Structure: Should an eCommerce blog have main menu links to each of the store category pages?

[BeytzNet]

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

[Everett]

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.

[BeytzNet]

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

[Milian]

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/blogs

Different linking architecture:
Main Site: http://www.tripadvisor.com/
Blog: http://blog.tripadvisor.com/