Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Internal Links to Ecommerce Category Pages
-
Hello,
I read a while back, and I can't find it now, that you want to add internal links to your main category pages. Does that still apply? If so, for a small site (100 products) what is recommended?
Thanks
-
H have a general question about internal linking, I ask my question by one example:
home page---->category (toaster)---->products
In product pages I have linked the anchor texts like " Bosch toaster model XXXX " to Toaster category.
It is my question: is it right strategy. should I use only "Bosch toaster" to link to the category.
I should say I have breadcrumb for internal linking but I need help to have a good strategy to help the categories to be in SERP
please help me
-
The existence of categorization facilitates structure/hierarchy and aids visitors in finding like or wanted things. Because people tend to search for keywords that are categorical, it turns out that optimizing category pages helps to bring additional visits in from search engines. Category-type keywords also tend to be more competitive and thus require greater effort to attain visibility.
So the trick is to create logical structure/hierarchy in the most optimized way possible, i.e., around the least competitive terms that will bring in the maximum amount of traffic for the strength of the domain/category page. At the same time, they should strive to demonstrate features and benefits to the visitor, be creative, and provide a point of view that contributes to the overall brand message. I find that sites with unique, imaginative categories are far more likely to engage me than those that are run of the mill.
So, in answer to your question, internal links and their anchor text contribute to the conceptual structure your site presents to search engines and visitors and, as such, are an important part of a well-made site. If your categories have a well thought out purpose and strategy and are well integrated into the fabric of your brand, you'll find yourself linking to them from other places in your site more often than you will to individual product pages. Not only does that make sense for the visitor, but search engines pick up on it too and tend to lend greater weight/strength to those pages.
-
Hey Bob
In this kind of instance we can almost defer to common sense.
- what are our important pages?
- how will people arrive at these pages?
- how will people browse to these pages?
If you sell 100 products and have 5 categories those categories are likely important pages - important for a user on your site and important for users in search. Having a consistent internal navigation helps indicate to the search engines that these pages are important enough to link to on every page. It also ensures site users can jump from category A to category B. Good for people, good for search engines - win win.
In an ideal world we want a nice consistent hierarchy with your persistent navigation and URLs all being well aligned.
Nav
- Home
- Products
- -> Category A
- -> Category B
- -> Category C
- Contact
URL Structure
/
/products/
/products/category-a/
/products/category-b/
/products/category-c/
/contact/Then any other elements can also line up - page titles, meta descriptions, breadcrumbs, h tags etc.
Ultimately, this is not any kind of SEO voodoo but rather the nuts and bolts of a user friendly and search friendly site.
Hope that helps!
Marcus -
Sure, not only still apply but internal link architecture is one of the main important on page optimization for a site.
The idea is that by internal links you are telling google which pages are the most important in your site. You can even check your most internal linked pages in WBT.
It is recommended to create links to your category pages in a natural way that increases UX.
I hope it helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
One page with multiple sections - unique URL for each section
Hi All, This is my first time posting to the Moz community, so forgive me if I make any silly mistakes. A little background: I run a website that for a company that makes custom parts out of specialty materials. One of my strategies is to make high quality content about all areas of these specialty materials to attract potential customers - pretty strait-forward stuff. I have always struggled with how to structure my content; from a usability point of view, I like just having one page for each material, with different subsections covering covering different topical areas. Example: for a special metal material I would have one page with subsections about the mechanical properties, thermal properties, available types, common applications, etc. Basically how Wikipedia organizes its content. I do not have a large amount of content for each section, but as a whole it makes one nice cohesive page for each material. I do use H tags to show the specific sections on the page, but I am wondering if it may be better to have one page dedicated to the specific material properties, one page dedicated to specific applications, and one page dedicated to available types. What are the communities thoughts on this? As a user of the website, I would rather have all of the information on a single, well organized page for each material. But what do SEO best practices have to say about this? My last thought would be to create a hybrid website (I don't know the proper term). Have a look at these examples from Time and Quartz. When you are viewing a article, the URL is unique to that page. However, when you scroll to the bottom of the article, you can keep on scrolling into the next article, with a new unique URL - all without clicking through to another page. I could see this technique being ideal for a good web experience while still allowing me to optimize my content for more specific topics/keywords. If I used this technique with the Canonical tag would I then get the best of both worlds? Let me know your thoughts! Thank you for the help!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jaspercurry0 -
How do you change the 6 links under your website in Google?
Hello everyone, I have no idea how to ask this question, so I'm going to give it a shot and hopefully someone can help me!! My company is called Eteach, so when you type in Eteach into Google, we come in the top position (phew!) but there are 6 links that appear underneath it (I've added a picture to show what I mean). How do you change these links?? I don't even know what to call them, so if there is a particular name for these then please let me know! They seem to be an organic rank rather than PPC...but if I'm wrong then do correct me! Thanks! zorIsxH.jpg
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eteach_Marketing0 -
Should I Do a Social Bookmarking Campaign and a Tier 2 Linking?
I don't see anything bad in manually creating links on different (about 50) social bookmarking services. Is this method labeled as White Hat? I was wondering if it would be fine to create Tier 2 linking (probably blog comments) for indexing of the social bookmarking links? Please share your thoughts on the topic.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | zorsto0 -
Pages linked with Spam been 301 redirected to 404\. Is it ok
Pl suggest, some pages having some spam links pointed to those pages are been redirected to 404 error page (through 301 redirect) - as removing them manually was not possible due to part of core component of cms and many other coding issue, the only way as advised by developer was making 301 redirect to 404 page. Does by redirecting these pages to 404 page using 301 redirect, will nullify all negative or spam links pointing to them and eventually will remove the resulting spam impact on the site too. Many Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Modi0 -
Starting every page title with the keyword
I've read everywhere that it's vital to get your target keyword to the front of the title that you're writing up. Taking into account that Google likes things looking natural I wanted to check if my writing title's like this for example: "Photographers Miami- Find the right Equipment and Accessories" ..Repeated for every page (maybe a page on photography in miami, one on videography in Orlando etc) is a smart way to write titles or if by clearly stacking keywords at the front of every title won't be as beneficial as other ways of doing it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | xcyte0 -
Is it worth getting links from .blogspot.com and .wordpress.com?
Our niche ecommerce site has only one thing going for it: We have numerous opportunities on a weekly basis to get reviews from "mom bloggers". We need links - our domain authority is depressing. My concern is that these "mom bloggers" tend to have blogs that end with .blogspot.com or .wordpress.com. How do I screen for "reviewers" that are worth getting links from and how can I make the most of the community we have available to us?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Wilkerson1 -
Does anyone have any suggestions on removing spammy links?
I have some clients that recently got hit by "Penguin" they have several less than desireable backlinks that could be the issue? Does anyone have any suggestions on getting these removed? What are the odds that a webmaster on these spammy sites are going to remove them, and is it worth the time and effort?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RonMedlin3 -
Partners and Customers logo listing and links
We have just created a program where we list the customers that use our software and a link to their websites on a new "Customers" page. We expect to have upwards of 100 logos with links back to their sites. I want to be sure this isn't bordering on gray or black hat link building. I think it is okay since they are actual users of our software. But there is still that slight doubt. Along these same lines, would you recommend adding a nofollow or noindex tag? Thanks for your help.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PerriCline0