Internal linking

[goupipoopi]

Hi,

I need help figuring out how to do internal linking for my website.
When I started building my pages, I didn't think much about SEO because I didn't know anything about it.

Fast forward to now, I'm trying to up my game and boost my website's presence.

I have 6 services categories on my website. Only one category (the "fashion" one) is causing me trouble with the internal linking because it's very messy in terms of keywords it targets.
Each category main page is made from thumbnail representing projects from that specific category.
Now, my fashion category contains the most projects. Around 40 of them. The majority of them target cities in california, while around 10 target toronto, vancouver and other US cities.
My other big problem is that some pages already rank so i'm trying to avoid changing the slug.

1) Should i keep the california cities pages linked together in one hub? or it's okay to have a hub that links to pages targeting different cities?
2) how should I go about doing this internal linking? i was able to do a nice internal linking structure for my blog because I planned it ahead of time. It seems impossible for me to create a nice map for this fashion category.

Thank you in advance for your advice.

 

[tazarbm]

6 services categories

very messy in terms of keywords it targets

I feel that the trick to your problem lies in these 2 statements, because service-related keywords are self-explanatory and they're not messy unless the services are completely different (plumbing, tailoring, blacksmitting, crafting, etc)

So, could we get insight into which type of keywords you are targeting within the fashion silo that makes this "very messy"? Because - if all keywords / projects in the Fashion category - are indeed related to fashion you can interlink them all together without problem (although, I'd personally not link the cities together even if they belong to the same region, ie California, Toronto... and this kind of answers to your 1st question)

1) Should i keep the california cities pages linked together in one hub? or it's okay to have a hub that links to pages targeting different cities?

just for context, are the 40 projects in the fashion category actually 40 pages of content, or they are sub-categories that consist of more than 1 page each? Because if they're just 40 pages it might be hard to interlink them in a relevant way if the keywords are so all over the place? But if each project consists of more than 1 page the best way to go about it is to link each page within its sub-category together. But this assumes that the keywords are indeed NOT all over the place, which is why we would need to know what type of keywords you are speaking about

Anyway, if you're comfortable with it, you can DM your site and I'll take a look at it and be able to give more accurate reply that way....

 

[goupipoopi]

I feel that the trick to your problem lies in these 2 statements, because service-related keywords are self-explanatory and they're not messy unless the services are completely different (plumbing, tailoring, blacksmitting, crafting, etc)

So, could we get insight into which type of keywords you are targeting within the fashion silo that makes this "very messy"? Because - if all keywords / projects in the Fashion category - are indeed related to fashion you can interlink them all together without problem (although, I'd personally not link the cities together even if they belong to the same region, ie California, Toronto... and this kind of answers to your 1st question)


just for context, are the 40 projects in the fashion category actually 40 pages of content, or they are sub-categories that consist of more than 1 page each? Because if they're just 40 pages it might be hard to interlink them in a relevant way if the keywords are so all over the place? But if each project consists of more than 1 page the best way to go about it is to link each page within its sub-category together. But this assumes that the keywords are indeed NOT all over the place, which is why we would need to know what type of keywords you are speaking about

Anyway, if you're comfortable with it, you can DM your site and I'll take a look at it and be able to give more accurate reply that way....

Thank you for the thorough reply.
The 40 projects are content with each page describing the project, process and the challenges. It's my way of trying to make each page unique since each project can have a different challenge. There is definitely a lot in common in each page but I'm trying to add details like clients name, date of the project (year and month), number of photos worked on and such. Not all the pages have been reworked so far but i'm planning to attack them slowly.
The thing is the keywords are all similar in the sense that if you are looking for an "editorial photo retoucher" or looking for a "fashion photo retoucher", it all means the same but some people will search for different words. Like campaign, editorial, lookbook, magazine and so on all fall into the same thing.

I did some thinking after I posted here and I came up to this conclusion:
- A big number of the pages will link back to the main fashion page.
- The pages will link between each other when it makes sense. In some cases I split a project into two when it makes sense. Say a part will be the men's lookbook and the other part will be a separate page for the women's lookbook. I think this way I can target keywords and make things even more clear for AI in case someone was asking chatgpt for a retoucher for their women's fashion lookbook! (This is my thinking, i'm not saying this is how it works)
- The pages will also link to other pages from the blog or other categories when it feels natural.

(although, I'd personally not link the cities together even if they belong to the same region, ie California, Toronto... and this kind of answers to your 1st question)

Should I keep the california pages hub separate from other cities? this is going to be a big issue for me because in each category, I have pages that target different cities. :S

 

[Ralphoton]

Creating city-based hubs is stronger for SEO, because it clusters related pages by location, improves topical relevance, and avoids confusing signals to Google.

 

[Angel Han]

You should group projects by geographic hub (California separately, other cities separately) for clarity and increased relevance.
Create internal links by linking each project's hub, and cross-linking between closely related projects.
Keep the old slug, just build hub pages + reasonable internal links is enough.

 

[John Michelson]

1) It’s fine to have a hub that links to pages from different cities, but linking similar locations (like all California pages) can make navigation easier and help Google understand your structure.

2) For internal linking, try grouping your pages by city or theme and use natural links between related projects. Keep the structure logical, even if it’s not perfect, just focus on helping visitors find what they need.

 

[goupipoopi]

1) It’s fine to have a hub that links to pages from different cities, but linking similar locations (like all California pages) can make navigation easier and help Google understand your structure.

2) For internal linking, try grouping your pages by city or theme and use natural links between related projects. Keep the structure logical, even if it’s not perfect, just focus on helping visitors find what they need.

Oh boy! my website is so messy! My category pages are actually portfolio pages. So each category has many projects in it and each one targets a keyword related to that category and a location.
I did some reading and I got to this solution for my fashion portfolio page:
1) Each page from that category will link back to the main fashion page. I will use variant anchor texts related to "fashion photo retouching"
2) The pages within the fashion category will each target a different keyword. Right now, a lot of them target similar keywords but with different locations. So portrait photo retouching Los Angeles and another page will have the same keyword but say the location is San Francisco.
From what i've read previously, that should be fine but now I'm rethinking it and maybe it's not fine. It's just diluting the keywords potentials.

My other idea is instead of step two, I will create a sub hub for each theme within the fashion. So one page will be the sub-hub for portraits. Other portrait pages will link to it and that sub-hub will link to the fashion main page. The pages linking to the sub-hub won't link to the main page but will link to other pages in a more natural way.

i don't know if this is the right thinking to tackle this issue.

 

[MajestySEO]

For your fashion category, it’s best to organize your pages by location or service type. This makes it easier for both Google and your visitors to find what they are looking for. Instead of linking all your city specific pages together, create separate groups for each region so the content within each group is relevant. This helps Google understand your site better and prevents similar content from competing for the same keywords. You can also use plugins like Link Whisper, which can help you create internal links more efficiently.