What Is SEO Silo Structure complete guide will be described in this article. In 2024, would using silo structure SEO be the quickest approach to outrank authority sites? You receive higher results if Google finds your website to be an authority on a specific subject.
Because of this, authority sites consistently outperform newer websites in terms of benefits and ranking velocity. However, creating an authoritative website takes time, which is when silos come into play.
What Is SEO Silo Structure? Everything You Know About
In this article, you can know about What Is SEO Silo Structure here are the details below;
By correctly establishing a silo structure, you can position yourself as an authority on specific topics in Google’s eyes, even if your website is brand-new. By doing this, you may outrank even reputable websites in your sector with ease.
Now, this post is specifically for you if you’re curious about SEO Silo and how to use it to enhance the SEO of your website! So without further ado, let’s get started.
Read Before Proceeding: We are utilizing the SILO framework and seeing good outcomes from it. To avoid the problem brought on by the Silo structure, we have been utilizing the Pyramid structure (The Final Step) in addition to it.
What is Silo Structure in SEO?
By classifying the content on your website into distinct categories and subcategories, SEO Silo makes it easier for Google crawlers to assess each blog post’s importance in relation to your keywords (or themes).
Silos are just a technique to divide the information on your site into different categories.
This is among the best illustrations of a silo structure.
The main page has “pillar pages,” as you can see above (you can also regard them as MAIN categories on your site).
These categories are further divided into “sections” (e.g., WordPress) where users can locate pertinent articles on a certain topic. After there, your sections are divided into Posts, which are your blog entries and other stuff related to that specific subject.
Do you want to see a live Silo example?
To give you an idea, let us demonstrate how we employ SEO Silos at BloggersPassion.
As seen above, we’ve established a number of SEO silos, including as
- Launch a blog (this will take you to a comprehensive tutorial explaining how to do so).
- Boost traffic (which results in an objective evaluation of Semrush, the best SEO tool)
- My blogging tools (all of the tools we use at BloggersPassion are listed on this page)
- Categories (such as WordPress, hosting, blogging, SEO, and online income generation)
- About Us section
If you examine the categories section carefully, you’ll see that some of the silos contain deeper content (for example, the SEO category has link building and SEO tools as subcategories).
This implies that in order to build a deep Silo content structure for our website, the most significant categories are further broken down into subcategories. You can access all of the blog centers in that section by clicking on any of them. Also check SEO REPORTING SOFTWARE TOOLS
Let’s examine the contents of the SEO category’s “link building” subcategory.
As you can see above, the link-building section has a ton of entries that are exclusively dedicated to providing exclusive content relating to link-building.
SEO Silo Examples
We’ve already talked about how we built a siloed content structure for BloggersPassion.com.
Now let’s discuss some more actual websites that use silos to improve their SEO.
Example 1 : Search Engine Land
First, let’s discuss the first Silo example from Search Engine Land, a well-known SEO blog. Silos, the website that runs the SEL blog, has a ton of SEO-related sections, so you know that the people running it are knowledgeable in SEO.
This is the appearance of Search Engine Land’s silo;
There are numerous categories (Silos), as you can see above, ranging from SEO to PPC to webinars, and so on. You can access all of the pertinent news and articles about each of those categories by clicking on them.
It makes sense why Google sites for those categories connect to their website. Examine it now.
The majority of their Silos, or categories, which are shown on their website are also visible in Google site links, as you can see above. That’s the benefit of using Silos with pertinent categories to properly structure a website.
Nota breve: Additional information regarding obtaining Google site links fast can be found here.
Example 2: Smart passive Income
Let’s look at another instance of a website that flawlessly uses Silo.
If you’re interested in affiliate marketing, Pat Flynn is a marketing genius you may already be aware of. He is the owner of Smart Passive Income, the top affiliate marketing blog.
This is the appearance of the Smart Passive Income Silo:
As you can see from the image above, Pat uses a variety of categories to reach out to both novice and seasoned marketers.
Furthermore, Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income has done an excellent job of developing deeper Silos, or in-depth information, for significant categories, subjects, or key Silos on his blog.
There are a ton of helpful chapters about affiliate marketing on the page that appears when you connect on the “Affiliate Marketing” category on his blog.
This is how it appears:
See that? Pat Flynn is an expert in his field. In addition to educating his intended audience about affiliate marketing, he is also building a deep silo around the main silo of “affiliate marketing.” Also check Crucial Role Images Play In Your SEO
What are the benefits of using Silo?
Thus, what is the purpose of incorporating silo architecture into your websites? In 2024, are there any advantages to employing silos? Indeed, there are plenty, some of which are listed here.
Enhances engagement and facilitates crawlability: Silos mainly aids in two areas: Information Architecture (IA)—better content organization for a better user experience (UX)—and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which includes content organization for optimal crawlability by search engine bots.
Improves your organic search rankings: Increasing search engine rankings is the main motivation for most bloggers and SEO specialists to use silo content architectures on their websites. Does siloing aid in improving your search engine rankings?
Yes, it very definitely does. You’ve arranged the contents of your website so that search engines may more easily comprehend what your site is about and use that information to help rank your pages.
Silos are timeless: Silos are not a recent phenomenon; rather, they have been present in the blogosphere for a considerable amount of time. An increasing number of bloggers are using silos to enhance their sites’ SEO and make them evergreen since Google’s most recent upgrades and shift towards improved user experience were announced.
Silo SEO Structure Issues
The silo structure has a few disadvantages while being a popular option due to the previously mentioned benefits.
The main issue is the habit of forbidding internal connections between silos.
Siloing SEO’s primary goal is to limit link equity within the silo and limit internal linking to pages in the same section of the website. On the other hand, other experts think that linking to other pages on your website is crucial when it makes sense contextually.
See this Silo structure example:
Three silos are described in this illustration, and their posts are connected.
They resemble flawlessly constructed silos through which link juice flows without obstruction.
However, there is a problem. Savannas and forests are home to lions and elephants. But because you divided them into different silos according to land habitats. Your silo structure may be broken if you attempt to internally associate these 2 Habitats with Lions and Elephants, which is a reasonable move given that it’s accurate information and crucial for users to know.
We need a pyramid structure to tackle this problem!
Among them is John Mueller [Search Advocate, Google]. In his YouTube SEO office hour video (watch 52:42), he said that using a top-down or pyramid layout aids Google in comprehending the context of the website’s individual pages.
However, after you take that action, the silo technique is no longer used.
You must arrange your information in a pyramid-like hierarchy using a pyramid structure, with the most important content at the top, followed by the second most important, and so forth.
where it makes sense, transfer internal links between the various sections of silos.
The primary problem with the silo site structure is that it restricts the amount of pertinent external contextual connections that may be included. This issue is resolved by using a pyramid structure without such limitations.
To put it another way, adhere to a silo structure but pass internal linkages between silos when appropriate. We’ve been using that strategy successfully for a time now.
How to Implement Silo On Your WordPress Website?
The crucial query at hand is this: how may Silos be implemented on your website to improve the architecture of your website?
First things come first. Identify your primary silos. Your primary silo would be “Digital marketing,” for instance, if you were blogging mostly about that topic.
You must now specify the categories that fall under your topic (in our example, “digital marketing”). These categories can be broadly classified as;
- Email promotion
- marketing with content
- SEO
- social media, etc.
After completing the selection of categories, you can further subdivide your categories (though this is not required for all categories and is optional). Subcategories allow you to create a deep silo that gives you more authority and power to create a well-organized website.
Using the example above, if you wanted to break down the primary category “SEO” into smaller categories, you could do so by dividing it into the following (this is an optional step);
- PPC advertisements, or paid advertisements
- Plugins for SEO (where you can only cover plugins related to SEO)
- Technical SEO (just the technical facets of SEO, such building silos and conducting site audits)
Do you understand?
You may now quickly add new blog posts to the relevant categories for a better silo content structure once the aforementioned silos have been formed.
Check out SEO Best Practices for 2024: Your Complete Guide to Ruling Google Search Results.
The most crucial components of a well-organized website’s silo content structure are essentially the following.
- research on keywords
- Content organization using a hierarchical structure (depending on your target keywords)
- Using a variety of techniques to reinforce the structure of your website (e.g., adding categories, menus, breadcrumbs, internal post links, URL structure, and so on)
In order for you to properly utilize silos for your website in 2024 and beyond, let’s quickly discuss the aforementioned points.
1. Define your keyword strategy
When siloing your website, why even think about conducting keyword research?
That’s a really good question to start with. Prior to building your silos around those keywords, you must decide the keywords you want to target. You cannot adopt an SEO silo without first deciding on your keyword approach.
Thus, be sure to research the kind of keywords you want to use in the long run for your website or blog. In this manner, building and arranging the entire structure of your website would be simple.
Here are some great ideas to help you come up with a strong keyword strategy for your website.
Make a list of seed keywords: You must first generate a few seed keyword ideas if you like to segment your website based on a few topics. The main subjects or keyword combinations that specify the general “content structure” of your website are known as seed keywords.
To generate a ton of helpful seed keyword ideas for your website, you need to identify your target audience, learn about their conditions & goals, and make sure to brainstorm topic ideas around them.
Choose less competitive keywords to target: If you’re establishing a new website with few authority backlinks, it will be difficult for you to rank for a competitive keyword like “fitness.” Therefore, there’s no use in focusing on a keyword like “fitness” and developing a different page or category because you won’t receive any results.
Finding low-competitive keywords is always a good idea in order to build clusters or groups around them. Additionally, you can make sites with low search traffic keywords, such as “fitness apps for women,” and then begin producing very helpful content related to that niche. In this way, you can improve search engine rankings & draw relevant traffic to your website.
Employ the appropriate SEO tools: You must have access to the appropriate SEO tools in order to carry out a thorough keyword study. While there are many tools available, the ones listed below offer excellent keyword data.
Semrush: We at BloggersPassion have been utilizing Semrush, the top SEO tool in the globe, for over 6 years. It is utilized by over 7 million individuals globally. It provides you with excellent keyword analysis data regardless of the niche you are in.
You can use it for competitor analysis, backlink audits, site audits, on-page SEO, and other tasks in addition to keyword research. Use the following link to access a free trial of the Semrush tool.
Get a 14-day free trial of the Semrush Pro Account (worth $129.95) by using this EXCLUSIVE link.
Another fantastic tool that can be utilized for competitor analysis and keyword research is SpyFu. Although the pricing plans only start at $33 per month, it costs less and gives you access to a lot of features. To learn more about the characteristics, benefits, drawbacks, and other information, see our evaluation of SpyFu.
Ubersuggest: While the other listed tools are paid subscriptions, Ubersuggest is a free keyword research tool run by SEO guru Neil Patel.
2. Organise your content hierarchically
After discussing keyword strategy in the previous stage, let’s move on to structuring your content around those keywords. Based on your target keywords, you must create a high-level information architecture.
What happens if you already have content? What happens if you wish to use Silos and your website already has a ton of blog posts?
If you already have content, all you have to do is go over it all and make a decision;
- Which blog entries to preserve
- Which pages or blog entries to update
- Which blog entries should be deleted or 301 redirected
The secret in this case is to delete and utilize 301 redirects for any blog post or page that is no longer relevant to your target market or has thin content.
To make content organization much easier, make sure to lower the size of your blog posts. For example, at BloggersPassion, we now only have 500 pages indexed in Google search out of approximately 1000 blog entries that are online.
Are you aware of the reason? We came to the conclusion that the remaining blog entries and pages were not assisting us in any way, be it with sales, traffic, or conversions. Therefore, we either updated them or deleted them and pointed users to other, more effective pages already in place.
In doing so, we were able to thoroughly clean up a great deal of blog content at BloggersPassion without experiencing any decrease in traffic.
Just remember to make sure you create particular categories that are related to your content as you add new content (blog articles or themes you intend to cover in the future). Additionally, make sure you write in-depth material to improve search engine rankings.
Select a target keyword for each page or post you make on your site. If you truly want to improve your search engine rankings, you should focus on long tail keywords with low search traffic.
3. Reinforce your website’s structure
bolstering the structure of your website in a number of ways, such as the following:
- Putting categories into practice
- Menus
- Breadcrumbs
- Connecting with one another within posts
- URL composition, etc.
This is how you can begin.
Use pages to create silos: If you want to organize your website hierarchically, use pages rather than blog posts. This allows you to establish a hierarchical structure for your website by making it simple to declare a parent page for each component.
Just be careful not to build too many pages for siloing, as this will make it very challenging for you to keep track of everything. If you want to keep things simple, create only the pages that are really necessary. There are themes like Genesis themes that give you simple options to handle your pages and navigation.
Employ breadcrumbs: A breadcrumb indicates the user’s current location on a website and can be thought of as a backup navigation system.
We employ breadcrumbs on our blog, BloggersPassion. This is how they appear:
We use breadcrumbs at the post level for two main reasons, as you can see above.
- One is that users may quickly access related blog posts by navigating to the appropriate category or area (in the case of the SEO tools section above, for example).
- Another is that the content of the website is easily interpreted by search crawlers.
In short, breadcrumbs provide the tracking of a website visitor’s journey from the page they are now on to the homepage.
Installing and turning on this plugin will permit you to count breadcrumbs to your WordPress website for improved navigation.
Optimizing your URL structure: Improving the overall SEO of your website and content optimization both depend heavily on your URL structure. Thus, be sure to maintain simplicity.
WordPress gives you the option to use a URL format like this;
/%postname%/%category%/
Simply navigate to the WordPress dashboard, select Settings > Permalinks, choose Custom Structure, type /%category%/%postname%/, then Save to make these modifications. You’re through.
If you would like your site’s URL structure to be even shorter, you may also do away with category names. In that instance, your domain name will appear next just the headline of one of your blog posts.
Use menus: To display their primary pages, such as their portfolios, email landing pages, about us, and contact information, almost all professional WordPress users use menus. As the main points of access to your top-level silos, menus are crucial, whether you realize it or not.
If your WordPress theme supports the Menu function, creating menus in WordPress is very simple. You just need to navigate to WordPress dashboard > Appearance > Menus and configure the menu to feature your website’s top-level silos.
Master the art of interlinking: improving your ranks is one of the main benefits of interlinking. If you’re curious about what interlinking is, it’s the technique of including connections to other pertinent items on your website on a page or blog post.
If someone clicks on it, your website will redirect them to another content that is comparable. enhances user engagement and length of stay on your website and aids in search crawlers’ deep crawling of your website.
Pro tip: Use the Rank Math SEO plugin to create highly relevant internal links when producing blog posts if you don’t know how to interlink to your posts strategically (interlinking becomes more difficult when you have too much information on your site). To learn more specifics about Rank Math SEO, you can read our review.
4. Implement a Pyramid Structure Concept Whenever Needed
As I noted earlier, there are problems with the silo structure. Proceed if you come across a situation where you need to establish internal links between two silos’ subcategories. It won’t hurt SEO; in fact, it will help consumers find pertinent content, which will improve user experience and possibly raise Google ranks.
Important Things to Remember While Creating Silos for SEO
Here are a few key points to keep in mind while segmenting the information on your website in order to boost overall SEO.
Don’t write posts that don’t fit your silos: The biggest error most people do when they create a silo on their website is to publish fresh themes or ideas for blog posts that have nothing to do with the categories (or silos) they have set up.
Make sure to create a new category and publish new blog entries or topics under it if you really must on new silos.
Examine the posts you have already published. You may have a large number of posts under different headings. Simply deselect the categories you’re not utilizing for a post and map it to only one that is pertinent to the subject matter.
Pay attention to content quality and relevancy: Although SEO is changing nearly yearly, two concepts are becoming more and more well-known: “content quality” and “relevancy.”
No matter what industry you are in, producing excellent material that is pertinent to the subjects of your website is essential if you want higher ranks. This is where siloing enters the picture. If you utilize them effectively, your search rankings will rise.
Post links, not category links: When possible, you should interlink your internal posts because interlinking is crucial. However, avoid making the error of connecting to your categories as they are useless. Provide links to pertinent posts so visitors to your website can read through content one piece at a time. Additionally, link juice is passed to a single page rather than an entire category of entries.
FAQs
A few key questions regarding siloing your website for improved SEO in 2024 and beyond are listed below.
What is Silos in SEO?
Silo specifies the ideal structure for your website, which is primarily hierarchical. In SEO, silos refer to the groups of information on your website that are organized into different categories and subcategories.
A website’s silo is comparable to a book’s table of contents. The pertinent chapters are all neatly arranged in the style of a book’s table of contents. Similar to this, a silo aids in the neat hierarchical organization of your website’s contents and clarifies your site’s purpose for both users and search engines.
How to come up with powerful silo ideas to implement on my website?
Determining the subjects you wish to cover on your website can help you conduct comprehensive keyword research. In this manner, you may quickly categorize the material on your website and build strong silos. Consider subcategories as necessary.
How many Silos can I create for a WordPress site?
There is no upper bound. It’s as if there is no restriction on the quantity of categories or pages you may add to your website. As many silos as you like can be created. However, it’s a good idea to start with just two or three silos (categories) and build several pertinent subcategories around them if you’re just starting out with a new website.
Should I build backlinks to my Silo pages?
Indeed, without a doubt. Actually, rather than just creating backlinks to your home page, it’s preferable to start creating links to your Silo sites that you deem to be extremely significant.
Creating links to your homepage alone will raise your domain rankings, but if you also begin creating high-quality links to your inner pages, your overall domain authority will rise and your Silo pages’ ranks will rise as well.
Can we create subcategories to make them sub-silos?
It is possible to establish sub silos by separating your blog’s main categories and adding subcategories. If you visit our blog, BloggersPassion, you will notice that we have separated the main SEO category into a number of other categories, including link building and SEO tools.
Final Thoughts
As we frequently remark, “SEO is a huge ocean” that is ever-changing. To improve your ranks, you must adjust to the most recent modifications.
Siloing is still necessary if you want to achieve greater organic results even though it is nothing new and has been used by many SEOs for a long time.
We made an effort to find nearly all of the important information regarding building a Silo content structure to enhance your website’s search engine optimization. Please feel free to ask any more questions in the comments section.
