at the top will get stronger and stronger as it is now supported by more inner content.
So, say we were building a site with the ultimate (top level) target phrase,:
Search Engine Optimization
Do the search, scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll see..
These related terms are GOLD - they are the natural sub pages Google expects to see..
This is what Google is telling you are the related subjects for your term, this is what else they expect to see on a website about “search engine optimization” so now it’s simple, optimize the homepage for your main term (plus any “modifiers” – eg “company” that fit that page), and use the highest traffic related suggestions (and relevant to you, obviously “search engine submission” is a scam, so omit anything you don’t do) as your second level pages, thus:
Search Engine Optimization
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seo services
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seo tools
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seo techniques
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seo company – “company” is a “modifier”, and so can likely be excluded from nav and structure as it would naturally fit on the end of “search engine optimization” on the homepage.
Cross check the traffic on these with your keyword research tools, you only want the toughest of these main terms on your first page, it is important to use only the minimum of essential links from the homepage inwards**, this will maximise the strength of each link, and the amount of Pagerank reaching each inner page.
** (we’ll come back to this in depth at some point soon)
Then repeat the process for each second-level page.
So now we have..
SEO Services
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seo copywriting services
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seo consulting services
These now make up either second level sub pages of the SEO services page, or sub-headings on the page, depending on your site / keywords etc etc.. If you are using a truly superior SEO dynamic system (such as Wordpress on Thesis 1.7) all you now have to do is name and place the pages (parent / child etc) and use the best keywords in the navigation at the top, and WP will do the rest for you, ie link from every other page etc.
SEO Navigation Design Tip
Lots of people fall afoul of Google’s famed over optimization filters by “overcooking their navigation through trying to insert “top” level keywords into the nav, pointing at internal pages.
For example, go back to the second example above, the SEO services page is already (will be anyway) optimized for SEO Services, so the anchor text pointing at the Consulting & Copywriting pages does not need “SEO” or “Services”, merely the main topics, ie Consulting & Copywriting, trying to squeeze the extra SEO in will quite likely get your site labeled as an onsite spammer, and maybe even -950 (over optimization) Filtered, don’t do it, keep it as clean and neat as you can.
It must also be noted that ultimately, you probably won’t rank for the top level keywords anyway unless your content is good enough (or you have monster link resources available to you) and that there is no substitute for compelling unique content, SEO’d or not.
It should also be noted that this is a very useful way of checking whether a Web Designer understands even the basics of how Google works in their website structuring, if you look at an “SEO web designer” s own website and it is full of “About us”, “who we are” and “what we do” -ie non-thematically constructed structures in their primary navigation and site structures, with certain exceptions, they’ve likely got no real clue about real SEO techniques past meta tags and Page Titles.
Hopefully this will be helpful, any (genuine) questions welcome in the comments.
Superior-SEO.US
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Fantastic post – i have a question – how do you provide a home page link.
For users you want to put home and for SEO you want to put your key term?
What is best – are there other ways.
Roger
Hi Roger
There are several ways of doing this, if you have to use a home button in the Nav just try and ensure there’s a link above it to home, often from an image in the top left, or in WP the blog title links to home.
If youre using an image you can tastefully insert the kws into the alt text, don’t spam it natural is best. Roger “xxxxx wedding magician” would be OK.
on our sites if you look, we don’t use home at all, we try to make home the “theme” so it’s as obvious as possible whilst getting it right seo-wise.