New to SEO - Best Practice Example

[dsmolinski]

I am new to the SEO world and I have been using the tools SEOMoz provides.  I was doing some research and happen to find this website:

http://www.futuresimple.com/lead-tracking-software/

I noticed that their sitemap does not contain all of the links that are located at the bottom of the page.  Also when you click one of the page on the bottom that you are taken to a landing page and it forces you to their software page.

Community feedback - do you think this is a good techique to do something like this or can you please provide me a some other good examples for a niche/smaller website?

Thank you.

Denny

[Everett]

Hello Denny,

I am afraid I don't completely understand your question. I do not get "forced" anywhere from the footer links. I arrive at the URL I would expect to arrive at when I click on them. Were you being redirected to somewhere else? Or were you just commenting on the fact that all of these pages have a similar design with the "Sign up now" image and link on the right side of the page?

It is not uncommon for html sitemaps to only include popular pages. Also, these sitemaps may not get updated when new pages are added. It does not appear to me that they are trying to hide anything

[dsmolinski]

Everett,

The main website http://www.futuresimple.com has a couple of top navigation links.  The footer contains a number of links on the bottom right that when you click on them that they do not have header links.

Those pages do rank very well for the keywords they are looking to rank.  For example:

"lead tracking software" http://www.futuresimple.com/lead-tracking-software/

My Question is: By having not have links on the top of the page and exact targeted keywords really help rankings or is this just how they choose to setup their SEO landing pages?

[csfarnsworth]

Let me make it simple and better.You are talking about too many on page links and if I make it really specific too many footer links.Populating any area with large number of links is not a great idea but menus and footers sum on what you have on your site.

Check out this site.This is one of the biggest Article site in the world.

huffingtonpost.com

They have around 200+ onpage links.Too many onpage links are not allowed but around 100-125 is fine.Right now the site have 40-60 so its not bad.Make sure you do not make it go that big so that the Google start believing these guys are manipulating to have too many internal links.Make sure you do not cross the limit I mentioned above.Right now its fine.

[dsmolinski]

Chris,

I totally understand what you are saying.  I was just trying to understand their reasoning on they setup their website with the various landing pages and the links on the bottom of the page and no top links on those landing pages.

[Everett]

Hello Dsmolinksi,

It is very common for sites to link to pages from the footer that they don't include in the header navigation. Typically the header navigation is reserved for the most important pages. Also, the landing page you want to show a visitor who searches for "lead tracking software" may not be the same page you want to send a visitor to if they arrived on your home page, and some sites that are designed specifically for online lead generation conversions may want to keep the visual aspect very simple so they can funnel visitors exactly where they want them to go in order to improve conversion rates. Using footer links allows them to link to their topic-specific content without adding complexity to the site's primary navigation.

I do not see that they are doing anything wrong since the content on those pages seems to be well-written, unique, not overoptimized and somewhat useful. Where you need to be careful is making thin "doorway" pages, which is similar to this tactic but taken to a level of useless absurdity where you have a page optimized for slight keyword variations or geographic areas that doesn't provide the visitor with unique, useful information but is solely designed to capture search traffic for that specific keyword variant.

The site above is making full use of keyword optimized landing pages for search engine traffic, but in my opinion I don't think they have crossed the line into "doorway" page territory.

[dsmolinski]

Everett,

That is a great answer and specifically what I am looking for.  The main reason I asked that question is because I working on a niche type site they are where there are 5-8 long tail keywords which people search for the product I am working with.

I was thinking of creating a 2-3 long tail keyword and have specific page focused with that specific long-tail keyword exactly like they have done.

Again - thank you for the feedback and great help!!!!

Denny