Whether you run a small or large business, your website should appear clean and organized to improve its ranking on the SERP and increase its visibility on Google.
How can this be done? By “siloing”! Siloing is important for SEO for structuring a website, enhancing user experience and making it simpler for users to explore a website and locate the content they’re looking for.
Came across this tweet that nails the importance of an SEO silo:
🔹 Why is Silo Structure important for SEO? 🤔🔍 It helps search engines crawl and index your website more efficiently, increasing visibility. 🕷️👀 It also enhances user experience by making it easier for visitors to navigate and find what they’re looking for. #UserFriendly #SEO
— Luish Mahida (@luishmahida) May 19, 2023
Implementing an SEO silo structure helps in organizing website content to create a seamless user experience, guide search engines, and users through content intricacies, and improve website visibility and relevance to specific topics.
Silos are a great way to raise your website’s position in local searches, but they can be challenging to put together.
This guide will show you how to create SEO silos for your website, why these have become so popular in the content marketing field, the best practices, and the limitations you should be aware of.
What You Will Learn in This Article 📚
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What Is Silo Structure?🗂️
Silo structure refers to an approach that involves categorizing website material into particular categories or topics to assist search engines in understanding the relationships between pages, hierarchy, and relevance of content.
Silo Architecture
They are often made by gathering relevant content on a website and interlinking it with content within the website.
To better explain, let’s use the example of a fitness website. A fitness website might include separate silos for topics like diet, exercise, and equipment. The pages within each silo would be linked together to form a logical and consistent structure, and each silo would contain a piece of content that is relevant to that particular topic.
So, what you get is a collection of linked and related content on your site.
Why is it So Popular?
One of the most important reasons why siloing is effective for SEO is its ability to help Google find your website. Internal links can help Google find new pages on your site, and siloing does just that.
A logical hierarchical structure will eventually be created by interlinking all the pages on your websites, which can be achieved by adding internal links.
Second, siloing will improve the keyword rankings of your websites. PageRank, a method through which Google ranks a page depending on its quality and quantity, typically affects this.
Benefits of using Silos in SEO
As siloing includes both backlinks and internal links, there is a better PR flow between the pages containing silo. Siloing creates internal links between two pages that are linked to one another and also offers more relevant internal linkages. The more relevant links you provide through siloing, the better chance your website has of ranking.
By improving the information architecture of your website, SEO silos provide a positive user experience. Organizing your content this way can also make it easier to develop unique content consistently.
This Reddit comment nails it on why SEO silos are so effective:
Comment
byu/InternetWeakGuy from discussion
inbigseo
Why Is Internal Linking Important?🔗
An effective internal linking structure is crucial for your website and your web pages to be seen. While link building mainly focuses on external links, internal links shape your website structure and guide visitors to key pages.
The famous Google’s John Mueller firmly states that internal linking is essential to an effective SEO strategy, as it helps search engines find and rank your website’s pages.
Importance of internal linking.
Unlike in the olden days, search engines like Bing, Google, and Yahoo now prefer natural links that make sense to humans within the context of your content.
You should, however, remember that when you create a natural internal linking strategy, it is essential to prevent orphan pages on your site.
You can check out Google’s SEO Starter Guide, which talks about a naturally flowing hierarchy. This ensures all pages are reachable through links and helps users discover similar content.
In short, internal links provide context to Google and readers, explaining a page’s relevance and influencing its ranking in search results. Internal links also make it easy for users to explore related topics with a single click, enhancing the user experience.
Local Content Silo
Silo site structure can be done even if you have a local business. A user’s targeted location and surrounding locations are taken into account when Google’s algorithms present suggestions.
Local content silos can be useful if you wish to outrank your competitors in areas where you don’t have a presence for your business.
Example of content silos
Your website needs to be optimized for the targeted location if you want to increase its visibility. You just have to create localized content around the specific area and build microsites for each location that don’t overlap with each other.
Does it sound too confusing? Let’s learn how to build silos for local websites.
Building Silos For Local Website
Creating silos is a great way to structure your website locally. For this, you will have to focus on the number of websites you have.
Taking a look at some of your local competitor’s websites through competitive analysis can help you understand how they are structuring their sites and how you can improve upon the format.
With one location
Suppose your client has only one location, then you will not need any sub-folders which is location-specific. You will only have to use the root website to initiate the local relevancy since there is a single location.
In such a scenario, your website URL will look like this – 
- site.com/ service-name-location
- dentist.com/tooth-cleaning-Miami
In this case, you have hyper-localized the service pages since your client only provides dentist services in Miami. You will create different service pages in the same way.
With multiple locations
Now, if your client has multiple locations, then you will have to create a sub-folder based on the different locations. The URL structure for this will be –
- Site.com/location/service-name
- Dentist.com/Miami/tooth-cleaning
- Dentist.com/Miami/braces
- Dentist.com/Fort-Lauderdale/tooth-cleaning
- Dentist.com/Fort-Lauderdale/braces
Here, I have mentioned two different locations offering two services. Now that you have these pages, you will have to opt for different designs for the locations and different page templates for the service pages.
Different Types Of Silo Architectures🏛️📚
Silos aim to enhance content organization for search engines and user understanding. These architectures help search engine crawlers discover and index new pages more efficiently. They are used in almost all websites to help customers navigate the vast options available on their website. Now, there isn’t just one type of silo. This is mainly divided into two types.
Physical Silos
Physical silos call for creating a directory structure on the website. Each catalog represents an individual silo, and pages within support the main silo content. This physical structure helps search engines follow a roadmap and facilitate better indexing of web pages.
Virtual Silos
This type of silo focuses on grouping related pages through internal linking, making thematic relevancy stronger. Links between theme-related pages create a virtual silo and contribute to site hierarchy.
Virtual Silo Sample
In both types, it’s essential to keep proper linking patterns. This can be done by establishing links between supporting pages and their silo landing pages. You should also be careful and avoid cross-links between silos to maintain theme strength.
Things To Consider While Building Silos🗒️
When it comes to the content of each of these pages, do not make the mistake of using similar text even for the same services. For example, your client provides a tooth cleaning service in both Miami and Fort.
Things to keep in mind while building silos.
Add Google Maps links along with office hours and other location-specific information to make the pages unique. You can include Hyperlocal texts such as local landmarks to create a difference in the pages.
One important thing that you have to do is that each of the location pages should have a verified Google My Business listing. For this, you will need a physical location with a verified address. Without this, Google will not rank the page, and you will also not be able to drive traffic.
You can create a silo structure for any business website if you follow the above-mentioned steps, all together with the Google My Business listing process.
Steps To Create A Silo Structure📋
Using a silo structure on your website is a simple process. With the 3-steps mentioned here, you can take advantage of this strategy.
We’ve taken “best haircare” as an example and will provide steps based on the same. This is to give you an idea of how you should go about the steps. You can, however, use any keyword or terms you want to focus on.
Step 1: Conduct A Thorough Keyword Research
The first step in creating an SEO-friendly site silo is to conduct thorough keyword research. Conducting thorough keyword research helps you identify relevant keywords to target for your SEO strategy. This will help you understand user intent for terms like ‘best haircare.’
Once done with the research, compile your findings into a research document to create content based on that.
Let’s make it more clear with our example. Here, we’ll consider ‘Shampoo,’ ‘Conditioner,’ and ‘Styling products’ as top-level category pages.
Step 2: Divide The Topic Into Supporting Pages
After you’ve decided on your top-level categories, it’s time to divide those topics into supporting pages. This will help in targeting specific audience needs.
For example, under ‘Shampoo,’ you can consider creating pages for ‘Clarifying shampoo,’ ‘Sulfate-free shampoo,’ and ‘Hair growth shampoo.’
Step 3: Create Sub-Topics Fragments Into Long-Tail Keyword Phrases
Now, break down sub-topics into more specific long-tail keyword phrases.
For the ‘Clarifying shampoos’ page, explore terms like ‘Clarifying shampoos for oily hair’ and ‘Clarifying shampoo for dry hair.’
These basic steps will help you with a clear website architecture and let you plan the content accordingly.
Implementing a Silo Structure
Implementing an SEO silo structure
You might have now understood what a silo structure should look like. We’ve further simplified it for you with the diagram below. Each section represents a different category on which you can work on your content.
Top-Level Section: These are the main topics. You can create a service or overview page or write blog posts about a specific product for each section.
Connecting Each Section: To make sure all these topics are working together, you need to link them properly. This is very important because it decides:
• How the link juice moves around throughout your website. • How closely each page is related to others.
If you only link each page to the ones directly below it, the link juice will stop when it reaches the last page.
Hence, link structure is crucial both for the flow of link juice and for showing how connected the pages are.
Without it, pages might not get the attention they deserve, and the site won’t look as organized and relevant to search engines.
Wrestling with SEO problems? Check out how fixing SEO pain points can improve your approach!
Drawbacks Of Siloing And Why It’s Useless 🤷Okay, let’s get real about siloing. Sure, it’s good for SEO, but it’s got its fair share of issues. Internal linking across silos can be a nightmare. The idea behind silos is to keep all the link juice within a specific section of your site, only linking to pages within that section. But some SEO gurus argue that linking to other relevant pages across your site is important, especially if it makes sense contextually. Also, not everyone in the SEO world buys into the silo hype. Let me tell you why. Imagine a dentist in Miami who also practices in Fort Lauderdale. According to silo rules, you can’t link these practices internally because it messes up the silo structure. If you do, they’re not silos anymore. So, let’s be honest—sticking rigidly to silos? You’re not really building silos; you’re just creating a regular old pyramid site structure. And here’s the twist: visitors can’t easily hop between silos on a site with a strict hierarchical setup. That’s a classic case of bad user experience. 🚫 |
SEO Silos Best Practices
To establish a silo structure, you need to understand the best practices to be implemented in order to utilize all its benefits. Some excellent techniques to think about are listed below:
Implement A Pyramid Structure
A pyramid structure helps divide your content in a hierarchical manner when you build a website. With the help of this framework, you can arrange your information and make it convenient for your users to navigate your website.
So, the main information will be presented first, followed by the second, third, and so on.
The use of a pyramid structure will make it easier for users to access important pages and ensure they are not buried deep within the site, allowing them to enter the home page, select a category, and explore more.
You will place the most important content at the top to attract more backlinks to the site, resulting in a positive PageRank flow.
Last but not least, websites will have more contextual internal links that refer to their supporting content and vice versa.
Link Internally Where Relevant
Though with a silo site architecture, there is no possibility of contextual opportunities outside of the silo, however, by using a pyramid structure, it’s possible to overcome this challenge.
If you have some similarities between the two subcategories of your website, you can link internally between the two silo pages.
To identify appropriate internal linking options, you can use SEO tools like Ahrefs’ Site Audit option and use the Link Opportunities tool, which will highlight the areas where you can add links.
You can also use its Page Explorer feature, which lets you browse for citations of a certain word or phrase on your website.
Create Blog Content Hubs
When there is no relevant hierarchy, your blog posts and content may struggle. This occurs because blogs are typically updated in chronological order.
With content hubs, you can separate the related blogs and make them more accessible to the users. Content hubs are typically linked to clusters of relevant details.
Here, a tomato can be used as an example. Tomato can be classified as both a fruit and a vegetable; hence content about tomatoes can be linked under both categories.
The content hub allows you to collect and interlink relevant content together and internally link between sites.
Don’t Get Too Deep With The Important Content
Deep content is hard for users to access, but it also forces Google to think that deep information is not useful or relevant. This can negatively impact your visibility on search engine result pages.
This has a direct impact on how visible your website is. It is, therefore, always recommended that you refrain from storing the information too deeply.
To check the level of depth of your content, you can use the Ahrefs site audit. Go to the Structure Explorer and move to the Depth option at the top.
By clicking on each result you get, you can check the depth of that page. You can then add relevant internal links to rank the quality content higher on the site’s lines of authority.
To Sum It Up
Sites can benefit greatly from authoritative SEO content since many business sites seriously lack the ability to build content the right way. However, it has its own drawbacks that you need to be mindful of. Combining all of this with premium niche edits will leave your competitors crying as you dominate the search results.
You can create silos for your website and raise your position in search results by taking the proper steps. Remember, it may take time to see results, but consistently applying these strategies will help you achieve long-term success.
FAQs
1. How is “silos” related to SEO?
Silos are a type of website structure used in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that divides information into different categories to help create a clear hierarchy of content on a website, which can enhance both user experience and search engine rankings.
2. How do you implement a silo structure?
Using a silo structure on a website is an effective way to structure your content into distinct categories or themes. Each categories should be focusing on a specific keyword or set of related keywords. You can choose short-tail or long-tail keywords on your website.
To implement silo and organize your website, first choose a topic to arrange content in a hierarchical and clear structure.
Then, you must group existing content on the site into relevant silos to create a logical hierarchical structure.
Further, optimize those silos with appropriate terms and phrases, and then link the silos in each category.
3. Is siloing a website compulsory for a website?
No, adding a silo structure is not required; however, doing so will increase your website’s rankings in the search results.
