Structure: Should an eCommerce blog have main menu links to each of the store category pages?
-
Hi,
Should my eCommerce site's blog have menu links to the store's category pages? (like in the store itself)
The meaning is that every blog post page will have links to category pages that are not related and probably weakens the in-text relevant links.
The other option is to have menu links only to the blog category pages and in-article links to the relevant store category pages (maybe add menu button "Go to Store").
Thanks
-
Hello BeytzNet,
When people, including Matt Cutts, explain how the flow of pagerank works they tend to do it in simplistic terms to avoid confusing the situation, and to make sure that everyone understands the fundamental concepts.
Yes, at a fundamental level, the more links on a page the less pagerank flows through each of those links. However, it is quite a bit more complicated than this. Navigation links are treated differently than in-copy links. Footer links are treated differently than those at the top of the page. Sitewide links are treated differently than single links, etc...
When looked at this way, you can see how a link from within the body of a post is going to probably flow much more pagerank than one of the site-wide navigation links at the top of the page.
I agree with Maximillian that you should think about the best experience for your users. Here's an idea if you don't mind creating a totally separate page template and navigation...
Just show the top-level category page navigation on the blog instead of the complete drop-down list to sub-categories. This will drastically reduce the amount of links on the page while keeping the visual user-experience much the same for continuity and convenience. You can put the blog navigation in the sidebar.
That said, there really is nothing "wrong" with changing the look and feel of the blog from the main site if that is what you want to do. Just think about the visitor who has five items in their shopping cart already and decides to click on a link to a blog post, which then feels like a totally different website.
-
Thanks for the explanation and examples.
Keeping the same look and feel does make perfect sense.However, Overstock is actually a good point, they have dozens of "menu links" on the blog which disburse the link juice of the in-article links to practically nothing (being divided between so many pages).
When you look on a specific post inside TripAdvisror each link has a meaning, has power.
Don't you think Overstock is killing the power of the blog posts?
Thanks
-
I don't think there is really a right or wrong answer to this and I think you should be tackling it from a user experience angle, as opposed to an SEO one. It's generally thought of that links in the main navigation are there for a good reason, and shouldn't have an adverse on duplicate/diluting content. (within reason)
Do you think your customers would prefer the ease of navigation that keeping the same linking architecture consistent through out the site would bring? I know as a user I would, so that is how I implement it when adding blogs to eCommerce site whenever possible.
Say you had an article about Wool Socks. Your user might see the Wool Site menu link in the main navigation and might expect another dropdown so they can easily check the different types of wool socks without loading another page. I like to try and keep page clicks down to a minimum when a user is looking for pages.
But as I said, doing it either way is fine and many sites do, below are some examples:
Same linking architecture:
Main site: http://www.overstock.com/
Blog: http://www.overstock.com/blogsDifferent linking architecture:
Main Site: http://www.tripadvisor.com/
Blog: http://blog.tripadvisor.com/
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
-
Blog page ranked in a matter of hours, now what to continue climbing ?
Hello, I just published a blog page a few days ago and it currently ranks on 3 rd page for the keyword "loire valley bike tours". Something I haven't managed to do for years with my page that talks about tours in the loire valley. My guess is that I have better content on it. Now my question is : will it continue climbing (if so at what rate) or will it stay there unless I improve my content and get links to it or will google calculate its PR and have it slowly climb over time...without changing anything. Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
What things should I consider if I am doing a 301 redirect on only 1 page/blog post?
I wrote a blog post on one of my websites and it got picked up by reddit and I got a bunch of nice backlinks and now that website got a nice boost overall, and especially that blog post page. I now wish I would have posted the article on a different website of mine. I would prefer if this other site was getting the traffic and the good backlinks that I've acquired. What are the pros and cons if I move the content over to my other website, and 301 redirect just that one article to the article location on my other website? The blog post I wrote almost instantly began ranking for certain terms in Google. Ideally I would like my other website to rank for those terms, but I realize there will be some differences as search engines look at the website as a whole and take many factors into consideration. I know there are tons of case studies and information about moving entire sites etc but I couldn't find much on this. Any advice, questions or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bradbowman
Brad0 -
Https://www.mywebsite.com/blog/tag/wolf/ setting tag pages as blog corner stone article?
We do not have enough content rich page to target all of our keywords. Because of that My SEO guy wants to set some corner stone blog articles in order to rank them for certain key words on Google. He is asking me to use the following rule in our article writing(We have blog on our website):
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlirezaHamidian
For example in our articles when we use keyword "wolf", link them to the blog page:
https://www.mywebsite.com/blog/tag/wolf/
It seems like a good idea because in the tag page there are lots of material with the Keyword "wolf" . But the problem is when I search for keyword "wolf" for example on the Google, some other blog pages are ranked higher than this tag page. But he tells me in long run it is a better strategy. Any idea on this?0 -
404 Error on Blog Pages that Look Like Loading Fine
There was recently a huge increase in 404 errors on Yandex Webmasters corresponding with a drop in rankings. Most of the pages seem to be from my blog (which was updated around the same time). When I click on the links from Yandex the page looks like it is loading normal, expect that it has the following message from the Facebook plugin I am using for commenting Any ideas about what the problem is or how to fix it? Critical Errors That Must Be Fixed | Bad Response Code: | URL returned a bad HTTP response code. | Open Graph Warnings That Should Be Fixed | Inferred Property: | The 'og:url' property should be explicitly provided, even if a value can be inferred from other tags. |
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | theLotter
| Inferred Property: | The 'og:title' property should be explicitly provided, even if a value can be inferred from other tags. |
| Small og:image: | All the images referenced by og:image should be at least 200px in both dimensions. Please check all the images with tag og:image in the given url and ensure that it meets the recommended specification. |0 -
Best possible linking on site with 100K indexed pages
Hello All, First of all I would like to thank everybody here for sharing such great knowledge with such amazing and heartfelt passion.It really is good to see. Thank you. My story / question: I recently sold a site with more than 100k pages indexed in Google. I was allowed to keep links on the site.These links being actual anchor text links on both the home page as well on the 100k news articles. On top of that, my site syndicates its rss feed (Just links and titles, no content) to this page. However, the new owner made a mess, and now the site could possibly be seen as bad linking to my site. Google tells me within webmasters that this particular site gives me more than 400K backlinks. I have NEVER received one single notice from Google that I have bad links. That first. But, I was worried that this page could have been the reason why MY site tanked as bad as it did. It's the only source linking so massive to me. Just a few days ago, I got in contact with the new site owner. And he has taken my offer to help him 'better' his site. Although getting the site up to date for him is my main purpose, since I am there, I will also put effort in to optimizing the links back to my site. My question: What would be the best to do for my 'most SEO gain' out of this? The site is a news paper type of site, catering for news within the exact niche my site is trying to rank. Difference being, his is a news site, mine is not. It is commercial. Once I fix his site, there will be regular news updates all within the niche we both are in. Regularly as in several times per day. It's news. In the niche. Should I leave my rss feed in the side bars of all the content? Should I leave an achor text link on the sidebar (on all news etc.) If so: there can be just one keyword... 407K pages linking with just 1 kw?? Should I keep it to just one link on the home page? I would love to hear what you guys think. (My domain is from 2001. Like a quality wine. However, still tanked like a submarine.) ALL SEO reports I got here are now Grade A. The site is finally fully optimized. Truly nice to have that confirmation. Now I hope someone will be able to tell me what is best to do, in order to get the most SEO gain out of this for my site. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | richardo24hr0 -
Link Building for "State" informational pages
I have a webpage for all 50 states for specific info relating to relocation and was wondering if there are any recommended links to work at getting for these pages. I would like to do "state" specific and possibly health related links for each page to help in the SEO rankings. I can see that if I just wanted to get 10 links on each page that is going to be 500 links I have to build and it is going to be very time consuming but I feel it is necessary. Thank you, Poo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Boodreaux0 -
Link Acquisition - link building
When using Site Explorer to find out my competiters links so I can do some link aquisition SEO do I look for the "inbound" links or or "linking domains"? Also, what filters should I choose? I want to make a spreadsheet as Rand suggested in his video and start to prioritize my link building.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | musicforkids0 -
NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?
Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page. For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages? Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640