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.
Best practice for footer in ecommerce - Shall I add Top Category links?
-
What would you recommend regarding links to "Top Products" and "Top Categories" in footer?
- Would you add them to give extra link juice to top categories?
- would you try to avoid category links in footer that are already in the header navigationor in the main content area to avoid linking twice from all pages?
- would you vary these top category links in footer according to main category
-
thanks for the feedback. Will stick to few dynamic footer category links and test it.
-
Takeshi gave some great advise, and I agree.
I do like the idea of varying the footer navigation by category though. For example, you might interlink Men's Shoes with Women's Shoes, but you wouldn't want to link to Women's Shoes from Men's Shirts. Keeping the footer from being site-wide and making the links more relevant to the page their on will, I think, allow those footer links to carry more weight than they would otherwise.
Whatever you choose, make sure it's best for your users. Do that and it's difficult to go wrong.
-
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of mega menus or mega footers. Every link on a page dilutes the value of every other link on the page, so keep the number of links per page as low as possible, while optimizing for usability.
-
I agree with Takeshi. You should put more emphasis on what users want.
However based on my experience, if you limit the URLs to say 4-5 you would see some benefits. However if you plan to put much more, I wouldn't so much advice it.
K
-
Links in the footer carry very little link value, so I wouldn't add top category links to the footer just for SEO purposes. Looks at it more from a design/user experience perspective. If having the links in the footer makes navigation easier, then go for it.
As with anything else, the best thing to do is to test it. Install a click tracker such a CrazyEgg or ClickTale and see how people actually navigate the site. Test having the links in the footer vs removing them, and see if it affects usability, conversions rates, or SEO performance. Then keep the links that work the best.
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
-
Should posts show in multiple categories?
Hi all, For context, I'm trying to Silo my content more efficiently. I've just moved all content into their own SILO'd categories and removed them from duplicate categories. As such, posts now sit only in 1 category. My question here is: Should my posts be showing in both the parent category and its sub category or just the sub-category? I've currently got this only showing in the sub-categories it's relevant to. For example:
On-Page Optimization | | xtrapsp
Post name: Shimano Fishing Rod Review
Parent Category: Fishing Rods
Sub Category: Shimano And the post only shows inside the Shimano Category0 -
Exact keyword match for meta title and h1 what is best practice?
How exact should my meta titles and H1 one be compare to the keyword you wish to rank on. Eksample. When I do a research with google AdWords the keyword tool shows me: 260 monthly searches for house for rent Hua Hin 140 monthly searches for Hua Hin house for rent 70 monthly searches for House for rent in Hua Hin The first two includes the exact same 5 words while the last one includes the stopword "in". That google have different search volumens for these very smilair search queries tells me that small differences matters. So how does that effect the way i shoulf write my: a)meta titles b)H1 I feel I get better sentences often by reordering the keywords etc. “Top tips on how to rent house in Hua Hin” Instead of “Top tips if you want a house for rent in Hua Hin” Do you use stop words like “in” hua hin. (only used in 25% of the searches queries)? Also would it matter if i write a plural form of a keyword instead of a singular etc propeties and sted of property? My goal is to write easy to read and unique content but i feel i can make exact matches if required with out compromising to much.
On-Page Optimization | | nm19770 -
No meta description on category page
Hi Moz is reporting no meta description on a wordpress category page like this one: http://www.dwliverpoolphotography.co.uk/category/uncategorized/ Can I add a meta description to a category? Best wishes. David.
On-Page Optimization | | WallerD0 -
No-index all the posts of a category
Hi everyone! I would like no-indexing all the posts of a specific category of my wordpress site. The problem is that the structure of my URL is composed without /category/: www.site-name.ext/date/post-name/
On-Page Optimization | | salvyy
so without /category-name/ Is possibile to disallow the indexing of all the posts of the category via robots.txt? Using Yoast Plugin I can put the no-index for each post, but I would like to put the no-index (or disallow/) a time for all the post of the category. Thanks in advance for your help and sorry for my english. Mike0 -
Ecommerce - how many clicks from the home page should categories be
My client has about 300 products in 20 categories with a lot of overlap. How many clicks from the home page should we keep the products? We're not doing pagination. I'd been told several years ago that all products should be 2 clicks or less from the home page. Is this true today? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW1 -
Which is Best Practice for creating URLs for subdomain?
My website is related to education. We have created sub domains for all major colleges, universities & Entrance exams like Gre, Toefl ETC. for eg: amityuniversity.abc.com (Amity is Name of University ) Now if have to mention city name in URL as well (college is located in multiple locations) amityuniversity-delhi.abc.com
On-Page Optimization | | rohanarora536
amityuniversitydelhi.abc.com Now my Q is can we use hyphens in sub domains if we have to add city name or shall we create without using any hyphens. In Directory structure we can always separate words with hyphens, can we follow same practice in subdomain as well Which is a best URL for subdomain amity-university-delhi.abc.com
amityuniversity-delhi.abc.com
or amityuniversitydelhi.abc.com0 -
Title tag for category page
I'd like to know your views on the best approach for title tags for category pages for ecommerce sites. 3 examples A) Category name | Free delivery on $50 purchase | Brand name B) Discover best "category name" on brand name C) Category Name | 1st Keyword, 2nd keyword | Brand name Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | walidalsaqqaf0 -
Best SEO structure for blog
What is the best SEO page/link structure for a blog with, say 100 posts that grows at a rate of 4 per month? Each post is 500+ words with charts/graphics; they're not simple one paragraph postings. Rather than use a CMS I have a hand crafted HTML/CSS blog (for tighter integration with the parent site, some dynamic data effects, and in general to have total control). I have a sidebar with headlines from all prior posts, and my blog home page is a 1 line summary of each article. I feel that after 100 articles the sidebar and home page have too many links on them. What is the optimal way to split them up? They are all covering the same niche topic that my site is about. I thought of making the side bar and home page only have the most recent 25 postings, and then create an archive directory for older posts. But categorizing by time doesn't really help someone looking for a specific topic. I could tag each entry with 2-3 keywords and then make the sidebar a sorted list of tags. Clicking on a tag would then show an intermediate index of all articles that have that tag, and then you could click on an article title to read the whole article. Or is there some other strategy that is optimal for SEO and the indexing robots? Is it bad to have a blog that is too heirarchical (where articles are 3 levels down from the root domain) or too flat (if there are 100s of entries)? Thanks for any thoughts or pointers.
On-Page Optimization | | scanlin0