The most important pages

Google deems pages closer to the tld or .co.uk / .com as the most important pages and those further from the .co.uk/blog/january/2016/stuff.html as the least important. It sort of makes sense.

Image courtesy of Vaughan

Correct Positioning of content

The higher the page in our pyramid the more attention Google will take of it. An example is this page benedict.co.uk/seoconsultant by Benedict. The page that ranks #1 for SEO Consultant in Google is what we call a second-level page. (Home or index being level 1). Here Benedict has used a second-level page to rank. See here. He has not used a lower-level page or a blog page, as this would not rank as highly as its position would not be identified as an important service page.

Identifying keywords and then what – data without action

Many people in business have heard of keywords and the majority of business people who trade online have a good grasp of what these keywords are. But that is normally the end of the process. It is data without comprehension. What these keywords come to represent our targets for a high Google position.

Correct use of keyword data and content positioning

How VC position content is to create category and subcategory pages that link off a hub page. A hub page is an important service or product page. Normally these pages are within a top navigation or menu bar. The positioning of these pages is all-important. It is imperative that the subcategory pages link directly below (and off) the hub page.

Example: solicitor

You are a criminal law solicitor. Your hub page is /criminal-law.html.

Google shows the following trending key phrases. Click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.

• criminal solicitors London
• criminal defence solicitors
• criminal law solicitors advice
• criminal solicitors fees

All of these pages of content would be positioned off a folder called /criminal-law/ and would all be linked back to /criminal-law.html. If these pages were placed on the same level they would in effect compete with the hub page and confuse Google into trying to understand which is the most important page.

• /criminal-law/criminal-solicitors-london
• /criminal-law/criminal-defence-solicitors
• /criminal-law/criminal-law-solicitors-advice
• /criminal-law/criminal-solicitors-fees

To test whether or not your business is structuring your website correctly and positioning content to obtain a maximum return, use the analogy of explaining the site structure and what the website content is actually about to an eight-year-old child.

• Is the structure of the website logical and reasonable?
• Would a user easily understand the nature content theme website from its structure and use of words within URLs?

SEO friendly URLs

You may have heard of SEO friendly URLs, while this is where it came from. Read a few of these pages and you will see that this is an SEO no brainer and to disagree would be sacrilegious. But like most things of SEO, it is only a half-truth.

Creating URLs out of words instead of numbers is a step in the right direction, but the real magic and benefit can be seen on-site structure. Clearly Google has identified that the website structure is far harder to manufacture and hence manipulate Google rhythm unfairly than other SEO metrics.

Common site structures

Most websites that we see have a flat structure i.e. all of the pages of the website link of the homepage and all of the second level. If you think of your website as a pyramid with the homepage of the top blog content of the bottom your pyramid is actually a single line of pages with the homepage of the top.

What next: Use of blogs and what to write