Complex website structure - where should I point my backlinks to?

[paulsmith420]

I have a legit project i've launched in January this year, and I am trying to get my head around which pages should I prioritise during my linking building activities. I left my job as a developer to give myself a chance at making this work, so any advice you can give me it would mean the world to me.

I rather not disclose the site, so for explaination purposes lets assume its a platform/marketplace just like AirBnb.

My current site structure is as followed:

I think its quite obvious that the backlink target should be each city landing page (ie. Apartments for rent in Miami -- /locations/usa/miami)
But the problem with this is that its incredibly hard to scale... Its early days and there is more than +56 landing pages for cities.

My thought is to focus on building backlinks only on these three (in priority order, ie. more backlinks effort to #1 than #3),

1. /
2. /locations/
3. /locations/country/

The thinking being that the internal juice flow will eventually concentrate on the city landing pages as absolutely every relevant internal page links back to them one way or another. Is my assumption correct? and is there a better way I should be approaching this?

The concern I have with this approach is that the City landing pages are 3 levels deep (/locations/country/city/) and therefore the amount of juice reaching to them from the top pages wont be sufficient (?)

Currently, my strategy for improving my SERP is fairly unsophisticated:

Backlinks into #1, #2, #3
My approach has been mostly white-hat.
- Solid KW research using SEMRush + AHrefs
- Using SEMRush to reach out to bloggers and asking for link inclusion (zero luck)
- Responding to H.A.R.O queries personally (2 posts)
- Crowdo links (foundation package + 20 links/mo)

Blog Posts
Every blog post I've written is super indepth and genuinely high quality, on average 1300 words. But currently not doing much with them but just to promote them on my social media (little followers) and on Quuu - which has been questionable, because yes... it does get tweets and shares... but the accounts sharing them are mostly obvious ghost/bot accounts.
Any advice as to what else should I be doing with them?

Im open to trying different strategies white and/or black. However before spending any more cash (project is bootstrapped and I'm fulltime on this) I want to make sure im actually making the most of every dollar and hour spent. Hence this post...

Where should most of my backlinks link to? (taking into consideration cost/scale/feasability)
What should I do with my blog posts besides sharing them on social media?
If this was your project, what things would you try?
Anything that Im doing particularly wrong?
Anything I should steer clear of?

If you read this far, thank you! Please let me know your thoughts, advise, suggestions, etc.
If you dont have much to say, thats cool too, but could I ask to please "thumbs up" this post? It really would help me out.

Thanks BHW!

 

[BrotherBrother]

Link to the pages that are already ranking. It's easier to take a page from page 2 to page 1 than it is to take a random page out of nowhere to page 2.

 

[tazarbm]

STEP 1: keep posting content daily (if possible), and at the same time promote your website. You don't necessarily need to build backlinks, but promote your website on social media, specialty directories and forums, press releases etc. Just look at what your competition is doing in terms of promotion and try to mimic them.

The reason you will want to do this is 2-fold:

1) google loves websites that get traffic before ranking in google so they will award you with better rankings when you start ranking in google (I have tested this on my own last year and it worked)
2) you will increase brand awareness of your website, which will increase the authority of your brand, which will rank you better in google with no, or few backlinks

STEP 2 (optional but recommended): build quality backlinks at a safe pace. By quality backlinks I mean guest posts, PBNs, press releases. And by safe pace I mean 4-5 backlinks per month for 3-4 months, then increase the number by 50%-100% for the next 3-4 months and so on.

Do not stop posting content at least weekly if you're building backlinks. If you don't have enough content to post regularly don't build backlinks at all, and focus on only acquiring traffic through legitimate means (social media, specialty forums, search engines, etc)

If your domain name is new and has no backlinks only build backlinks to the home page, and every now and then (say once every 2-3 months) throw a couple of backlinks to some important sub-pages, like /locations/ or /blog/

STEP 3: monitor your traffic and rankings in Google Search Console (I hope you did submit your website to GSC) and when you spot a certain page ranking on page 2 (spots 11 to 15 preferably) you will know that THAT particular page is liked by google and can be dealt with. If it's a money page start building backlinks to it so you can help it rank higher, but make sure you build your backlinks safely (maybe 1-2 backlinks per month) and that they are of high quality and relevant to your niche. Do this until the page ranks on page 1.

Rinse and repeat with other money pages that GSC shows as ranking on page 2, all-the-while posting content regularly and building backlinks to the homepage of your website, and while continuing running non-SEO promotions to raise brand awareness.

These steps might be costly, and for some niches the profit doesn't justify the investment, but if your website is a high paying niche like travel (since you've referenced AirBnb) then running brand awareness promotions is worth it in the end.

 

[paulsmith420]

Link to the pages that are already ranking. It's easier to take a page from page 2 to page 1 than it is to take a random page out of nowhere to page 2.

Cool thanks, will consider that. Not many pages ranking at the moment.
When I do rank (40% is for .com/, 40% for /blog/, and 20% for a product detail page which is not ideal actually)

STEP 1: keep posting content daily (if possible), and at the same time promote your website. You don't necessarily need to build backlinks, but promote your website on social media, specialty directories and forums, press releases etc. Just look at what your competition is doing in terms of promotion and try to mimic them.
(...)

Thanks will keep at it. I cant manage daily posts, but I do post 2 times Wed and Sun.

STEP 2 (optional but recommended): build quality backlinks at a safe pace. By quality backlinks I mean guest posts, PBNs, press releases. And by safe pace I mean 4-5 backlinks per month for 3-4 months, then increase the number by 50%-100% for the next 3-4 months and so on.

Ouch, this worries me a little. I started very slow, but ramped up quite quick... I hope it wont come bite me in the ass. Was already thinking of slowing down, so thanks for explaining what a good link velocity should be at the beginning.

For domain /

STEP 3: monitor your traffic and rankings in Google Search Console (I hope you did submit your website to GSC) and when you spot a certain page ranking on page 2 (spots 11 to 15 preferably) you will know that THAT particular page is liked by google and can be dealt with. (...)

Yes submitted to GSC, and good advice, will keep a lookout

For domain /

Thanks again for all your advice, learning a ton, thank you @BrotherBrother and @tazarbm for taking the time

 

[tazarbm]

no problem!

Also, since you already started backlinking it's important that you do not stop. Keep posting content (2 times a week it's still good, it's important to post regularly without stopping, that's all) but also keep building backlinks since you've already started doing it. Just slow it down cause 100 backlinks in 3 months is too much. It won't necessarily hurt your website just yet, but it might if you continue doing it.

On the positive side, I like your backlinks to RD ratio (2 to 1). That's a very good ratio in terns of SEO

 

[paulsmith420]

(...) also keep building backlinks since you've already started doing it. Just slow it down cause 100 backlinks in 3 months is too much. It won't necessarily hurt your website just yet, but it might if you continue doing it.

On the positive side, I like your backlinks to RD ratio (2 to 1). That's a very good ratio in terns of SEO

Good to hear. Will keep at it, just wind it down a bit. Cheers!

 

[paulsmith420]

*Bump* - really keen on hearing different perspectives

 

[hideath]

I really must say that you know what you're actually doing,
linking to these 3 is the best thing to do in fact

I would focus more on/locations/country pages as they have direct contact with the cities pages which are targeted to rank most likely,

I would go with some ratio of 6:3:1 for country:locations:homepage for such website/link building
That's generally made with some links to push some cities pages when it's needed

but you have to make sure to implement a good internal linking (sidebars, footer, header and in content) to pass link juice to the inner pages)

best of luck dude, would love to get an update on this later in fact

 

[paulsmith420]

(...)
I would focus more on/locations/country pages as they have direct contact with the cities pages which are targeted to rank most likely,

I would go with some ratio of 6:3:1 for country:locations:homepage for such website/link building
That's generally made with some links to push some cities pages when it's needed
(...)

Hey @hideath ! Thanks a million for the encouragement and advice.

What you say makes a lot of It does make sense, however, and i appreciate that probably the detail was missed with all the arrows in the diagram. But /locations/ page also has direct contact with the city page. Sure, it does not have direct hierarchy in the URL structure (/locations/<country>/city/) but it is in fact directly internally linked from /location/

The locations page actually looks something like this

USA >> /locations/country/
- Miami >> /locations/country/city/
- Vegas >> /locations/country/city/
- New York >> /locations/country/city/

SPAIN >> /locations/country/
- Barcelona >> /locations/country/city/

You get the idea... so i guess the questions are:

1. You are suggesting focus on /location/country/ because /locations/ is so heavily internally linked, the juice passed onto city would be minimal right? Or is it because you missed the direct internal linking from /locations/ into /locations/country/city/?
2. Considering I have 18 countries, your backlink ratio maps to something like [18*6+(18*6)/2+(18*6)/6] meaning a backlink profile of 108:54:18, resulting in 180 links. How would you go about building such a huge (at least to me) number of them without arrising suspecion for a new website? Any recommendations/shout-outs?
3. Whats the logic behind the ratio you suggested? Sorry if too noob-a-question

Thanks again, and will definely update on findings.

 

[hideath]

1. You are suggesting focus on /location/country/ because /locations/ is so heavily internally linked, the juice passed onto city would be minimal right? Or is it because you missed the direct internal linking from /locations/ into /locations/country/city/?

I don't really think the URL structure does really matter for passing link juice but the interlinking does (personal opinion)
the locations page should have more outbound internal links (each country link + each country cities links), which means the link juice will be diluted more and divided into these pages

the trick here that you have to pass most of the link juice to each of the cities pages,
so, you can point the backlinks to both the country and locations pages

when it comes to this, I would go to countries pages which logically will give you better control,
using this, you can get USA links to USA country page, Spain links to Spain country page, etc... (most for guest posts)

and ofc, I don't think ranking on each of these countries will have the same difficulty,
so you have to check and estimate at this part for the link ratio

2. Considering I have 18 countries, your backlink ratio maps to something like[18*6+(18*6)/2+(18*6)/6]meaning a backlink profile of 108:54:18, resulting in 180 links. How would you go about building such a huge (at least to me) number of them without arrising suspecion for a new website? Any recommendations/shout-outs?

it really depends on the competition here,
make proper keyword research and check how many each of the targeted keywords gonna need on average,
that comes to how many links your competitors have and how good they are,
so to outrank them, you gonna need more and better links than they do
you can use a mix of quality PBN links, guest posts, quality web 2.0s & crowd links for that, each of them can have proper usage and can be beneficial for your link building

3. Whats the logic behind the ratio you suggested? Sorry if too noob-a-question

building links to each of the cities page is some kind of hard,
doing so, you gonna need a huge number of links which gonna be costly

and since most of the cities keywords are usually not so competitive, you can rank your pages using internal linking from the locations and countries pages

ofc, this is just a general rule and some cities or country pages needs more links to actually rank,
so it really depends on the competition of each of the countries and cities pages

this is the way I see things and makes sense to me,
I would love to see more suggestions & ideas myself about that,
hope this helps

 

[Crewchief007]

Hmmmmm...

I have a legit project i've launched in January this year, and I am trying to get my head around which pages should I prioritise during my linking building activities. I left my job as a developer to give myself a chance at making this work, so any advice you can give me it would mean the world to me.

If you read this far, thank you! Please let me know your thoughts, advise, suggestions, etc.

First off, quitting your job was huge no matter what your current financial status.

In the military, we have a saying, a belief, a mantra, "If you want to take the island, burn your boats." You burned your boat (your job) to take the island, "Legit Project."

I encourage you to be strategic and tactical in ALL of your thoughts, movements and actions.

And just as importantly, "Be FEARLESS!" And be RELENTLESS!

I'm going to preface my technical analysis with one poignant military/business strategy gleaned from the Master Tactician Sun Tzu.

It "seems" like you have went to war, (to a degree) without winning, (planning/strategizing) first.

You stated this is a, "Complex website Structure." Actually, its what's classified as a SEO Silo.

What you need to learn, (to become a Victorious Warrior) is Silo Architecture for SEO and User Experience. I want to "STRESS" you're pleasing both the search engines as well as the users.

Remember,"Warriors WIN FIRST and then Go to WAR."

Let me put it another way:

Many people go into SEO and IM with few calculations, and that's why they lose consistently.

Here's what you need to do, IMHO.

Assemble a pool of large websites that use SILO SEO Architecture and glean critical insights from them.

Observe "if" and "how" they are appealing to both the search engines and the users. Take notes on their structures, layouts and navigation; use that gleaned info to craft your SEO Silo.

Here are some sample sitemaps that reveal SEO Siloing :

https://www.cdc.gov/az/a.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Faz%2Findex.html
https://www.oracle.com/sitemap.html
https://www.airbnb.com/sitemaps/v2

To drill down and access some nice tutorials, search for the term, "Bruce Clay Silo." Bruce lives, eats and drinks Silos.

Hope that helps.

 

[paulsmith420]

Assemble a pool of large websites that use SILO SEO Architecture and glean critical insights from them.
(...)
To drill down and access some nice tutorials, search for the term, "Bruce Clay Silo." Bruce lives, eats and drinks Silos.
(...)

@Crewchief007 - dude you know whats amazing, that sometimes just knowing what something is called, makes a fck**ing incredible difference. Thank you. Really... a huge thanks!!

Went to YT, typed 'Bruce Clay' and in the first 15s of the video (after the ad of course...) i was like "Yeeees!"
This is it!

I'm going to preface my technical analysis with one poignant military/business strategy gleaned from the Master Tactician Sun Tzu.

Love the art of war, its a phenomenal book. Thanks for the inspiration and motivation.
Small gestures like what you did/said, might be small, but for someone-somewhere (read, me) actually helps them to continue battling through the tedious, questioning times. Thank you brother.

https://www.airbnb.com/sitemaps/v2

I have been trying to reverse engineer what AirBnb does by rudimentarely identifying patterns.
But some of the things they do are actually so so weird, if it was any other company, one would say it was probably horrendous for SEO.

For example,

2,000x pages of this, with about 1,000x links per page.

How isnt it KW stuffing for instance?

Non hireachical urls

See my other question:

Impact of URL design com/country/city/object? VS .com/country-city-object/
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/impact-of-url-design-com-country-city-object-vs-com-country-city-object.1321681/#post-14266457
But why do they flatten the structure? Logically one would think

/country/city/experiences
or even
/experiences/country/city/

Stays/Experiences URL are completely abstracted.

If you ignore the query parameters, theres nothing to even identify the location. Again why...?!



All of the above is to say, that for a noob like me, i've taken what I've observed very cautiously because I dont know if websites on the league of AirBnb can afford to do shady tactics just because they play by "other" SEO rules.

But like I said, now that I saw a couple videos, some of those things are starting to click...
Thanks again man, I cant say it enough times...!