How to improve internal linking for automotive reseller website?

[RWW]

Hi everyone,

we set up a website for an automobile reseller. The site is online for about 10 days now and is doing ok. The competition is at a medium level.

The URL is http://fahrzeugankauf-wehrle.de/

Now I wonder how I can improve the internal linking a little more. I already read this one https://moz.com/learn/seo/internal-link but still wonder whether I should link from the sub-pages with the main keywords like "auto kaufen freiburg" oder "autoankauf freiburg" to the mainpage.
Instead I am linking right now from the mainpage to the subpage "Auto verkaufen".

Isn't this a bit contradictory?

[Scott1234]

Hi,

How significant did the ranking increase?

Would you be able to go into more detail on how you approached the websites. Since each one would be in different location. Would you take a different approach from a destination location then a high traffic area location.

Thank You!

Scott

[RWW]

Hi Rob,

thanks again for this second very detailed answer.

I now do understand that using the silo or thematic architecture is really a good thing to establish and I'm willing to implement it in my client's website.

Now I do have one or two last questions that I am wondering about.

1. Let's say I use your proposal Home --> Freiburg --> Auto Purchasing --> Auto Purchasing Freiburg which I find very good.

What do I do about the Freiburg page ? Do I just use an empty page, or do I have to fill it with content about the city of Freiburg? Does it have to show it in the menu or does it have to exist without a menu entry just to be there as a hook for the next page?

What I mean is: People and also Google will maybe wonder a little to read content dealing with Freiburg when coming to a cardealer page.

2. Let's say I would use Home Page --> Cars For Sale --> BMWs For Sale --> BMW [Model]

Doesn't this produce a lot of duplicate content? I cannot imaginge having very differing content for pages like BMWs for sale, Audis for sale and Fords for sale...

Thanks again Rob for taking the time!

It really opened my eyes for a big SEO topic and takes me to the next level!

Highly appreciated!

Cheers

Marc

[RobCairns]

Hi Marc,

I had to go digging for this one as it is about 5 years old now, but it is Matt Cutts effectively stating the same thing I did in my answer above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H49pOqkQPF4

For a better idea of what a silo looks like, you might check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNVPkonEW6E

Again, an oldie but a goodie. This stuff has been around for a while and a lot of people have argued about its effectiveness. I'm just saying that in my experience it has worked wonders.

When I say "Website Silo", other names can be "Website Theme" or "Thematic Architecture" or 100 other names. Basically what you are trying to do is categorize every item or service you are selling so as to target long tail keywords as well as categorize your terms for LMI keywords. So in your case, you might try:

Home Page --> Cars For Sale --> BMWs For Sale --> BMW [Model]

since someone looking to buy a BMW is likely to use keywords like "buy a bmw" or "cost of a bmw" or "how much is a bmw" and then you can even break it down to specific models for further long tail targeting.

I used to conduct work like this for the largest auto dealer in North America - I managed about 450 websites for them for over a year with each website correlating to a location. We utilized this strategy for every dealership and the rankings/traffic boost we saw was pretty significant.

It's a lot of work from a web dev perspective, but once it's set up it's tough to beat. It's particularly useful if you only have to target a couple of locations as opposed to an entire continent like we did.

Let me know if you want to discuss how to make it happen - I'm always around to send some info your way.

Cheers,

Rob

[RWW]

Hi Robert,

thanks very much for your answer. I saw this kind of several times when looking at competitor sites. I wonder whether this is a procedure that is really appreciated by google. I cannot find any whiteboard Friday about it? Do you know any video from Matt Cutts, Wil Reynolds or Rand talking about this topic?

Best regards

Marc

[DmitriiK]

Hi there.

The idea of internal linking is quite simple - link with relevant keyphrase to a page, you want to have some boost amongst internal rankings. It's far not necessary to have an internal link going back to main page from each of sub-pages. Just make sure that every page is accessible and navigation makes sense.

If you have sub pages which are about "Auto verkaufen" (i assume it's quite broad keyword), maybe you should have more narrow topic sub-pages and then link to them with more specific keywords?

[RobCairns]

Hello,

So the main point I would make here is that you are attempting to create relevancy with your internal linking to terms users may be searching for. Where I work, we call this a website silo - creating tiered relevancy based on location, keywords, intent, etc.

For example, a website which features the following architecture:

Home --> Region --> Service --> Keyword Term

Will do better than a website which features:

Home --> Keyword Term

Because such a structure is self-limiting (how many links can you really have coming off your Home Page?) and it poses technical ranking problems (a Home Page with hundreds of links coming off of it will look spammy).

This is going to be a huge factor moving forward, especially with Local SEO becoming more and more prevalent in algorithmic updates.

So you might try:

Home --> Freiburg --> Auto Sales --> Auto Sales Freiburg

Home --> Freiburg --> Auto Purchasing --> Auto Purchasing Freiburg

(Or whatever keywords you have lined up)

This means you can expand your site at a later date along geographical or service-oriented lines, and you will have created the relevancy that Google wants when showcasing organic listings.

Hope this helps and feel free to touch base with any further questions.

All the best,

Rob