What I Do When Building a Web Site Using a Silo Structure For Long Term Rankings

[hotguy640]

why did you use "/%category%/%postname%/" instead for "post name"
is it seo friendly ?

 

[ChanzGrande]

Outrageously detailed and organized as always B2B.

Thanks for this powerful resource for designing silo sites. Always thrilled to see you have added another body of value to the boards.

 

[Zera Api]

You won't believe this, last night i was dreaming about "Silo Structure Silo Structure" and today i was pleasantly surprised by this thread.
Will be happy to know about your favorite themes.

 

[CowboysNation]

Nice share Op Keep up the good work!

 

[ritafairclough]

Thank you BTB, another top notch guide.

My question is..it seems like your category pages have tremendous influence on your website as a whole with the power and anchor sections above and below them. I would then presume that these pages are very long. Do you monetize these pages too? or do you concentrate on the post pages mainly?

Thanks

 

[Dioni]

Great thread Greg, thanks really good information in here!

 

[nickvk]

Correct me if I'm wrong

Silo structure is exactly the same thing when we search google, it shows related searches, so in case of individual sites it is a link to related articles, right?

This is some sort of artificial intelligence then people should work for creating an ultimate plugin which automatically takes care of everything coz authority sites(like 500+ pages) should have these plugins that may help these site get link juice and help keep users engaged(if site is good then it settles in their mind), that's a good thing and taking care thing will be liked by all authority site owners (i will be one later).

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

why did you use "/%category%/%postname%/" instead for "post name"
is it seo friendly ?

For the silo structure it is because you are essentially empowering the category page in this process.

You won't believe this, last night i was dreaming about "Silo Structure Silo Structure" and today i was pleasantly surprised by this thread.
Will be happy to know about your favorite themes.

Dreams are UBER powerful... I've shared a few of my dreams with some very close friends that gave me solid business ideas that turned into seven figure businesses. I used to keep a notepad next to my bed because of how strong some dreams can be in terms of what they can actually bring out in a person's subconscious.

Of course they are also wacky as you get those where you are riding a wave on a surfboard made of peanutbutter and your talking on a cell phone that looks like Taylor Made Rossa putter and you think nothing of it in the dream.

Thank you BTB, another top notch guide.

My question is..it seems like your category pages have tremendous influence on your website as a whole with the power and anchor sections above and below them. I would then presume that these pages are very long. Do you monetize these pages too? or do you concentrate on the post pages mainly?

Thanks

I monetize every page on my sites including the about me, privacy, and contact pages. If there is a chance that a person would go to the site, there is some kind of advertising there.

Correct me if I'm wrong

Silo structure is exactly the same thing when we search google, it shows related searches, so in case of individual sites it is a link to related articles, right?

This is some sort of artificial intelligence then people should work for creating an ultimate plugin which automatically takes care of everything coz authority sites(like 500+ pages) should have these plugins that may help these site get link juice and help keep users engaged(if site is good then it settles in their mind), that's a good thing and taking care thing will be liked by all authority site owners (i will be one later).

Your thinking is correct there as to your questions. I've looked at a few plug ins along the way but none have wowed me and I'm not a real fan of a lot of plug ins anyway so I just set it up manually as I build a site and I have a bunch of sites that are well over 500 pages set up in a similar manner as this.

 

[KC1987]

Allright BTB, big thanks for your post on siloing and things, it revealed some things to really consider and think about. Could you provide me with your opinion on things before I move on with my project?

1) For my website I took wikipedia as an example because it is the ultimate ranking champ. What they do is take a phrase or a word and make it a link on ALL theyr pages. It gives them insane interlinking juice and G seems to love that kind of thing. They dont use any siloing whatsoever and can still rank. I did the same thing - for every post on my site I take some terms (like if post is related to dishwashing I pick "dihwasher" "dishwashing" etc) and automaticly hotlink them to this post in my entire site whenever it appears.
So now I`m thinking to implement some silo elements from your example and keep interlinking web as well. Whould that bring the best of both worlds? Strong category pages and that sweet interlinking juice? What do you think BTB?

2) You wrote that you have set your site on dedicated ip. Such thing costs starting from 150$ per month usually on most providers. Is that what you ar paying for it or do you have a cheaper solution?

3) Related to previous question - from what I have red they say that if you want to rank well your loading times should not be bellow 2sec. Is that relevant from your experience? I cant really afford dedicated hosting at this point yet so this is one thing that bothers me.

I have more questions on my list, but I`ll keep them for later How far have you got with your project anyway? I`m looking forward for your answers and I hope you will succeed with your website. Thanks!

 

[jennyxzxz]

Hi Greg,

Hope you still remember me. Thanks for your awesome advise, i am still working on it. I have some questions. For those articles(posts), is showing author necessary?

Also, regarding being "active" on FB & Twitter, do i just keep on posting/tweeting things? Because i do not have any likes/followers currently..

Once again, thanks for your awesome thread!

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

1) So now I`m thinking to implement some silo elements from your example and keep interlinking web as well. Whould that bring the best of both worlds? Strong category pages and that sweet interlinking juice? What do you think BTB?

You do want to randomly interlink related articles as well as link to your category page and your powerpage as long as you are not looking like total spam when you do that.

2) You wrote that you have set your site on dedicated ip. Such thing costs starting from 150$ per month usually on most providers. Is that what you ar paying for it or do you have a cheaper solution?

I think you are thinking dedicated server. A dedicated IP runs around 2.00 or so with most hosts on a reseller program.
3) Related to previous question - from what I have red they say that if you want to rank well your loading times should not be bellow 2sec. Is that relevant from your experience? I cant really afford dedicated hosting at this point yet so this is one thing that bothers me.

Load times do matter as part of ranking a site and that is one reason I don't use a lot of plug ins, eliminate any themes I am not using in the dashboard and stay away from Hostgator, Blue Host and other hosts under the EIG umbrella for the most part.

For those articles(posts), is showing author necessary?

It is not necessary but I usually have an author showing, typically a pen name, as it does give many the sense of connecting to the owner/writer on the site. It is a tiny thing but people look to connect to other people normally and I want to give the visitor the best possible user experience on my sites as that helps conversions as it leads to trust.

Also, regarding being "active" on FB & Twitter, do i just keep on posting/tweeting things? Because i do not have any likes/followers currently..

Get likes and followers... keep tweeting and posting but start working on likes and followers. Both are fairly easy to get organically... one other thing about that. Don't buy them from fiverr or other el cheapo SEO services sites as the quality is very low and you can end up with the same group of fakes that many others get and that diminishes the quality of your account.

 

[T2tkid]

Thank you BTB for this tutorial.
Want to build a successful website? Read all BassTrackerBoats threads!

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

Top shelf guide here buddy. A lot of people end up with a headache when you start talking about Silo structuring. You managed to pull it off in simple, but effective terms. I will bookmark it and send it to some people I know who needs to read this.

PS: Your guides are always good, but this has to be one of your best thus far.

Thanks, Brotherman!

Another fantastic tutorial, I too am a fan of silo structures I actually found your article on ypick.me first.

So you're the one that visits my site? I was wondering who that was. Thanks!

 

[geo89gr]

I see now the reason why you told me that my on-site SEO sucked

 

[workahollic2]

Good job BTB. Now I await to see your linkbuilding strategy.

Sorry for this dumb question:
which direction does the link juice flow in the above silo structure, downward?

 

[aoe316]

BTB I enjoy reading your threads and I would love to be able to see something you have done. Do you have any sites that you have made available to the public to see? If not would it be possible to PM me with one to look over.
Thanks regardless and as always wonderful work with your thread.

 

[TechFinder]

well done mate. Thank you very much for sharing such a great post with brilliant idea. It such a great information and will be very helpful for me.

 

[nickvk]

1) So now I`m thinking to implement some silo elements from your example and keep interlinking web as well. Whould that bring the best of both worlds? Strong category pages and that sweet interlinking juice? What do you think BTB?

You do want to randomly interlink related articles as well as link to your category page and your powerpage as long as you are not looking like total spam when you do that.

2) You wrote that you have set your site on dedicated ip. Such thing costs starting from 150$ per month usually on most providers. Is that what you ar paying for it or do you have a cheaper solution?

I think you are thinking dedicated server. A dedicated IP runs around 2.00 or so with most hosts on a reseller program.
3) Related to previous question - from what I have red they say that if you want to rank well your loading times should not be bellow 2sec. Is that relevant from your experience? I cant really afford dedicated hosting at this point yet so this is one thing that bothers me.

Load times do matter as part of ranking a site and that is one reason I don't use a lot of plug ins, eliminate any themes I am not using in the dashboard and stay away from Hostgator, Blue Host and other hosts under the EIG umbrella for the most part.

For those articles(posts), is showing author necessary?

It is not necessary but I usually have an author showing, typically a pen name, as it does give many the sense of connecting to the owner/writer on the site. It is a tiny thing but people look to connect to other people normally and I want to give the visitor the best possible user experience on my sites as that helps conversions as it leads to trust.

Also, regarding being "active" on FB & Twitter, do i just keep on posting/tweeting things? Because i do not have any likes/followers currently..

Get likes and followers... keep tweeting and posting but start working on likes and followers. Both are fairly easy to get organically... one other thing about that. Don't buy them from fiverr or other el cheapo SEO services sites as the quality is very low and you can end up with the same group of fakes that many others get and that diminishes the quality of your account.

But initially some sort of blackhat is needed for gaining followers (just initially) to show the visitors that we are good at what we are doing.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

BTB I enjoy reading your threads and I would love to be able to see something you have done. Do you have any sites that you have made available to the public to see? If not would it be possible to PM me with one to look over.
Thanks regardless and as always wonderful work with your thread.

I don't have a site that I would feel comfortable sharing as that is usually part of a recipe for someone to either replicate and compete, neg SEO or any number of other things that are detrimental to me. Sorry.

I guess if I was real ambitious I could actually build a site for educational purposes and maybe one day I'll do exactly that but that is a maybe for sure.

But initially some sort of blackhat is needed for gaining followers (just initially) to show the visitors that we are good at what we are doing.

I'm cool with using BH to gain followers/likes but the reason I say don't use Fiverr, etc is because there is too much of a chance of getting the same followers/likes or fakes that a zillion other people get and that generally looks bad to the search engines.

There may be some stellar services there that I am lumping in with the ones that just populate your pages but that is a need that I think can't be properly filled with a 5 dollar bill.

You are much better served doing something else to get the ball rolling there.

 

[FrozenSpade]

I'm wondering what are the main types of backlinks that you build to your sites? PBNs or paid links etc?