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Creating A Sitemap And Hiding Sidebar Links?

by coreytucker
11 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi,

im having a bit of trouble here guys. I have created a site and it has over 20 pages now and I frankly see alot of my visitors reading all of my pages instead of going to my hoplinks. I notice when my vistors have nowhere to go but my hoplinks I get a much better CTR.

So basically I want to make it where my site visitors only have a few places they can go. Either they can click m hoplinks or perhaps go to another page or two. If I had it my way I would make it where they can only go to my hoplink url as this forces them to read my article and check out the product.

So im confused because I do not want to do anything that would hurt me SEO wise. Im thinking its better for my site to have a side panel (as it does now) that links back to all of my pages on the site.

But how can I layout my site where my vistors can only check out the page they find through Google and nothing else without hurting my site SEO wise? I want to create up to 50-100 pages but do not want my visitors having access to all of these pages.

Also I must say that I am hosting a wordpress blog for this site, does anyone have any advixce on how I can do this without hurting my rank in Google for each individual page? Thanks
#creating #hiding #links #sidebar #sitemap
  • Profile picture of the author drunkenlemur
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author coreytucker
      well I suppose I could use the "hide" feature wordpress offers and hide all of my pages. The problem is I do not know if this effects the way my pages rank on Google or not.

      Basically im creating pages that target keyword phrases that are easy to rank for, but I dont want 50 pages listed on the sidebar. At the same time I have heard its best to have a outgoing and incoming link on each page right?

      But what im really concerned about here is the "link juice" I could be taking away? Each each page on my site links back to all of the other pages on my site does that help each page rank better in Google?

      Im just really confused with this issue, because its not a good layout to have so many pages on my site as well as it lowers the CTR of my hoplink url on each page.
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  • Profile picture of the author Seattle Mike
    One way to do this is to lose the sidebar links and at the bottom of the page have a clickable image in your footer named sitemap. Make it a picture people wouldn't really notice or think was a link so they wont even think about running the mouse over it.

    With a blog this is harder because you have all the wp links to next entry/previous entry and archives etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author coreytucker
    Thanks MJ. Well I can just use the "make page private" feature to hide my pages. I could then just put a link to my sitemap at the bottom of all of my pages.

    I doubt anyone would click the sitemap link like you said. The problem here is im worried im "shooting myself in the foot" because it could hurt how well my site ranks in the search engines?
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  • Profile picture of the author oneblog
    If I understand what your saying, the Advanced Category Excluder plugin would work for you. With the plug-in, you can select which categories appear and where...including your RSS feed. Posts are still indexed , but you're not showing or linking to them where you don't want to.

    WordPress › Advanced Category Excluder WordPress Plugins
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    • Profile picture of the author Easy Cash
      I would just set it up normally and link all your pages together.

      Set it up in a 'silo' configuration.

      Also - if you add another 80 pages, you will get more traffic and should sell more.

      As Google says - think about the user and the rest will follow.

      If you create more and allow people to explore more then aren't your chances higher that they will return and possible buy from a hoplink eventually?
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  • Profile picture of the author MaxineKelly
    Thats why I prefer to close all exit gates. Either be there and click on my ads or just close the browser. Two options only.

    After applying this I am earning good money
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  • Profile picture of the author coreytucker
    wow this is some great advice guys

    That advanced category plugin looks like it may be what I need. But does this effect SEO at all when I hide the sidebar with the tool?

    MaxineKelly what do you mean by close all exit gates exactly?
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  • Profile picture of the author coreytucker
    does the Advanced Category Excluder plugin just basically hide the sidebar but its basically still there? With this I basically have a sidebar but its just hidden?
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    • Profile picture of the author oneblog
      No, its not like "hidden text" if that's what you mean. Advanced Category Excluder just lets you select what categories you want to appear in public and where. It's a great tool.

      For instance, on a news blog you may post 50 - 100 stories a day. The stories are all relevant and each brings traffic, but you don't want to overwhelm your subscribers with a feed thats a mile long.

      You can break the stories up into two categories. Let's say the first category is 'Featured News Stories' and it's the category of your best 5-10 stories each day. Your second category might be 'Miscellaneous News Stories' and that's where everything else goes.

      Someone searching for the story on the paperboy that lost his bike in Montana can still find the story via search or in the archives,etc, but it's not cluttering up your front page, side bar or RSS feed.

      There are as you can imagine many uses for this if you're using Wordpress as a CMS or Marketing Platform.
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      • Profile picture of the author coreytucker
        Thanks oneblog, so basically I can put all of my pages into 1 link which displays them all? But another concern of mine is not having all of my pages on my site linking together, doesn't that have some benefit as far as SEO goes?

        Thanks for the help
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  • Profile picture of the author coreytucker
    I thought having invisible links was looked upon as spam in the eyes of Google?
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