I absolutely agree Marc. This is a HUGE Pro Tip that took me a while to fully appreciate.

By targeting the long tail version in the short run, you can build up some traffic, trust and other metrics. But you're also simultaneously targeting the head term so as time goes along you'll likely end up ranking for both (if you've followed a well devised strategy of course)

Thanks Marc, Cheers

I'd say 40-50 is moderate. 30 shouldn't be too much of a problem most of the time if you nail onpage optimization and can get some links. Of course, depending upon budget, time, experience and resources... 40-50 can sometimes be difficult to achieve.

Rather than looking too much at the difficulty score, I'd be looking at the metrics for the top ranking sites and gauging whether or not it's reasonable that I can beat those metrics. Keep in mind, you may not want to pay as much attention to the metrics of an exact match domain or international brand name because you can't duplicate either of them

Pull an advanced keyword report for your top phrases, download them into excel and then add some metrics to them. Once you're done, the big question will be "is it realistic that I can beat these metrics with the allocated (time and money) budget?".

If you can, then I'd pull a "Top Pages Report" with OSE for each ranking website and see what kinds of content and tactics they've employed to get those metrics that are helping them to rank.

Armed with this information, you should have a very clear picture of what needs to be done to win, where to start and if it's realistic or not.

Does this help Zachary?

I love this question. Ultimately, it really depends on the budget (both time and money)...

In my experience, it's best to start out with either local or long tail type phrases when launching a new website on a shoe string budget (I'm assuming that's the case here?).

Think of it as a mind-map, or informational hieerarchy... write/ build really great content around a small niche-of-a-topic, and grow towards broader (and higher difficulty) phrases as you get links, PR, attention, etc.

I think Google builds some trust up with websites that are ranking for local/ long tail type phrases (and thus the ranking) and sometimes t's easier (cheaper) to build on that trust and expand rather than starting out too ambitious.

I'm not suggesting that you lose sight and give up on the higher demand/ difficulty phrases, I'm merely recommending that you create a content plan that will allow you to grow into them in a methodical way

Does this help?

Hey Todd, thanks.

While I definitely agree about having tightly themed categories, I'm not quite sure I am sold on using a silo. Correct me if I'm wrong here please, but isn't a silo when you don't cross link detail pages (within the same category) with each other? I think Alan feels the same way, or perhaps I've misunderstood.

Check this post about the importance of link architecture by Google. Specifically, the last Q&A.

Anyone have anything else they'd like to toss into the discussion?

Any examples you'd like to share of detail page linking vs. silos?

[edit] Just found this (old) blog post by Google about the importance of (internal) link architecture... I quote:

Q: Let's say my website is about my favorite hobbies: biking and camping. Should I keep my internal linking architecture "themed" and not cross-link between the two?

A: We haven't found a case where a webmaster would benefit by intentionally "theming" their link architecture for search engines. And, keep-in-mind, if a visitor to one part of your site can't easily reach other parts of your site, that may be a problem for search engines as well.

I would remove it from your sitemap... and be sure to 301 redirect one of them to the other.

(I'd redirect /index.php to http://www.mydomain.ca)

Does this help Martin?

Yeah, your right. I would image those links aren't relevant when on store pages, and would definitely distract some people

On their product pages though, they use some cross linking to relevant topics. But I'm sure it's at the bottom- out of site- as to not distract people. So I would image those are mostly there for SEO. Would you agree?

I think you're right Alan, that makes great sense. Thanks. Do you think Etsy's sidebar is a good compromise between the two? I'm sure testing each site is the best way to figure out what users prefer on that specific site. But in general, do you think that's a good balance to use in order to keep too many links off the page, yet still keep detail pages within a category linking to each other?

Sorry for the confusion Alan, and thank you very much for the discussion.

To help clarify for others reading this discussion (and for myself), are we both agreeing that: in the attached image it is an 'SEO AND usability best practice' for the hotel detail pages inside the Tallahassee category/directory to link to each other?

*Of course, there are always caveats,  such the maximum outbound link limit recommended by Google, etc.

But as a general practice, would you have "Hotel 1", "Hotel 2" and "Hotel 3" (inside the "Tallahassee" category) link to one another?

D1i8j.jpg

Indeed Alan, that's good advice we all should follow. Thanks. I'll follow suit from here-on

I to use the free $75 of adwords (in the SEOmoz discount store) for every new customer to test their keywords. I think it's an over looked opprotunity by a ton of SEO's.

As a by product, customers love that you're running paid ads for free, and it gives you a chance to up sell them (if you can prove a return for them).

I'm curious to know what other mozzers think about silo's...

Can we first all agree that a flat site architecture is the best practice? Relevant pages should be grouped together. Shorter, broader and (usually) therefore higher volume keywords should be towards the top of each category. Navigation should flow from general to specific. Agreed?

As Google say's on page 10 of their SEO Starter Guide, "you should think about how visitors will go from a general page (your root page) to a page containing more specific content ." OK, we all agree so far, right? Great!

Enter my question: Bruce Clay (among others) seem to recommend siloing as a best practice. While Richard Baxter (and many others @ SEOmoz), seem to view silos as a problem.

Me? I've practiced (relevant) internal cross linking, and have intentionally avoided siloing in almost all cases.

What about you? Is there a time and place to use silos? If so, when and where? If not, how do we rectify the seemingly huge differences of opinions between expert folks such as Baxter and Clay?

I would remove it from your sitemap... and be sure to 301 redirect one of them to the other.

(I'd redirect /index.php to http://www.mydomain.ca)

Does this help Martin?

I love this question. Ultimately, it really depends on the budget (both time and money)...

In my experience, it's best to start out with either local or long tail type phrases when launching a new website on a shoe string budget (I'm assuming that's the case here?).

Think of it as a mind-map, or informational hieerarchy... write/ build really great content around a small niche-of-a-topic, and grow towards broader (and higher difficulty) phrases as you get links, PR, attention, etc.

I think Google builds some trust up with websites that are ranking for local/ long tail type phrases (and thus the ranking) and sometimes t's easier (cheaper) to build on that trust and expand rather than starting out too ambitious.

I'm not suggesting that you lose sight and give up on the higher demand/ difficulty phrases, I'm merely recommending that you create a content plan that will allow you to grow into them in a methodical way

Does this help?

I'd say 40-50 is moderate. 30 shouldn't be too much of a problem most of the time if you nail onpage optimization and can get some links. Of course, depending upon budget, time, experience and resources... 40-50 can sometimes be difficult to achieve.

Rather than looking too much at the difficulty score, I'd be looking at the metrics for the top ranking sites and gauging whether or not it's reasonable that I can beat those metrics. Keep in mind, you may not want to pay as much attention to the metrics of an exact match domain or international brand name because you can't duplicate either of them

Pull an advanced keyword report for your top phrases, download them into excel and then add some metrics to them. Once you're done, the big question will be "is it realistic that I can beat these metrics with the allocated (time and money) budget?".

If you can, then I'd pull a "Top Pages Report" with OSE for each ranking website and see what kinds of content and tactics they've employed to get those metrics that are helping them to rank.

Armed with this information, you should have a very clear picture of what needs to be done to win, where to start and if it's realistic or not.

Does this help Zachary?

What's the benefits of choosing an mvc framework such as codeigniter or cakephp over wordpress?

Wordpress has so many plugins, and a universally known UI for customers, it just saves a ton of time.

However, a lot of the 'big guys' like SEOmoz and Distilled(?) use Cakephp and other mvc frameworks so it has me wondering what the benefits are......

anyone?

Thanks, Richard.

I definitely keep a subscription going with lynda.com. I think we should get SEOmoz.org to add them in the discount store.

I second the smartdraw software.

I've been happy with it because you can do several other things with it.

Hey Nick, I didn't notice this until just now- sorry about that. 
Do you mean the testing process for keyword research in Adwords?
We'll research the most probable keywords for qualified visitors, and then either:
#1. test tons of exact match keywords to see real-world worth of each, or
#2. put a few very short broad keywords in, and then use the tool "see all search terms' once the campaign is over to see what the marketplace is actually searching for

Then of course, we optimize the site and create a link building plan for those phrases.

Thanks Alan. You mentioned, "where all the pages in that section have a link to all the other pages in that section".........

Can you think of any reason why you would not want detail pages within a category to link to one another?