Topic Focused Content for the Search Engines
It took me six years to realize how powerful this tactic is in Search Engine Optimization! When you are learning a lot of your skills through observation and trial and error, you don't always connect the things that work well, until someone points out to you that it is a factor!
My sites have always indexed well, and they have always drawn good traffic in deep interior pages. For years, they have received more traffic to individual pages inside than they have to the home page.
It took some time to figure out why though - I mean, when you learn a new skill, implement it, and see that it makes a difference, you connect it up. But when you have always done something a certain way, it can take longer to figure out how much of an effect it is actually having!
I have always designed sites in a logical manner, with a single focused topic per page. Sometimes the page was pretty long, because the topic was complex and not easily subdivided, but I find it easier to build a site in this way.
When I build a site, I start with thinking about how I want the visitor to be able to access the content. If there are likely to be more than 50 topics (or thereabout), then I subdivide into major categories and subcategories - I do this also if I am going to want to expand onto the site aggressively. With this site, there is not a lot of scope for expansion, and I wanted the topics to be accessible from the home page, so they are all in one place.
Anyway, I then design a layout to accommodate the link structure that I have in mind, and then I name the links and replicate the home page to form the interior pages. I can then go in, change the titles on each page, and fill in content.
Creating a site in this way keeps it logically organized for me - I write most of my content personally, so I name the links in a way that tells me what the page is going to be about. This gives the page title a keyword focus naturally. And of course, when I create the page, I automatically use a filename that will remind me what the page is about also. When I fill in the content, it just naturally contains keywords dealing with the subject at hand.
Because of how I structure a site, with categories and subcategories, or in this instance, with everything accessible from the home page, the site indexes fast. I don't generally build more than three layers deep, with content just two clicks from the home page. This means that the search engines index it fairly rapidly, and that those interior pages will begin getting traffic in their own right fairly quickly.
I never considered this to be anything other than a logical way to build a site, and a shortcut of sorts to organizing my thoughts in a way that helped me build a good site. Breaking things down into topics that could be focused on in a single page seemed logical - a person would, after all, want to learn about a topic in one sitting, and then come back later if they wanted to learn more, and they'd want those pages to break into logical information packages.
It just so happens that search engines like that too. When they go through and index those interior pages, it means that you have one page that just naturally contains a lot of keywords on a focused subject. You can easily craft a page title and header with focused keywords because that is what the page IS about. There is no need to CHOOSE which keywords are the most important, they are obvious.
This seems so intuitive to me, but I now realize that it is not intuitive to everyone. I have a client that is building a fairly complex site, and it has taken him three tries to get the topics divided logically into blocks that contained significant information in logical divisions. He is in no way a stupid man! But he was unpracticed at thinking about things in topical blocks instead of questions and answers.
Each page needs to have enough on it to justify its existence. Larger topics can be broken down, but only if they can be broken into logical sections. It is better to have a long page than it is to have two fragments that are incomplete in themselves (some designers will disagree, but a "NEXT" link isn't helpful!).
This process starts when you first build your site. But it is also helpful for marketing later, when you want more search engine traffic. Addition of an "Article Library" can help you to organize additional informational articles that can draw traffic in based on topics that are not specific product listings, but rather, information that will help people learn about choosing products or services well.
Organize by topic, and then use topics to draw traffic independently. This practice is very powerful for getting organic Search engine traffic.
Written by Laura Wheeler
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