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Silo question

by watman
6 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I have a question about silo websites. Please be gentle with me I'm a newbie.

If I wanted to target a large niche, would the following silo setup give me any benefits?

Suppose i wanted to target the tools niche. It's massive so I identify a sub niche of a sub niche within it, I can easily rank for using a silo, say for example claw hammers, from within the hammer niche. So I set up my site thus. With lots of silo'ed articles under clawhammer.html.

Tools.html
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Hammer.html
|
------------------------------
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Clawhammer.html
|
--------------------------

Once implemented a proper SEO plan is followed, over time the subpages and clawhammer.html get indexed and move up the google rankings. If I then add additional silos under hammer e.g sledge hammer, masonary hammer etc. and repeat the SEO process, as these additional silos start to rank. Should hammer.html start to rank?

If this is the case once hammer.html starts to rank if I was to repeat the process with saw.html and drill.html and these then started to rank would tools.html start to rank as well
#question #silo
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by watman View Post

    I have a question about silo websites. Please be gentle with me I'm a newbie.

    If I wanted to target a large niche, would the following silo setup give me any benefits?

    Suppose i wanted to target the tools niche. It's massive so I identify a sub niche of a sub niche within it, I can easily rank for using a silo, say for example claw hammers, from within the hammer niche. So I set up my site thus. With lots of silo'ed articles under clawhammer.html.

    Tools.html
    |
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
    Hammer.html
    |
    ------------------------------
    |
    Clawhammer.html
    |
    --------------------------

    • tools.com
      • tools.com/hammer
        • tools.com/hammer/claw-hammer
        • tools.com/hammer/ball-pein
        • tools.com/hammer/sledge-hammer
        • etc...












    Originally Posted by watman View Post

    Once implemented a proper SEO plan is followed, over time the subpages and clawhammer.html get indexed and move up the google rankings. If I then add additional silos under hammer e.g sledge hammer, masonary hammer etc. and repeat the SEO process, as these additional silos start to rank. Should hammer.html start to rank?

    If this is the case once hammer.html starts to rank if I was to repeat the process with saw.html and drill.html and these then started to rank would tools.html start to rank as well
    All the pages in a silo will basically support each other with internal links which in turn will help rank the pages in Google SERPs. You'll still have to have external links because authority has to originate from somewhere on the web, it doesn't just happen out of thin air.
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    • Profile picture of the author watman
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      • tools.com
        • tools.com/hammer
          • tools.com/hammer/claw-hammer
          • tools.com/hammer/ball-pein
          • tools.com/hammer/sledge-hammer
          • etc...
      That was exactly what I meant.


      All the pages in a silo will basically support each other with internal links which in turn will help rank the pages in Google SERPs. You'll still have to have external links because authority has to originate from somewhere on the web, it doesn't just happen out of thin air.
      I appreciate that I would have to build external links to get the pages to rank. Am I right to assume, if the link structure was done properly that tools.com would rank for hammer and any of the other silo keywords?
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by watman View Post

        Am I right to assume, if the link structure was done properly that tools.com would rank for hammer and any of the other silo keywords?
        That all depends on what you do with your pages & internal/external links, plus competition is always a factor. You could potentially have double/triple SERP listings per keyword or even Google Sitelinks per keyword. Scale that up with a 2nd domain & you can own the SERPs for decent traffic keywords.

        My advice is do not aim to rank the Home page for your keywords, sure it will rank for a few keywords but I would build dedicated internal pages to rank your money keywords with focused call-to-actions for each page/keyword.

        Example, don't rank a Home page for hammers, saws, drills, etc... with no real call-to-action for a potential buyer. Keep the sales funnel as tight as possible.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO-Dave
    Sort of like Yukon said except the directly structure is irrelevant, a silo link structure is built via links not physical location of the files.

    If your webpages are named as numbers (not ideal, but many sites have this output) you can still build a silo link structure, it's all in the links.

    1.html - hammers
    2.html - claw hammers
    3.html - nails
    4,html - nail guns
    5.html - hard hats
    6.html - sledge hammers
    etc...

    Doesn't matter from a silo link structure perspective where the files are physially located, could be example.com/1.html or example.com/products/1.html or example.com/shop/1.html

    To build a silo related to hammers you'd link these together using relevant keyphrases as the anchor text:

    1.html - hammers
    2.html - claw hammers
    6.html - sledge hammers

    If 1.html is your main page about hammers that would probably be the top of that silo.

    1.html links to 2.html and 6.html which link back (2.html and 6.html might link to each other as well, depends on the size of the silo and how niched you want it: can have silos within silos).

    Depending on the site size you might have 1.html linked to sitewide, but 2.html and 6.html would tend only to be linked to from other pages related to hammers or a sub-niche of hammers (depends on the size of the site and how much time you have).

    There's more to SEO than this, you ideally want the filenames to match the pages SERPs and limit interaction with other silos, generally keep unrelated content off those pages as best you can without damaging the user experience (your visitors still need to find the rest of the site, they might want to buy nails as well :-)) .

    David
    Signature
    Freelance SEO Consultant
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by SEO-Dave View Post

      ... except the directly structure is irrelevant, a silo link structure is built via links not physical location of the files.
      Not true on an HTML site that has structured parent/child treeview hierarchy.

      There's physical silos (HTML) & dynamic silos (CMS). Both use internal links & Google has pointed out looking up/down stream on the internal URLs of individual webpages. It's not just the link, it's the neighborhood where the link is located. Breadcrumbs are a good example & even shown in the SERPs.
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      • Profile picture of the author SEO-Dave
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        Not true on an HTML site that has structured parent/child treeview hierarchy.

        There's physical silos (HTML) & dynamic silos (CMS). Both use internal links & Google has pointed out looking up/down stream on the internal URLs of individual webpages. It's not just the link, it's the neighborhood where the link is located. Breadcrumbs are a good example & even shown in the SERPs.
        OK Yukon, explain the SEO difference between your example:

        tools.com
        tools.com/hammer
        tools.com/hammer/claw-hammer
        tools.com/hammer/ball-pein
        tools.com/hammer/sledge-hammer
        etc...
        And this one:

        tools.com
        tools.com/hammer
        tools.com/hammer-claw-hammer
        tools.com/hammer-ball-pein
        tools.com/hammer-sledge-hammer
        etc...
        Silo link structures have little if anything to do with physical/virtual location.

        This is a better version since you do not repeat the keyword hammer twice and the keyword proximity is better:

        tools.com
        tools.com/hammer
        tools.com/claw-hammer
        tools.com/ball-pein-hammer
        tools.com/sledge-hammer
        etc...
        The silo link structure of all three can be identical, but in other SEO aspect the last version is the best. If you want a keyword as part of the URL add it as above.

        David
        Signature
        Freelance SEO Consultant
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