silo structure

The links have to be contextual links (within the content of the homepage) for maximum link juice distribution because contextual links are the most powerful types of links.

Dang it. I tried to upload it Jpeg. Any other way to make it picture bigger? Guess I should have asked this question instead

SEO Power, everything is all relevant to my niche (service business) It just has 4 main silo pages, and about 5 posts under each. I guess I can do a contextual link from each post pointing to the page it is under and also to another relevant post in the same category.

Well here is a screenshot from Jing..

silo - accessted's library

I looked at the Jing image.

My advice is link every single page in each individual silo. If there's 7 pages in your silo, put 6 links on each page connecting the series of pages.

Having a breadcrumb at the top of the content helps If you want to use that as an internal link back to the top of the silo (category page).

BTW, I use tinypic.com for posting images on Warrior Forum, scale the image down to about 650px wide or it messes up the forum thread page.

Thanks Yukon

I guess I don't know much about silos

So to make sure i got this right

Page (color)
|
Post 1 (brown)
Post 2 (yellow)
Post 3 (green)
Post 4 (Blue)

So the top Page needs to have all 4 silo post link in it.

Also each silo post should have the respective 3 other silo page links in it.

Also the silo posts should have a link pointing to the top Page (breadcrumb)

I think this is how you explained it right?

I thought Breadcrumbs were no good to use, but I guess that will automatically give a top Page link.

In the posts linking out should I use an anchor text link with respective keyword to the other posts? or is there a better way to link out to those.

Thanks for the help and the tinypic info

It's difficult to explain a silo structure on forums, really.. I'll have a go...

Homepage
|
Food Processor Reviews
Deep Fryer Reviews

Food Processor Reviews
|
Review 1
Review 2
Review 3
Review 4
Review 5

Deep Fryer Reviews
|
Review 1
Review 2
Review 3
Review 4
Review 5

All of the deep fryer reviews would link to each other.

At the top, there would be a breadcrumb:

Home > Deep Fryer Reviews > Review 1

The URL structure would be:

aaa.com/deep-fryer-reviews/review-1

It's OK to have a central menu navigation that links to top categories. So your main nav bar could have:

Home | Deep Fryers | Food Processors | Contact | About

However, you can only access the deep fryer review articles by actually visiting:

aa.com/deep-fryer-reviews/

Because the reviews are sitting on the /deep-fryer-reviews/ extension, and are only linked to from deep fryer related pages, Google is able to detect the relevancy of the content much better, without associating deep fryers with food processors.

Bare in mind that a silo structure is only needed when the website contains different categories of content, as explained above. If your website ONLY TARGETS deep fryers, then a silo structure is pointless and you'd be doing more harm than good, since you would want every page fed with juice (as they are all relevant to one another). So in that case, linking to all articles/reviews from the homepage would be preferred to get juice flowing through the whole site.

For a live example of a silo, visit toptenreviews.com or Amazon.com.

Thanks Icematikx

I didn't know about just using pages instead of posts/categories.. Wish I would have known to do it that way. Would have been a bit easier. Guess that's why I am still a newb

I think I got what you are saying. As Yukon said each Page/Post needs to link out to all of the related posts in that category.

So how do we actually link out. I guess the internal structure is made by the way you describe,. I am thinking using a hyperlink on a related keyword to the next page. Is that correct?

Ok, I got a silo Plugin installed. I now have a sidebar with all related posts in that category. My main menu stays the same, but I guess not that big of a deal as long as the structure is there

Thanks for all the info guys on this.

I guess basic silos can seem a bit complex, but in reality if you know what to do it is not that bad. I tend to over think things that seem easy and make them hard ..

If all your doing is adding more links to the page it's still not as strong of a link structure than removing any fluff links from the page. Obviously user experience is important but you can have both user ex. & SEO If you take the time to remove unnecessary links.

Always look at the text version of a webpage to get an idea what links are fluff. Either use Google cache (text version) or a web/dev plugin:

[source]
I'm sure most people would be very surprised If they're ever seen the text version of webpages, there's usually a bunch of unnecessary links on the page/s.

Who would like to take a look at one of my sites to see if I am on the right track? I really hate to post it here.

Someone who knows much about siloing.

Another quick question on another site I am helping my brother with..

I will be making a new site in a few months for him with a silo structure.

But for now He has a site with about 10 pages.

5 are menu bars (service provided)

the other 5 are service areas with a drop down menu.

Should I link all those pages to each other with a contextual link?

Like in the 5 service areas each one talks about a different location. Should I link back to the other ones to try and mimic a silo structure?

Then also on the other 5 pages have a link to each other?

Basically making a circle with these linking to each other?

I know this is not a silo structure but wanted to know if it would help keep link juice for the time being.