New Site Structure Design for Best Google SEO

[LostOne]

I’m in the process of setting up a smallish site of about twenty pages and asking what the best type of navigation architecture will do better for me. I’ve seen comments here and there about footers and nav bar elements not passing internal link text as well these days with Google.

I had originally planned on using all 20 links to internal pages in a left side navigational element. I prefer this use because it gives visitors an immediate “in the face” option of going to other pages from the landing page they came in on.

Or maybe I should list five main navigational links on each page ….

widgets-green-type
widgets-manufacturing
widgets-sales
widgets-installation
widgets-photos

By doing it with five links in the main navigation I can then list within the body of the above pages links to other pages within the body text or simply “related pages” like this…

widgets-green-type page

…drilling down into other content.

widgets-small
widgets-large
widgets-walls
widgets-seasonal

I hope I made sense. It does to me. Pics would be better.

[aristotle]

Quote:
"I had originally planned on using all 20 links to internal pages in a left side navigational element. I prefer this use because it gives visitors an immediate “in the face” option of going to other pages from the landing page they came in on."

I used that setup on the first site I ever made, about five years ago, and it has done very well in the SERPs. I also think it's convenient for users. But you should note that it tends to distribute the PR more or less evenly throughout the site. So I think it works best on a site in which most of the pages are of similar purpose and worth, and likely to draw about the same amount of traffic.

On the other hand, if there are certain keywords and pages you want to promote in the SERPs, then you might prefer an internal linking that focuses most of the available PR on those pages.

[Simsi]

The way I now do it, for better or worse, is to have a left nav bar for user-ability and also contextually link a handfull of the most relevant sub-directory index pages within the index page content. However, I code so the sidebar is actually the last thing to be spidered either using absolute positioning or, if tables are in use, by using the empty table row trick to ensure the contextual links are indexed first.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

If I were you, I would ask myself "Will I add more pages, widgets (products) in near future?"

Mostly I have seen people launch small sites initially, but once it starts to get traffic they tend to add more products (business expansion) where things start to go out of hand in terms of linking and if re-design is done the initial traffic (product) starts to take a hit.

So plan your navigation depending what you want from the site once its start making money :)