Search Engines allows a website to rank on the top for a particular keyword which “proves to be the best fit for the relevancy of the theme” & that “matches the user’s search query”.
Therefore, the primary goal of SEO has become to improve the website.
So that the website doesn’t remain just about targeted keyword phrases… but it becomes about the "themes that are matching those keywords".
A website that encompasses a disjointed array of unrelated information and that is too with no clear central theme suffers in search engine rankings for the desired keywords.
The process of siloing a website will allow you to clarify your "website’s subject relevance" and it will also lay the groundwork for "higher rankings on most sought after keywords".
Therefore, Silo Structure is a core building block for SEO and is an advanced topic.
Siloing has originated as a way to identify the concept of grouping the related information within a website into distinct sections that means a silo represents a group of themed or particular subject related content on your website.
This grouping possesses a high SEO priority because search engines award the keyword relevancy to any website based on the page and then it considers the rest of the site with the most relevant & supporting content.
Well ranked websites generally are the ones that have physically organized their websites in the form of a clearly identified title, abstract, table of contents, etc.
Furthermore, the content is formed in a way that reinforces the overall theme of the website as a whole.
There are many great websites that are hidden from search engine result pages (SERPs) exposure either because they lack effective SEO services or maybe their strategy doesn’t include clear subject relevance or siloing.
In the following blog, you will find everything about the strategy for improving the clarity of an overall theme of the website through siloing with the desire of improving the keyword rankings.
Let us start with the introduction of Silo Structure SEO.
What is Silo Structure?
For ranking on a prominent place in search engines for both broad keywords and more specific keyword phrases the website must possess enough clearly organized and supporting content which appears relevant to the search engine for those search terms.
The reason is that search engines closely look at your website’s structure so that it can determine the main topics of your website and if there is enough keyword-supporting content or not.
Siloing a website basically means "grouping the related pages together" either structurally or through linking in order to establish the website’s keyword-based themes.
Just understand it with the example of farmers as the farmers use separate silos to store different types of grain in the same way webmasters also can silo a website’s different parts/categories in order to distinguish its various content themes which make it clear to search engines "what the site is actually about".
Siloing your website serves your website’s web pages improved relevancy for the search terms.
In the siloing process, the links are strategically used within the theme-focused sections of the website as well as the PageRank gets passed between the closely related pages and landing pages which ultimately reinforces the themes.
A silo strategy rather than making the website to be viewed as a disorganized mixture without keyword focus, reveals instead what the site is really about and helps to position your website as an expert source for a given search term.
Search Engines award the top keyword rankings to the websites which are made up with clear website structure as well as having a relevant subject matter matching to the user query.
However, that doesn’t always mean that pages need to be filled with exact keyword phrases, especially in the era when Google’s Panda algorithm is here to the rewards quality content.
Therefore, all you need is to build your website around themes that are based on keywords, not just the search term phrases themselves.
Let’s explore the types of Siloing below.
1. Physical Siloing:
​There exist two ways to silo a website, the first one is the physical siloing which is done through the directory structure and another one is the virtual siloing which is done through the linking structure.
Let’s discuss physical siloing first.
The URL address which you decide for a web page of your website can give your users very important clues of what the page is all about.
For instance, take an example of the URL below which reveals that the page focuses on some kind of SEO Reseller Services and has been put in the blog section of the website www.jeewangarg.com.
https://www.jeewangarg.com/blog/why-seo-reseller-services
So, whenever you use the physical URL directory structure of a website like when you fill a cabinet to organize all the related pages it means you are creating physical silos.
Each theme of the website encompasses a group of pages saved together under one folder which is dedicated to that specific category (e.g., “Digital Marketing”), and within that category there lie some subfolders for the different subcategories (e.g., “SEO”, “PPC” in case of www.jeewangarg.com website).
Therefore, each file has its place in a different category and here no two files/pages ever be put into both categories.
For having a physical silo structure, you need to create a directory structure that will align with the "various themes which are covered within your website".
2. Virtual Siloing:
Virtual siloing is when you use the internal link structure of a site that means how the different pages are connected to each other:
In simple words, you should connect groups of "related pages together" and "separate the unrelated pages". However, you shouldn’t forget to strengthen the primary landing pages of each silo.
As we saw above physical silo structure requires theme-related pages that need to be located within the same directory of a website, while the virtual silo process is formed by hypertext links amongst the theme-related pages.
If you connect the related pages virtually through hyperlinking then it can be effective even when there isn’t a physical silo, because the search engine spiders crawl a website’s contents by following its internally linked pages.
Therefore, virtual siloing is more powerful.
If you link two pages that are tightly related in topic and theme that means you are consolidating that theme-relevance to one of your website’s sections, because a site hierarchy emerges based on linking patterns alone.
For example, instead of interlinking amongst all of the pages haphazardly, our example of financial services website could use virtual siloing to show here that it has three different, keyword-relevant content themes for mortgage booking, financial planning, and accounting:
Key Takeaway
Always remember that the support pages will always link up to their silo landing page, please refer to the following image.
Cross-linking between the silos should be avoided because random links between silos could result in weakening the theming.
Therefore, no subpage within a silo should be linked to a subpage in another silo.
The diagram below will make the above statement clear as it is showing an appropriate and inappropriate internal linking for a siloed website:
Careful linking within your website pages will show the relationships among the web pages as well as it also reveals your website’s topic structure.
In addition, it also strengthens your main landing pages (the ones which you want to show up in search results).
Virtual siloing also supports the accumulation of PageRank on the main landing page of each silo and makes that page the most relevant page on your site for the keywords related to that theme.
So, this is the way how silo structure SEO works & leads to better search engine rankings.
Our recommendation will be to use the virtual silo approach, reinforced by the physical silo approach whenever possible because it will provide the maximum effectiveness.
Let’s Explore the Process of Siloing Your Website
1. Determine the themes for your website:
At first, you need to determine, what kind of content do you have or planning to have on your website and what is it about?
However, we recommend you to consider your themes in conjunction with "the proper keyword research".
2. Choose your siloing strategy:
In the next step, you must decide how to implement a website structure that efficiently identifies the themes of your website.
I mean you need to choose either to have both "physical siloing and virtual siloing together" or "virtual siloing alone".
3. Plan your linking structure:
After that, you need to examine your link structure and decide how to connect pages together in the best way to reinforce your themes.
It should be in accordance with the way in which people search for your content.
Keep in mind that you should generally possess at least five supporting content pages if you want to establish a silo theme.
4. Implement and build your silos:
In the last step, you need to publish high-quality content which includes your targeted keywords for each theme-based silo.
Trim and create links to connect to the supporting pages within each silo and reinforce your "main silo landing pages".
Final Words:
So, it was an important & advanced SEO topic. We hope you are now able to see your website with the new eyes.
With this website structure in mind, you now can better determine whether search engine spiders will see your content themes clearly or they will just crawl around your site confused.
