Help needed for a 53 Page Internal Website Structure & Internal Linking

[arjun.rajkumar81]

Hey all...

I'm designing the structure for a website that has 53 pages. Can you take a look at the attached diagram and see if the website structure is ok?

On the attached diagram I have numbered the pages from 1 to 53, with 1 being the most important home page - 2,3,4,5, being the next 4 important pages - 6,7,8... 15,16,17 being the 3rd set of important pages, and 18,19,20..... 51,52,53 being the last set of pages which are the easiest to rank.

I have two questions:

1. Is the website structure for this correct?  I have made sure that all pages on the website are reachable.
2. Considering the home page, and page number 2,3,4,5 are the most important pages - I am linking out to these pages from the the last set of pages (18,29,20...51,52,53). There are 36 pages in the last set - and out of this 36, from 24 of them I am linking back to home page and page number 2,3,4,5. The remaining 8 pages of the 36 will link back to pages 6,7,8...15,16,17.

In total the most importnat page will have the following number of internal incoming links:

Home Page : 25

Pages 2,3,4,5 : 25

Pages 6,7,8...15,16,17 : 4

Pages 18,19,20...51,52,53 : 1

Is this ok considering home page, and pages 2,3,4,5 are the most important? Or do you think I should divide and give more internal links to the other pages also?

If you can share any inputs or suggestions to how I can improve this it will greatly help me. Also if you know any references for good guides to internal linking of websites greater that 50 pages please share them in the answers.

Thank you all!

Regards,

P.S - The URL for the image is at http://imgur.com/XqaK4

[ChadBreezy]

I took a look at your screenshot; but a few things first.

Proper silo-site is an ongoing process. The most important thing is to ensure that you have natural inner pages and link them to each top-level-directory (one directory away from the root). You can certainly tie your pages in each inner directory by linking from the main inner directory.

As you syndicate your unique pages in unique directories (again one directory from the root) you can pass great link juice throughout your website's skeleton, leading to better home page rank.

Whitehat SEO includes a very deep inter-linking structure. To get a feel for this checkout Wikipedia. They are the best at placing links to relevant or similar content above the fold and naturally linked to other directories within their framework.

To answers your question direct:

Inner link as much as you can to other files and from top-level-directories to files within it's directory. Only when it is natural include an anchor to other files for further reading.

The deeper a page can link to a higher level directory the better.

*For off-site SEO, getting links to the deep pages is going to be key to help pass up the link juice. Try sampling your content on different websites and getting a link back to page in the process. You can create pdf, info-graphics, or technical content with these deep pages and it will do wonders for your website.

[arjun.rajkumar81]

Thanks Chad... Good tip regarding passing up link juice by creating valuable stuff in the deep pages. Shall follow that.. You've answered my question, but I have one more doubt regarding natural inner pages. Is it better to have a natural flow .. As in. Home page - country specific pages - city specific pages - shops in the cities Or Home page - important country & city pages & shops - less important country & city pages - shops. If I use the first option, which is more natural I can clearly show the path to each page. If I use the second option, it's not natural- but the important pages are closer to the home page. Another option is to have the natural flow but to also link out to important pages where appropriate from top level pages. I know this is a little vague, but I hope you've got my doubt.., would love to hear your thoughts on this .. Thanks.

[ChadBreezy]

Flat site architecture shows that any directory one step from the root shows extreme importance; so essentially you can link to any inner page in any other directories.

For example:                                               USA

Jacksonville     Atlanta       Mississippi       New York      Los Angeles     Ohio       Las Vegas

As you can see in this model, this is natural. But it shows the flat site architecture I was referring to. Any of the cities show great value to the home page. You want to include any unique data in these directories. Essentially any file can be made important, so you don't have to worry about specific keywords you want to rank for not have an equal opportunity. You don't have to worry about one folder on your server having more importance over another.

You can Google "flat architecture"

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/a-flat-architecture-in-practice

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-flat-site-architecture

You can certainly should focus on your content algorithm and start planning your linking building profile.