Forum Moderators: martinibuster
My site focuses on a single theme. The theme revolves around a single keyword - "widgets". I want my homepage to rank for this generic keyword. I've organized my site in a theme pyramid. I have 2 main categories from the root - "metal widgets" and "wooden widgets". I have 15 subcategories under each main category. Each of these 15 subcategories targets a keyword phrase related to "widget". There are 2-5 subcategories under each of the 15 subcategories of a given category. Each of these 2-5 subcategories targets a keyword related to "widgets". I then have thousands of content pages (e.g. articles) under each of the 2-5 subcategories. Sometimes these articles have a "widget-related" phrase, other times they may not.
So far, as you can see, I organize it as a vertical pyramid theme structure. I use a path statement (e.g. breadcrumb) on each page of the site (except root of course). I use an "include" at the top of each page of the site. On this include, I have a logo (with link to the homepage) and a link to each of the 2 main categories. I cross link subcategories (within a subcat/cat). For example, I cross-link each of the 15 subcategories (within a main category) to each other. I also cross-link the 2-5 subcategories (within eah of the 15 subcategories) to each other. However, I don't cross-link the content pages to each other because it is (A) impractical to have thousands of cross-links on a content page (B) would be considered spamming.
By the way, the 15 subcategories under each main category are located on an "include" link bar at the left of the page. I maintain this 15 subcat link bar no matter how deep one goes into a main category. I do this to assure consistency. All further navigation is done to the right of the left link bar (in a centered directory looking fashion). In addition to a path statement, I also have a "Back to 'preceding link'" underneath it, in case people aren't familiar with navigating via the path statement.
I only go 4 levels deep. The keyword/phrases are targeted via the category/subcategory names. The thousads of content pages don't target particular phrases. I don't target phrases on those thousands of phrases, because it's mostly personal stories, poems etc. However, in some cases, I can and do target keyphrases (e.g. when it's an article).
Now, my linking strategy is to get people to link to my homepage with anchor text harboring the main keyword. If they wish, then they can link to separate sections of my site, but they should include anchor text relating to the keyword phrase page they are linking to.
The site is not a hub. All content is within my own site, and the information is all fresh and original. I plan on having thousands of pages.
That is my plan.
Before I proceed, what are some good tips/ suggestions/ things I missed etc.
Two thing to point out though...
1. My site focuses on a single theme.
No really - although you may have a single "primary" one word keyword, the moment you add a second word to that first word you have started a new theme.
cars >> used cars >> used ford >> ford parts >> new parts >> new cars >> back to just >> cars <<
this can go on into trucks, and diverify into boats, planes, safety, licensing, rules, and so on.
2. The site is not a hub.
Don't exclude this... each and every page is a specific topic that is different from all other topics of the site. This means that each page can and should have 1 or two outbound links on it.
Site owners that find this diversity (amplifying links) will likely link to you... since you have done alot of extra work they don't need to do... find an assortment of complementing links.
A web site can be a hub and in short order become an authority on a wide variety of topics.
