I would say I agree with you about Google banning
or at least penalizing certain sites, if not now,
definitely in the not too distant future. We all hate
it that Google does all this but hey - what else but
to comply and be in their good books,

Kingsley

Wow this is very interesting, I am ganna look into this more deeply. Ill get back at you later. I also love that you are building backlinks to all of your URL's, many people forget about this and it is very unnatural to have a site with 99% of your links on the homepage, ofcourse there are some exceptions.

Thanks guys.

Yes we want to design sites that will stand the test of time. Maybe they wont convert like a straight up sales pitch.. but they will outrank everyone and stay ranked.

The diagram we made isn't anything too unique -- but I would look some SEO-whiz eyes to look at it a bit.

Should I have access to the yellow-pages from the home page, or should they be from an articles page? A true SEO whiz might say that it would be better to have them on an article page so I do not leak link-juice, but at the same time I think Google wants options for the viewer, and not have the sites navigation hidden / hard to use.

I think the design is nice, but so are most WP themes.

I believe that Google values quality and unique content.

Google knows full well what your bounce rate is, and will reward the web pages that actually give the searcher the information that he was seeking in his query with his keywords.

Understand that google ranks individual web PAGES, not whole web SITES. So, each page should be a good match for the keyword it is attempting to rank for. The site structure as a whole is probably much less important that the quality of information on each individual pages and how much it matches queries that came to it via the searches.

seems nice mate, keep us posted with how your test works.

I like your method of design on the plan itself, so you can see the structure properly. I am inspired to do this myself tomorrow morning when I wake, but now it's time to sleep Thanks.

Regards,
Ross.

Looks good to me. But I would have stuff coming in from the top, as well. And they would have the word "Authority" on them.

I've been working on a similar project.... creepy.

All you really need to do is look at any true authority site to see how it's structured. In most cases it's not very different from the typical wordpress Homepage -> Categories -> Content structure.

What is missing from most sites and why they fail to become authority sites is a lack of planning, messy structure and poor distribution of backlinks. From your model it looks like you've figures out most of this and come up with a better blueprint.

I'm not so sure the old-school silo structure and trying to distribute/force link-juice really applies much anymore. Google snuffed out a lot of the artificial on-site page rank funneling a long time ago.

In a nutshell, my basic philosophy on building an authority site is a) your main page is your primary market keyword. b) your category pages are your primary niche keywords. c) your content is your long-tail and everything else. d) emphasis on deep-linking to get categories and content ranking. All of that link love will spread throughout and boost everything on your site.

On top of that you really need to develop your own wordpress theme to make the most of your site structure. As great as WP is, it has some flaws out of the box especially when it comes to category pages and URL structure.

Thanks guys.

I will re-read all your tips and adjust the map accordingly. I will then post updates on this thread so you can all have it.

Yes, the map does have silo structure, but I plan on following it loosely, as I feel like pure silo structure is not great for the user experience and navigation.

Also -- I am not sure if I made it clear. but each yellow box would have a corresponding category. So there would be a category called Bowling Shoes in which all the bowling shoes posts would fall into. Each post would link back to the article.

And a person above said that It was aaout ranking pages. Of coruse .. I agree. I think Google is actually going more "on-site" than they used to, and although backlinks are king, so is bounce rate and navigation. Recently google has started to record you activity and I feel its going to be very important soon.

On my map, all the yellow boxes would rank.

A good read for sure. I agree that most people completely forget about their other pages and only concentrate on their homepage. It's always good to make your website relevant in it's category and that includes the additional pages not only the main page.

Thanks all. Anyone else have any feedback?

Jason, as far as silo structure -- we plan to use it for organizational reasons and not to trick google. We also believe that Google respects organization and on-site SEO efforts.

Your site looks great, the structure is well done. I like your blueprint showing how you distribute your links.

Do a search for bowling ball/s and look at the related searches that Google gives you.

They are handing to you on a silver platter other search teams that you can rank #1 for, especially if you use your current blue print. = )

Those long tails that Google is suggesting should be very easy for you to rank for within a couple of weeks. Some of those terms are now taken by bowling.com who you already out rank for your main keyword term.

Russ

The bowling balls niche was a fake niche I made up for an example, but thank you for your help.

But I like your related search idea --- but how do you are certain that I'd rank for those terms too? By sprinking elements of those terms into the articles?