How to Create SEO Friendly
Website Architecture
Rebecca Gill ● WordCamp Ann Arbor ● October 14, 2017

Why Should You Care About Architecture?
1. Crawling and Indexing
2. Search Engine Signals
3. Usability for Humans
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Crawling and Indexing
š The web is like an ever-growing library with billions of books and no central filing
system.
š Google uses software known as web crawlers to discover publicly available
webpages.
š Crawlers look at webpages and follow links on those pages, much like you would
if you were browsing content on the web. They go from link to link and bring data
about those webpages back to Google’s servers.
š When crawlers find a webpage, Google’s systems render the content of the
page, just as a browser does. They take note of “key signals” — from keywords to
website freshness — and they keep track of it all in the Search index.
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Search Engine Signals
š A ranking signal or ranking factor is any characteristic of a website that search
engine algorithms might calculate its ranking in search.
š Google has over 200 main ranking signals.
š Google adjusts these signals hundreds of times each year.
š Signals can be on-site elements like quality or length of content and they can be
off-site signals like brand mentions, inbound links, or social media.
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Usability
š Usability refers to how easy it is for a real living human to use your website or blog.
š Usability is a ranking signal and it grows in importance all the time.
š Usability can refer to things like text:
• Color or size
• The use of bullets and shorter paragraphs
• Mobile friendly coding
• Or the website’s adherence to accessibility requirements
• Or the ease of which a real person can locate content
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3 Ways to Make Your Website SEO Friendly
Content
Silos
Content
Depth
Internal
Links
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A content silo (or SEO silo) is a method of
grouping related content together to
organize content and to establish the
website’s keyword-based themes.
What is a Content Silo?
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Remember the local
library you visited as
a small child?
Think back to your last visit to a library – you know before Kindles and iPads existed.
How did the library staff help you find books of interest?
They grouped content into sections such as fiction, nonfiction, young adult, etc.
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Content silos are important to search
engines, but they also help provide a
more positive user experience to the
humans that visit your website or blog.
Why Do Content Silo Matter?
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An example of
Content Silos in
Everyday Life
Barnes and Noble groups content into subject matter areas so you can easily find what
you are looking for when you visit their website or physical store.
You can see it in their main navigation as well as in content navigation as you browse
the site.
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Subject Matter Areas For Books are Silos
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š Architecture & Photography
š Bibles & Christianity
š Biography
š Business
š Cookbooks
š Food & Wine
š Fiction
š Graphic Novels & Comics
š Health & Fitness
š History
š Mystery & Crime
š Religion
š Romance
š Science Fiction & Fantasy
š Self-Help & Relationships
š Sports
š Thrillers
š Westerns

Art
Design
History
Technique
Business
Accounting
•Auditing
•Bookkeeping
•Taxation
Human
Resources
Marketing &
Sales
Small Business
Fiction
Thrillers
War & Military
Women’s
Fiction
History
African
Asian
European
Russian
Sports
Basketball
Golf
Hockey
Content Silos Can Have Many Levels
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Google Bot:
”Ah…
Organized content
makes me happy!”

šWhile most people would assume the company creates
silos for ease of use for their buyers, they also do this for
search engines.
šSilos help search engines find content, digest it, and rank it
in search.
Why Do Content Silo Matter?

š Content silos help search engines because just
like the human visitor, search engines need to
have a good understanding of your website’s
content.
š Search engines want to know what your
website is about, how it is structured, and
where content is located.
š Content silos help with this effort by providing a
set of structure to content that mimics that of
old-school index cards at the library.
Organization Matters to Everyone!
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š Keyword relevancy (or the level of importance) is based on the page’s content
as well as the relevance of the entire website.
š If I want to rank for the term SEO, it would be much easier for me if I had a
section of content in my website about SEO related topics and not just one
page.
š Having topical content helps support the website’s overall authority and thus
an individual page’s rank.
š It is easier for search engines to find and deliver relevant content when it is
focused and organized around topics.
Content Silos Help Provide “Relevance”
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More Examples of Content Silos
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YogaStudioWebsite
LasVegasTravelBlog

yogabliss.com/studios/new-york/
yogabliss.com/studios/chicago/
yogabliss.com/studios/dallas/
yogabliss.com/studios/orlando/
yogabliss.com/classes/yoga-rx/
yogabliss.com/classes/pilates/
yogabliss.com/classes/vinyasa/
yogabliss.com/classes/hot-yoga/
URL Structure Establishes Content Silos
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YogaStudioWebsite
vegasbaby.com/hotels/mgm-grand/
vegasbaby.com/hotels/bellagio/
vegasbaby.com/hotels/wynn/
vegasbaby.com/hotels/venetian/
vegasbaby.com/shows/cirque-de-soleil/
vegasbaby.com/shows/elton-john/
vegasbaby.com/shows/blue-man-group/
vegasbaby.com/shows/carrot-top/
LasVegasTravelBlog

š Create silos and layers that will support your SEO efforts and create a positive
experience for the human visitor. One means nothing without the other.
š Create balance in your site so one section doesn’t overshadow another
section. You don’t want one section taking up 75% of your site.
š Keep your layers limited, and if possible, no more than three clicks from the
home page. This is for both usability and for crawling by search engines.
š Shorter URLs are preferred for crawling and real world usage, so watch the
length of your content silos and don’t over do it.
Content Depth Matters to Everyone
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Visualize Your Content to Better Understand It
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š Internal links are links that go from one page to another on the same domain.
š They are one of the most underused SEO tools.
š They allow users to navigate a website and find important information.
š They help establish information hierarchy for the given website.
š They help spread ranking power within the website or blog, thus they add in boosting
the ranking of the destination content.
š They help search engines discover and index content.
š The alt text within links help search engines better understand content.
Internal Links Have Superpowers!
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“The number of internal links pointing to a page is a signal to
search engines about the relative importance of that page.
If an important page does not appear in this list, or if a less
important page has a relatively large number of internal links,
you should consider reviewing your internal link structure.”
Google’s Description of Internal Links
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š Link your home page to your most valuable content.
š Have a structured process for linking to your cornerstone content often.
š Use descriptive alt text when linking.
š Make sure your alt text clearly describes the destination URL.
š Remember your keywords of the destination URL and use them within the alt text
where possible.
š Avoid read more, click here, and other generic phrases.
š Interlink related content – Yoast’s premium plugin helps with this now and is very
useful for these efforts.
Internal Links Tips
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Google’s View of Links
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Baseball
Card
Product
Page
Blog Post
on
Vintage
Cards
Product
Category
Page
Home
Page Link = Baseball Cards
Google Bot:
”Looks like this is a
good page about
baseball cards.”

š eCommerce filters
š Session IDs
š Pay per click specific pages
š Comment pagination
š Printer friendly pages
š www vs. non-www
š Scraped content
š Distributed products in eCommerce
š Content syndication
Extra Credit: Avoid Duplicate Content
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Google Bot:
”I don’t know what
URL is actual about
baseball cards.”
Baseball
Card
Product
Page
Baseball
Card
Product
Category
Baseball
Card
Blog Post
Baseball
Card
Print
Page
Baseball
Card
PPC
Page

š Write unique content and don’t just copy in your manufacturer’s description
š Stop reposting your content to multiple sites
š Rel="canonical”
š 301 redirect duplicate content to the real content
š Set PPC pages to noindex, nofollow
š Ditch the printer friendly pages and use a print style sheet instead
š Check Google Search Console for meta issues or use Dyno Mapper to export your
entire site to Excel so you can sort by title
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Extra Credit: Fixing Duplicate Content

š Each blog post should have one category (maybe two) and multiple tags where
applicable.
š Categories and tags should be used to help visitors find like content.
š Categories and tags should only be used when you will have multiple articles that fall
within a phrase.
š Categories and tags should not compete with pages. Don’t use the same phrases for
a page and category or tag.
š Don’t throw in fifty tags on one post. This rarely provides value to the user and instead
simply creates clutter, thin pages, and duplicate content.
Extra Credit: Categories and Tags
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š Category pages can rank for search so select them with care!
š Take time to complete meta titles and descriptions for categories and tags. This helps
them rank.
š Avoid using categories in your post URLs. This creates a lot of issues should you switch
the main category.
š If you remove categories or tags remember to use 301 redirects!
š Whenever you consider adding a new category or tag, stop and ask yourself if this
will be hopeful to your human visitor. If the answer is no, don’t do it.
Extra Credit: Categories and Tags
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Don’t Be Shy ● Raise Your Hand ● Don’t Make Me Beg
Any Questions?

Copyright Web Savvy Marketing, All Rights Reserved Twitter: @RebeccaGill
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