Tom Belfort's AMA about SEO/Siloing/PBNs/Link Building 2019+

[con1337]

I followed the instructions above, but my permalink customizer says "http://www.mysite.com/animals/why-siamese-cats"

I ticked all three categories for the post and regenerated the link. I then thought may be I have to complete all of your steps listed, so I did, and same thing happens. It only displays L1 of the silo on the permalink customiser. Is there anything else we need to setup by any chance? Thanks.

this.

I have the same problem.

Thanks @splishsplash for your great guide

 

[Dark Sky]

this.

I have the same problem.

Thanks @splishsplash for your great guide

I deleted permalink customized to fix the issue. I can only assume it was conflicting with another permalink plugin or something integrated onto the theme to deal with permalinks. Try deleting it and reloading the post.

 

[con1337]

I deleted permalink customized to fix the issue. I can only assume it was conflicting with another permalink plugin or something integrated onto the theme to deal with permalinks. Try deleting it and reloading the post.

you're right. Thanks, it works now.

 

[Francis Begbie]

@splishsplash we had a conversation here before about siloing and I was using services in URLs but you said that it was too generic and not a slio. Therefore, would the following be better as it would mean that services has been removed all together and only used in the main nav.

examplesite.com/sms/bulk-sms
examplesite.com/sms/adverising-sms
examplesite.com/email/bulk-email
examplesite.com/email/dem

and then having blogposts with the following urls:

examplesite.com/sms/bulk-sms/example-bulk-blogpost
examplesite.com/email/bulk-email/example-bulk-email-blog-post


examplesite.com/work-with-us/blogpost-job-1

Apologies if this is way out, hence why I asked if there is an example site you have to demonstrate.

Thanks a lot

 

[mackdaddy88]

Hi Splash

Thanks for the AMA.

Learning lots here.

I'm currently trying to dominate Google pg 1 for a few med-high competitive KWs (about 10k/mth)

I got 3 sites on page 1 and another 3 on pg 2.

Based on what you mentioned, I should not be changing the on-page for sites ranking on pg 1/2?

Does this mean that I should only be focusing on the off-page (link building)?

I'm trying to keep my backlink profile as 'clean' as possible. Is guest posting the only way to move the needle for sites ranking pg 1/2?

Thanks in advance!

 

[fxkool]

First off I'd like to say huge THANK YOU for setting up the thread - it's absolutely amazing @splishsplash you've tons of quality information which I am sucking up now as a sponge lol. I really appreciate all the hard work you put in this - thanks for that again. Just a very quick query from me pls:

1.I run an affiliate PMD website with basically 1 category in my blog - should I treat my homepage as a silo e.g. site.com? also, what would be the best structure for blog posts in this case - either site.com/article-name or site.com/blog/article-name

Many thanks,
M

 

[splishsplash]

Another question as i feel you might have faced such issues as you had several clients.
1. Does the domain extension matter? I've got a great .in domain from auction. Can i use it for a technology site targeting worldwide not just India?

Nope, you can't target worldwide with a .in.

I've never seen a .in ranking in google.com. It won't be "impossible", but the simple answer is a definite no.

.in is for ranking in india. I believe it's a good market though. I've not got any experience in it myself, but I know of a couple of people with, iirc, english review sites on a .in targeting india and they do well.

PBN vs Redirecting Expired domain which one is best?

PBN is best.

A 301 is powerful if it's page for page, but that's generally just, your old site you're redirecting to a new either unpenalized domain, or if you wanted to upgrade to an aged domain.. Which btw, works well. Start with a fresh domain and limited budget, slowly build it up as best you can until you've got some decent rankings. Maybe it's making $500/month, then get an amazing aged domain, replicate the site, and 301 page for page, and you'll see some great jumps.

301's are good to mix in though, but it has to be ultra relevant. Don't 301 a dog site to a gaming site.

When you create a pbn you have more control. For example, dogs->gaming..

Domain was about dog breeds, and you setup.. (Uh, I've given myself a hard one here.. thinks..)

...

..

Dogs and Gaming: A Blog About Dogs in Video Games

Then you can write some interesting content about games that have dogs, write about the characters etc, and you can easily create an article to link to your gaming site.

For the permalink customizer, do you set the structure at %category% and then 301 redirect the categories to the L1, L2, L3 pages?

If not, how do you set the permalink structure up with your silo method?

%category% no. You aren't using wordpress categories externally. Only internally on your post listing plugin on the silo pages.

/animals/dogs are NOT categories, they are pages that use a plugin on the page to list posts in the category. In fact, when you create your categories, you should be naming them like:-

animals-dogs
animals-dogs-akita

This also means you can have

clothes-women
clothes-men

since you can't have 2 categories with the same name. The category hierarchy is not recognized as a hierarchy internally.

Note, that, even if your category name is "animals", and your category permalink is %category%, wordpress will choose the page with the same name before the category.

Is a silo even possible if you have a PMD with the homepage being the most important page ranking for the most keywords? Or should I just treat the homepage kind of as my L1 silo?

btw. I have been doing something like this at multiple websites for a long time. One thing that I see differently than you is the main silo page(s). You mentioned that it should have just a couple of hundred words and it wont really target any specific keywords. It is certainly a very valid strategy but I have also seen another take at it. Lets for example take the very successful website moneysupermarket.com . They do have L1 silos based on the different insurances. Like for example moneysupermarket.com/car-insurance/ which links to many different pages, articles, guides and news related to car insurance (eg. moneysupermarket.com/car-insurance/young-drivers/). But the main silo page (/car-insurance/) is quite long and it does rank for the most of keywods and brings most of the cash based on ahrefs. It targets the most broad and searched keywords like cheap car insurance, car insurance comparison etc. and the articles in the silo target the more specific keywords.

I do have another question for you - any experience with algo penalties? I have edited most of my PBN links from brand anchors to exact/partial match links - it helped for a short time period but then after 6-7 months I have gone from $19.000 to $1.500 income based on ahrefs estimate . No manual penalty received so I think that I have triggered perhaps a Penguin penalty. Of course I have changed the anchor text to mostly brand/naked URL back now, but still I cant see no big difference after 3 months of waiting. Could it take 6-7 months like it was the case between changing the anchor text and the sudden drop in traffic? Or is the site a loss and I should perhaps 301 it all to a new domain?

You only use silos for larger niches, so a pmd, no. You shouldn't be using pmds anyway. There's no benefit and it makes it easier to get an over-optimization penalty.

moneysupermarket.com is silo'd to an extent yes. The thing to remember also is there's not "1 way" of doing this. Google is getting better and better at understanding sites. You don't necessarily need the strict architecture. The most important thing is having your site structured in logical topical groups. Whether my stricter way of doing it would yield better results than the less strict general topical groups is unknown. With some sites it's harder to have such a rigid structure too.

I can take a quick look at your site for you if you pm me it. I'll see if I can spot anything obvious.

Thanks for creating this thread really helpful info. Let’s say I have a dog site with domain tailwaggin/com. Does the permalink need to include dogs as L1 like so:

tailwaggin,com/dogs/breeds

or can it be

tailwaggin,com/breeds

Thanks

If it's a dog site, then no, don't create a dog silo. The entire site is a dog silo.

I'm struggling so much with knowing what topics to do as my L2 + L3. I'm wouldnt expect you to write a guide as it would probably be too long, but do you have any recommendations for sites/books to read about it? ive been none stop studying it for 12 hours today, my brain is fried.

I've read through your 2018 silo guide which gives examples of different "brands" as L3 silo such as "HP" and "Dell" but you also gave examples of "Reviews" and "buyers guides" for L3 silos.

I just dont know whats best as my L3 Silos, should I use "reviews" "buyers guides" ect... or use "brands" or even "types"

Let me do an example to see if i am completely missing the point (This is how I think you do it)

L1: Kitchen

L2 Kitchen/applicances,

L3 Kitchen/appliances/ovens, Kitchen/appliances/microwaves, Kitchen/appliances/air-fryers, Kitchen/appliances/washing machines


Would the above be correct? Or should I do the following (This is what I took from your 2018 guide)

L1: Kitchen

L2 Kitchen/applicances,

L3: Kitchen/applicances/reviews, Kitchen/applicances/buyers-guides, Kitchen/applicances/comparisons, Kitchen/applicances/repairs,




So out of the two examples above, which is correct (if any?)

Thank you for all your responses, its much appreciated.

Hehe, yes, I appear to have contradicted myself. I'll explain.

When I said earlier "Don't ever use 'reviews' as a silo, it was because the example given was

site.com/reviews/some-article. This is a big no no. So, I will re-word that to "Don't ever use generic words like reviews/brands as a level 1 silo."

Sometimes you can on a level 2, or more so on a level 3.

Ie, this is awful

site.com/reviews/laptops
site.com/reviews/monitors

Because your higher level silo is 'reviews', that's the focus. You're grouping it as an all encompassing review section.

This on the other hand is ok.

site.com/laptops/reviews
site.com/laptops/guides
site.com/laptops

Or rather, now I'm thinking about it, here's a better way to word it.

Only use generic silos, like reviews/guides for your LAST level silo.

So site.com/laptops/reviews <-- ok
site.com/laptops/reviews/dell <-- not ok
site.com/laptops/reviews/hp <-- not ok

This is kind of hard to explain why. A lot of this is just coming from my 'gut' based on looking at successful site architectures and implementing my own siloing/architectures.

It doesn't make sense to me to try to build topical relevance in "dell reviews". It makes more sense to build topical relevance in "dell laptops", ie, site.com/laptops/dell/reviews, site.com/laptops/dell/gaming.

Your last silo isn't something your'e trying to build topical relevance in, it's more of a sub-section of the higher silo, and usually only makes sense alongside the silo above it.

running/watches/gps. You aren't trying to build topical relevance in "gps". You're building relevance in running watches with gps.
running/watches. You aren't trying to build topical relevance in watches. It's running watches.
running/ -- HERE, in the level 1 silo you are trying to build topical relevance in running, as a whole.

So does it make sense now why you wouldn't have

reviews/stuff

but you can have

some/stuff/reviews

</THOUGHT DUMP>

Let me do an example to see if i am completely missing the point (This is how I think you do it)

L1: Kitchen

L2 Kitchen/applicances,

L3 Kitchen/appliances/ovens, Kitchen/appliances/microwaves, Kitchen/appliances/air-fryers, Kitchen/appliances/washing machines

The word appliances, no. kitchen/ovens, kitchen/microwaves etc.

You could have household-appliances(Like currys.co.uk do, and the word appliances here is better than just household), but for kitchen, no I wouldn't make a distinction between appliances and non-appliances.

Having a reviews and buying-guides silo, for a review site, doesn't make sense because everything in kitchen/ovens is going to be reviews and buying guides.

should i use silo if i only have 1 category in my blog? lets say my blog niche is husky, site.com/husky/all-article-here/

No, you can't silo a blog with 1 category

It's just site.com - <title> A site about huskies </title>

For small sites like that just create 4-5 sections, like /training, /diet, /health etc

Some questions on A1:

1. The way you use the 'animal' silo here, can I use topics like: 'Cars', 'Shoes', 'Kids', 'Countries' and create website/contents/sub-silos on them?
2. Must my main topic always be a single word, e.g. 'animals', 'laptops'? Or can I have something like "touchscreen laptops" as the main topic?
3. If I think starting from 'animal' is too big for my budget, can I start from 'dog'? Or a specific breed like 'alsatian'? Can I still create an authority site out of that?

1. Yeah.

2. Usually a word. It can be touchscreen-laptops though, why not. Just depends how many topics you're going to use and how in-depth you want to go about laptops. Don't have gaming-laptops, office-laptops, portable-laptops etc. If you've got those then you put them in laptops

3. Dogs, yes, 1 breed, no.

I think I can help with some of this.

2. Touchscreen laptops would come under laptops, so you would have laptops as L1 and touchscreen as L2.

3. Don't think you have to create a million words at once. I spent all yesterday reading about silos, I learnt a lot. Basically you want to become an expert in a sub silo, then move onto the next sub silo until you become an expert in all sub silos.

E.G Setup maybe Laptops/touchscreen laptops/HP - Then create 5-20 articles for this directory. Then move onto Laptops/touchscreen laptops/Dell - Create another 5-20 articles.

I studied a website that did it this way for a niche, its 8 months old, 60,000 words of content in total for the entire site and ranking for 15,000 keywords with some decent backlinks. Thats how powerful this is. The reason @splishsplash is saying start with a broad topic "I think" is because it allows you to expand in the future. Because if you have a website which is doing well, you want to keep the ball rolling, not turn around and say "well ive covered all that sub topic, time to create a new website"


Take the above with a pinch of salt, but from what I've read and seen from various websites, this is how you do it and this is how effective it is.

Yep, I agree with all of this. And yes, that's why I like broad topics. Lots of room for expansion. Nothing worse than having a killer site you can't expand.

First of all, thanks for doing this, greatly appreciated!

1. What do you think about single-word keyword density? For example if you have a post about "best gaming monitors", what % would you use for the words "monitors" and "gaming"? I Noticed one of my pages had the word "monitor" over 250 times, which was around 4% density. I lowered it to 2% and waiting to see the results.
2. Supporting articles - Do you use those? If so, can we use review's as supporting articles? For example we have a "best gaming monitors" buying guide, and we create 5 "Dell XPS 13 monitor review", "HP Pavilion 15 review" articles, from which we link to our "best gaming monitors" page.
3. I just bought an auctioned domain for $700 on godaddy, and its on the home niche. I will follow your advice and make it Kitchen/garden/bathroom related. What's the best way to 'revive' the domain before i start sending links to it? Do i have to put up any old articles?
4. Can internal links be over-optimized? I have a page which has around 20 internal links from supporting articles, and around 90% of them have exact match anchors. Should i de-optimize them to be more 'general' or 'long tail'?

Thanks in advance!

1. Don't worry about single word. If your single word is high enough to cause a problem something is VERY wrong with your writer.

2. No don't do that. That's not siloing. best gaming monitors is not a silo that should contain reviews. Also, you don't do this because you're creating thin-content. Does thewirecutter have individual reviews? No. Your individual reviews should be in your best-of article.

3. I don't like the term supporting article anymore. I prefer to think of a topic as a whole, and each entity within it part of that whole. Not a page you want to rank with support articles to boost it. This is what I used to do before I learned how to silo.

4. Yes, they can definitely be over-optimized. Yes, de-optimize them. Don't go crazy with them. External links are more important. Create lots of external links to good sites. This works. I've tested this directly.

@splishsplash we had a conversation here before about siloing and I was using services in URLs but you said that it was too generic and not a slio. Therefore, would the following be better as it would mean that services has been removed all together and only used in the main nav.

examplesite.com/sms/bulk-sms
examplesite.com/sms/adverising-sms
examplesite.com/email/bulk-email
examplesite.com/email/dem

and then having blogposts with the following urls:

examplesite.com/sms/bulk-sms/example-bulk-blogpost
examplesite.com/email/bulk-email/example-bulk-email-blog-post


examplesite.com/work-with-us/blogpost-job-1

Apologies if this is way out, hence why I asked if there is an example site you have to demonstrate.

Thanks a lot

In general you don't want to repeat keywords in silos.

You would use sms/bulk/, sms/advertising.

You can repeat keywords in your post urls, just not silos.

But, with this particular example, I wouldn't sub-silo sms or email. For a bigger site you could have marketing/sms, but not for your site, since marketing really is your only topic.

So you'd have sms/our-sms-services.html, email/our-email-marketing-packages.html etc

Then just have a menu with Services linking to them all. You would have your silos, sms, email and others in the menu, but also a "virtual" menu Services so customers can easily navigate.

You can also create an all ecompassing services page examplesite.com/our-services.html and link off to the individual services pages in there.

Hi Splash

Thanks for the AMA.

Learning lots here.

I'm currently trying to dominate Google pg 1 for a few med-high competitive KWs (about 10k/mth)

I got 3 sites on page 1 and another 3 on pg 2.

Based on what you mentioned, I should not be changing the on-page for sites ranking on pg 1/2?

Does this mean that I should only be focusing on the off-page (link building)?

I'm trying to keep my backlink profile as 'clean' as possible. Is guest posting the only way to move the needle for sites ranking pg 1/2?

Thanks in advance!

Yeah, don't change stuff on page 1/2. You can add though.

First off I'd like to say huge THANK YOU for setting up the thread - it's absolutely amazing @splishsplash you've tons of quality information which I am sucking up now as a sponge lol. I really appreciate all the hard work you put in this - thanks for that again. Just a very quick query from me pls:

1.I run an affiliate PMD website with basically 1 category in my blog - should I treat my homepage as a silo e.g. site.com? also, what would be the best structure for blog posts in this case - either site.com/article-name or site.com/blog/article-name

Many thanks,
M

For a small site, if there's just 1 category, then just site.com/article-name.

But try to have at least 3-5 categories. Even though you aren't siloing a small site, just treat it as a site with 5 level 1 silos, ie, have some content above your post listings, not just the default wp category.

 

[fxkool]

@splishsplash thanks for your reply - much appreciated. Another quick query pls: you briefly mentioned that a PMD with the homepage has no benefits whatsoever in 2019. since I own an affiliate website would it be better to change the domain name going forward and add/try extra 5-6 categories pls?

Many thanks

 

[Proton3]

Hey man, I made my question in a graphical way so everyone can clearly understand what you're talking about. Is this the correct website structure and linking?

Imagine it's a tech niche, and you are going to review different tech items. I included LINKS in black and page url's at the top. What would you change on this structure? (image sorting right to left, meaning right one is homepage, left one is the final part of the silo)

Thanks again!

 

[Dark Sky]

Hey man, I made my question in a graphical way so everyone can clearly understand what you're talking about. Is this the correct website structure and linking?

Imagine it's a tech niche, and you are going to review different tech items. I included LINKS in black and page url's at the top. What would you change on this structure? (image sorting right to left, meaning right one is homepage, left one is the final part of the silo)

Thanks again!

On the first image, it's a post with no silo?

 

[Proton3]

On the first image, it's a post with no silo?

Yes, but it links to "best g-sync monitors" - i forgot to add that in the image

 

[Dark Sky]

Yes, but it links to "best g-sync monitors" - i forgot to add that in the image

Ignore links for the moment, the post itself needs to be inside a silo. Preferebly a 3 Tier Silo.

 

[Proton3]

Ignore links for the moment, the post itself needs to be inside a silo. Preferebly a 3 Tier Silo.

So you're saying monitors. com/best-monitors/gaming/acer-p34-review/ ?

What if Acer XB12 also belongs to g-sync monitors and ultrawide monitors?

 

[Dark Sky]

So you're saying monitors. com/best-monitors/gaming/acer-p34-review/ ?

What if Acer XB12 also belongs to g-sync monitors and ultrawide monitors?

Then you have them in both categories but make one category the primary category in wordpress (Physically silo it)

So if its in both, one will be the physical silo where it is actually located, but one will be virtually silod

Btw Tom, cheers, this thread was much appreciated.

Finally got my head around it all. I've managed to set it up beautifully. Ranking are soaring.

 

[splishsplash]

@splishsplash thanks for your reply - much appreciated. Another quick query pls: you briefly mentioned that a PMD with the homepage has no benefits whatsoever in 2019. since I own an affiliate website would it be better to change the domain name going forward and add/try extra 5-6 categories pls?

Many thanks

Depends on the rankings. If it's not doing well at all then yes. If it's ranking, then keep it.

Hey man, I made my question in a graphical way so everyone can clearly understand what you're talking about. Is this the correct website structure and linking?

Imagine it's a tech niche, and you are going to review different tech items. I included LINKS in black and page url's at the top. What would you change on this structure? (image sorting right to left, meaning right one is homepage, left one is the final part of the silo)

Thanks again!

"best-monitors" is not a silo, it's an article. You can silo with curved/gaming, etc, but make sure you have enough unique content in the silos to justify it.

 

[cozziola]

2. Build all the sites at once, with the 75-200 words in each silo + the tree arch below the posts(none to start). So you have your entire structure created ahead of time. Account for everything in your initial research.

Does this mean every single page that will exist within L1 and L2 will be published at lauch with 75-200 words?

Just the part i bolded that said (none to start) has confused me a little.

Do you think sending links to guest posts is needed?

If the answer is yes do you think cheap 1 off payment PBNs are ok? It's just i don't have a big enough budget to spend on rented links for tier 2 at this point in time.

 

[Dark Sky]

Just out of curiousity, the 500-1000 words content you place on the home page, what exactly do you write about? I mean 500-1000 words is an article, but i'm assuming your referring to 500-1000 words of generic content regarding your Sites topic and not an article about anything specific.

Important question (Also interesting)

How important is it to create generic articles specifically for L1 + L2?

Do you think its neccesary to have an article unique to the L1 only?

For example, the L1 contains all L2's and L3's but is it important to have articles in the L1 that are not in L2 or L3?

 

[Riders On The Storm]

So far excellent info around this thread.
I have few more queries.
1. What is you menu structure? Per silo different menu?
2. What you have in your footer and sidebar?
3. Do you have social sharing options on your posts?
4. What is shown at the bottom of the final level child article? Same level child articles or parent silo page link?

 

[OpenTheBible]

What's better for bulletpoint list titles, heading 2 or heading 3?

If heading 2 is used, in what cases should you use heading 3 on the things listed in bulletpoints?

Thanks.

 

[ElCamino]

Awesome thread again, thanks Tom!

I have a question concerning the following scenario:

I have the blog content on my website siloed the way you described it in the old thread and it is working nicely.
Parallel to the blog content there is a wiki on the site. While the blog articles focus more on in depth details of a topic or show current developments in it, the wiki articles are more sort of pillar articles which shall bring the traffic in for the big search volume keywords.
What I do at the moment to power the wiki articles up, is internally linking them from every blogarticle where the keyword ist used.
But do you have another hint for me how to combine the silo structure with the wiki?