@Satans_Apprentice , you said: "No. In Wordpress you need to make the slug for Category 1 the same as Page 1. This eliminates category page 1 and makes Page 1 the default category page."
I have tried this on a few of my blogs. The category page is always shown when I navigate to www.domain.com/dog-training/ when I have a category slug set as "dog-training" and a page set as "dog-training".
yes i also have this problem , i posted about it on previous page. I think that recent WP versions changed this priority. But good thing is there are plugins that allow you to use category as page without any limitation
EnanoWP Custom Category Pages plugin turns your categories into pages, when you go to posts>categories and edit your category you will have a new section
@nemanja87 Thanks! But I really think overriding the category-slug with the page-slug is the best way to go.
But I can't get it to work.. My wp installs still prioritizes categories over pages (using Genesis framework). Hopefully the pros will chip in soon! Maybe @ron has an idea?
Enano You can use SEO Ultimate plugin to give priority to pages over category (misc settings). But i do not like this idea because in future it can stop working with new WP versions.
@ Everyone
Whats the difference between :
homepage>silo page>child page (no need to override categories )
homepage>silo page>child post (you need to override categories)
Any particular reason why you use posts over pages?
You guys are spinning in circles. Say it's a new site. I set the categories and slugs first. Then I establish the category/slug name with a page using those exact words/letters/hyphens. A category page in essence no longer exists because it is the silo page as well. They are the same page. You should always be using the rel=canonical tag on every page so there is no possibility of screw up.
Pages vs. posts is one of the oldest arguments. I have always gotten pages to rank better than posts consistently. In theory, that should not be true. Regardless, there is a reason to use pages to rank:
Pages are intended to be the 'long-term and permanent properties' of your website.
Posts are intended to be a 'short-term' property, intended for immediate consumption.
In a silo, all pages in that silo are the permanent brick and mortar that establish that silo.
The posts in that silo serve two purposes:
To strengthen and reinforce the actual silo authority for that topic
To score on some longer tail searches as a side bnenefit
This is what I know, and what I practice. Others may disagree. But I believe this is the best way to think it through, and make it work.
I believe it is way smarter to: 1) establish a multiple silo site - and forget about the front page as a silo. VS. 2) Create a single silo site with the homepage as a silo/category. It just doesn't look right architecturally. Anyway, that is my opinion.
The structure of silos is so simple. Why does everyone (including me) make it so complicated?
Nemanja87 - your structure will work, but having the pages as 2nd level works better. You are sending additional signals with the URL Structure. Virtual silos built solely with links is OK.
1. Home page links to parent pages via top menu
2. Parent pages link to each other and home page via top menu. Parent pages link to children pages via sidebar menu.
3. Children pages link to parent page via contextual link. Children pages link to each other via sidebar menu. Children pages link to other parent pages via the top menu.
The contextual link to the parent is critical - otherwise the silos spread the link juice evenly between the parent pages in the top nav.
There are a lot of ways to skin this cat. I've built some bastardized silos that work just fine.
Silos don't have to be separate themes like dog food/dog collars/dog bowls. Silos are keyword driven. Put your top keywords in the top nav, and Voila! Silos!
Ron has it Right.
When building your site, there are 2 types of pages/posts.
1. Pages with focused keywords and SEO. These are landing pages for your top keywords.
2. Supporting pages. These pages are created to pump link juice and authority to the landing pages. Think of them as tier 1 links. If they get ranked, its an ancillary benefit.
The whole point of silos is to build tightly themed nodes within your website. The themes are created via your URL structure: www.dogs.com/dog-collars/steel-dog-collars, and with your linking structure (see my previous posts). The tighter your theme in terms of relevance, and URL structure, the more effective it will be.
For each niche, there is a tipping point of content creation and siloing where the site begins to rank itself. For some niches, its 30 pages, for others its 3000.
The whole point is to have the Google algorithm classify your site as a node of authority. When that happens, every time you publish a new page or post, it hits the first page of the SERPs within a few days of being indexed. It's a thing of beauty when it happens.
Siloing also maximizes the effectiveness of link juice. Lets say I am selling Cisco 2950 routers. The best link I could probably get is from Cisco's 2950 router page with the anchor text "Cisco 2950 Router Experts" going to my Cisco 2950 Router page. If a hypothetical 1000 points of link juice leaves the Cisco page, my site will get the benefit of all 1000 points.
But...
Change the anchor text to something generic, and instead of 1000 points, I may only get the benefit of 900. If it targets my Windows Server page, i may only get the benefit of 600 points. The rest just evaporates into Google's nether regions.
The same is true with your internal linking. At any point in time, a website has a finite amount of link juice. Inefficient linking is like trying to drink Beer out of a sieve. You can get some down your gullet, but a lot gets wasted on the floor. If I link between the Windows Page and the Cisco page, some degree of link juice gets spilled on the floor and evaporates. This to some degree is unavoidable, but needs to be minimized by being very frugal with your internal links.
Awesome posts , thanks for making it clear to us about second level pages. Can you tell me is it ok to use page/page setup , and install plugin that makes pages have categories so i can use it with "category pages" plugin for sidebar. I dont know if there is any other advantage of using posts as support pages.
2. Parent pages link to each other and home page via top menu. Parent pages link to children pages via sidebar menu.
3.
Children pages link to parent page via contextual link. Children pages
link to each other via sidebar menu. Children pages link to other parent
pages via the top menu.
</quote>
I have a few question: 1. What kind of content will go on the home page? 2. What will be on the side bar on the home page? 3. How do you get parent page to link to a category (child post) on the sidebar? 4. How do you get post page to have links to the same category of posts on the sidebar?
I'm guessing you'd need to customized plugin to do this, or there could be a simple way to do this that I'm missing. Really appreciate your insight.
Firstly a BIG THANKS to the posters who have provided such a wealth of great information on siloing (and to further upset @PeterParker who asked a question then didn't want to understand the answer ) I have a couple more questions for you :-
I'm grasping the concept of siloing but I'm struggling with the practicalities. How do I display ONLY the children for a parent in the sidebar?. I've looked at the plugins mentioned in this thread (yes, I've read it all...several times:)) but can't see how to do it. It's possible that my question was answered in the above post but sadly, I don't understand the answer of "Use a widgetised custom menu", so if that is the answer, could somebody put some meat on those bones. Alternatively please tell me what plugin will do the job.
If I use pages as opposed to posts on my blog then how would I "categorise" them, since only posts have categories. In the past I've simply used Text widgets and put the links in with HTML but I then have the same problem of all text boxes appearing on all page sidebars rather than just within the parent/child set
@filescape - I'm not great at explaining techie stuff, sorry if I wasn't clear.
To display only the children of a parent page in the sidebar you would need a theme that has the ability to use multiple 'Page Sidebar' widgetised areas (one for each parent) that you can use to insert a 'Pages' widget (the pages widget would need to have any irrelevant pages excluded), or a text widget with hyperlinks to the child pages.
The Home page would use a different widgitised side bar area, most premium themes have one named 'Home page sidebar' or something similar.
For the child pages, you would either need to use a separate widgitised sidebar area (etc,etc.), or just don't use a side bar, use a full width page template and link them all together contextually.
With regards to using posts and categories on a blog, I'm afraid I don't do much blogging so I'm not sure.
Also, I think that there was a plugin for siloing sites mentioned earlier in the thread?
Edit: just had a quick look at the 'Widget Logic' plugin mentioned earlier in the thread, at a glance it seems to give you the ability to control which widgets are displayed on which pages, or create dynamic sidebars if you like, so should work just fine to achieve what I mentioned above. (Nice find @ron!)
@2Take2 - Thanks for the answers. Whilst I was waiting for you guys on the other side of the pond to wake up I spent the day reading more and eventually found a pretty simple plugin 'Custom sidebars' that seems to do the trick, I'm sure there are lots of other ways to achieve the same results.
@2Take2 - Widget Logic is the best tool for all of that - I use it everywhere. You can make a separate customized menu appear for just the members of that silo (category). You just specify the page ID's you want the menu to appear for that particular widget.
And of course, you can stack menus in the WP widget area, so you can literally have different things going on - a great example is a 200x200 ad for a product you are reviewing - showing only on that particular product page...and the whole time having a custom silo menu right above it. Totally sweet.
^^ that's a really nice plugin, i wish i knew about it before as it could saved me hours of work creating custom widgets!
I'm still getting my head around the silo structure, so a quick question for those with silo experience...
Let's say we are creating a product review site in the internet marketing niche, with the following example silo:
VIDEO MARKETING REVIEWS - product a review - product b review - product c review - etc
The main kws i would want to rank for would be the children pages (product a/b/c etc review). So do you think those kws would be boosted by the structure above?
Because the alternative of making each product the parent page and writing numerous articles for each product (child pages) is not something i really want to do..
If each product in your example has to do with video marketing, then yes, each page and its keywords should benefit. It works if the head silo term is an 'obvious' parent term for the children pages.
In your example, the top term should be Video Marketing, not V.M. Reviews. Reviews are what you are doing with the individual product pages, and is incidental. So long as each of those products has to do with 'video marketing', then the silo makes sense. (Now, you could be targeting 'video marketing reviews' as the head term for the silo, but I doubt that you would want to narrow yourself down so much.)
Ranking a children's page is a page is a page. We rank pages, not websites. So of course you will build links directly to the product pages. But if you have the silo set up correctly, hitting the home page with a bunch of links will exponentially help all pages in the silo. In the end, you will have a much stronger site than if done in a non-silo fashion.
If your whole plan is spam. spam, spam, as opposed to a higher quality link campaign, it doesn't matter. Silos channel more link juice and authority in every situation just because of the design. I can't think of a reason to not silo except for a one page site.
Thanks @ron, that makes a lot of sense and helps a lot.
I'm defo not looking to go down the spam route at all, more looking to build a big authority site that ranks for few backoinks - So silo is the way to go i think.
I have succumed to all the replies and have slowly been digesting some today and getting my head around it more. Seems intriguing but is a big outlay of cash to do all those additional longtail articles especially on something I am not sure would work.
@peterparker - Maybe you can just try and implement a few aspects of it on sites going forward, that's what i am going to do.
There's a few things about i don't like from a human/business perspective. For example, no links in the homepage sidebar... If you have a review type site this is prime real estate for "recent reviews", "highest rated" etc and would surely result in more income from the site. Also makes human navigation easier in my opinion.
So with all things SEO, it's sometimes a choice between ranking factors and human experience/profit.
Btw thanks @ron for the kind words, i've learned a hell of a lot from reading your posts as i'm sure many others have too.
Seems like I'd need to learn a lot about SILO and stuff as I'm not very advance when it comes to WP.
@ron mind sharing what plugin you were talking about, any links to it? And also link me to the exact post you explained about what the widget/plugin would do?
Really great explanation about SILO architecture, for me it is better explained that on some blogs with 10km posts about SILO.
Essence is that architecture of site should be simple and clear as it can, so the SE spiders could be easily transferred to other main pages or sub pages without cross linking so the link juice culd leak on some unimportant pages. I see SILO like this
I have one question, could i put sub pages under main menu instead in side menu ?
Comments
I have tried this on a few of my blogs. The category page is always shown when I navigate to www.domain.com/dog-training/ when I have a category slug set as "dog-training" and a page set as "dog-training".
Anyone else having trouble getting this to work?
But I can't get it to work.. My wp installs still prioritizes categories over pages (using Genesis framework). Hopefully the pros will chip in soon! Maybe @ron has an idea?
Yes, I stripped "/category/" using Wordpress SEO Plugin by Yoast - I think it's the best way to go.
- Pages are intended to be the 'long-term and permanent properties' of your website.
- Posts are intended to be a 'short-term' property, intended for immediate consumption.
In a silo, all pages in that silo are the permanent brick and mortar that establish that silo.Based on this - <quote>
1. What kind of content will go on the home page?
2. What will be on the side bar on the home page?
3. How do you get parent page to link to a category (child post) on the sidebar?
4. How do you get post page to have links to the same category of posts on the sidebar?
I'm guessing you'd need to customized plugin to do this, or there could be a simple way to do this that I'm missing. Really appreciate your insight.
If I may offer some answers to your questions..
1 - Content related to your niche
2 - Nothing, except maybe a contact form, video, etc.
3 - Use a widgetised custom menu - most premium themes have this option, if not there's plenty of plugins to choose from.
4 - Use a widgetised custom menu
BTW you'll probably find it easier if you just use pages, not pages and posts together.
I'm grasping the concept of siloing but I'm struggling with the practicalities. How do I display ONLY the children for a parent in the sidebar?. I've looked at the plugins mentioned in this thread (yes, I've read it all...several times:)) but can't see how to do it. It's possible that my question was answered in the above post but sadly, I don't understand the answer of "Use a widgetised custom menu", so if that is the answer, could somebody put some meat on those bones. Alternatively please tell me what plugin will do the job.
If I use pages as opposed to posts on my blog then how would I "categorise" them, since only posts have categories. In the past I've simply used Text widgets and put the links in with HTML but I then have the same problem of all text boxes appearing on all page sidebars rather than just within the parent/child set
Sorry to be so dim
Thanks Guys
Ross
To display only the children of a parent page in the sidebar you would need a theme that has the ability to use multiple 'Page Sidebar' widgetised areas (one for each parent) that you can use to insert a 'Pages' widget (the pages widget would need to have any irrelevant pages excluded), or a text widget with hyperlinks to the child pages.
The Home page would use a different widgitised side bar area, most premium themes have one named 'Home page sidebar' or something similar.
For the child pages, you would either need to use a separate widgitised sidebar area (etc,etc.), or just don't use a side bar, use a full width page template and link them all together contextually.
With regards to using posts and categories on a blog, I'm afraid I don't do much blogging so I'm not sure.
Also, I think that there was a plugin for siloing sites mentioned earlier in the thread?
Edit: just had a quick look at the 'Widget Logic' plugin mentioned earlier in the thread, at a glance it seems to give you the ability to control which widgets are displayed on which pages, or create dynamic sidebars if you like, so should work just fine to achieve what I mentioned above. (Nice find @ron!)
Thanks again
Ross
I'm still getting my head around the silo structure, so a quick question for those with silo experience...
Let's say we are creating a product review site in the internet marketing niche, with the following example silo:
VIDEO MARKETING REVIEWS
- product a review
- product b review
- product c review
- etc
The main kws i would want to rank for would be the children pages (product a/b/c etc review). So do you think those kws would be boosted by the structure above?
Because the alternative of making each product the parent page and writing numerous articles for each product (child pages) is not something i really want to do..
What would you guys recommend in that scenario?
Cheers
I'm defo not looking to go down the spam route at all, more looking to build a big authority site that ranks for few backoinks - So silo is the way to go i think.
Thanks again.
Considering this isn't a SEO forum, I've picked up some real gems of information on here!
There's a few things about i don't like from a human/business perspective. For example, no links in the homepage sidebar... If you have a review type site this is prime real estate for "recent reviews", "highest rated" etc and would surely result in more income from the site. Also makes human navigation easier in my opinion.
So with all things SEO, it's sometimes a choice between ranking factors and human experience/profit.
Btw thanks @ron for the kind words, i've learned a hell of a lot from reading your posts as i'm sure many others have too.