1. Optimizing Your Website’s
Architecture for SEO
JOHN DOHERTY – INTERACTIVITY DIGITAL MIAMI 2013

2. JOHN DOHERTY
Head/Senior Consultant, Distilled NYC
John.doherty@distilled.net
@dohertyjf

3. JOHN DOHERTY
Head/Senior Consultant, Distilled NYC
John.doherty@distilled.net
@dohertyjf
This is my conference
shirt.

4. Site Architecture is critical
to SEO

5. But a bad site architecture
is the #1 issue I see on
many websites.

6. It often looks something like
this.

7. What’s this guy
doing?

8. What’s this guy
doing?
Are all of these pages really the
same value?

9. Categorize and Prioritize

10. 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.

11. This applies to both external and internal links.
Internal linkbuilding can be very effective as well!

12. Categorization

13. 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.
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Categorization

14. 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.
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Categorization

15. Categorization
Homepage
Deeper pages

16. Categorization
Homepage
Deeper pages
Longtail 

17. Site Architecture Best
Practices

18. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
The higher the page is in your
architecture, the stronger it will be.

19. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond

20. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond
Most powerful

21. Categorization
This one

22. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond
Most powerful
Second powerful

23. Categorization
These guys

24. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond
Most powerful
Second powerful
Least powerful

25. Categorization
This little guy

26. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn 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

27. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Competitive pages must be linked from
strong and many pages internally (just
like external links)

28. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Some of the strongest pages on your
site will be category or hub pages.

29. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Use the anchor text you want for rank
with in your internal links.

30. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Use top navigation sparingly, and it may
not pass much juice equity.

31. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
It can work though.

32. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn 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.

33. Best Practices for Site Architecture
@dohertyjfJohn 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).

34. Prioritization

35. Site Architecture Toolbox
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
VisioLucidChart
Screaming
Frog
Excel

36. Ranking Pages with Excel
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Using some Excel magic you can find which pages you should
prioritize internally. Download the spreadsheet here.

37. Ranking Pages with Excel
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Crawl your site with Screaming Frog

38. Ranking Pages with Excel
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Download HTML and delete all but Level
and Inlinks

39. Ranking Pages with Excel
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Input Target Keyword, Volume, and
Competitiveness for all terms.

40. 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.

41. 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.

42. Quick Case Study

43. Had a client with architecture issues
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Not going
to rank

44. We implemented internal links to the
page.
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty

45. We saw great improvements in
rankings.
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Tell me smart linking
doesn’t work 

46. In Conclusion

47. Site Architecture Best Practices
@dohertyjfJohn 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.

48. Site Architecture Best Practices
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty

49. Go Forth and Optimize
@dohertyjfJohn Doherty
Download The Excel Sheet!
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-
linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond

50. Thanks.
Any questions?
JOHN DOHERTY
John.doherty@distilled.net
@dohertyjf