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Content Layering :: Using Site Architecture To Improve SEO
By Rob Sullivan (c) 2006

Many times, a site gets very large and its ability to rank well
in competitive markets decreases in part because of the size of
the site. While we in the business know that content is king,
more often than not it is a combination of content and effective
site structure which will ultimately help your pages rank.

In this article I look at how to most effectively structure
your site to take advantage of this.

I read this great article on layering on the SEOmoz Blog
http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=789 and while it does a
good job of explaining what content layering is, I feel it could
be improved just a little bit.

I'm not saying it is wrong in any way. In fact, the tactic
outlined will be very effective for a small to medium sized
site, however I have also found another way to organize your
site which can be more effective if done properly.

In the article, it explains how you use layers to organize your
site. Now we're not talking about CSS layering or anything like
that. It's more of a site structure issue than anything.

According to the article, one can layer their site through the
use of sub-folders. By creating layers of sub-folders and then
placing all related content within that sub-folder you can
layer your site to help specific sections of it rank higher.

This is a great way to organize a smaller site because it
allows you to place topical pages together, and promote links
within the pages to help improve overall positioning of these
sections.

Further, it helps reduce the dilution factor often felt by
sites that attempt to cover multiple topics in a flat file
structure.

For example, if you sell widgets you could organize the
sections by some common element, such as color. That way your
site could be: http://widgetts.com/blue/page1.html and all blue
widget pages would go into this sub-folder. You'd then organize
all other sub-folders in a similar style.

Like I said, I think this is a very effective strategy for a
smaller or medium site. There would be a much greater chance of
blue widgets ranking highly in a structure like this.

However, I feel that for larger sites there's an even more
effective way to organize your content.

Through the use of sub-domains one could further organize this
content. This would make it even more relevant to search
queries and more likely to rank. If one sold a larger variety
of widgets yet still wanted to organize them by color, then the
structure of the site would be: http://blue.widgetts.com and
all site content relating to blue widgets would appear within
this sub-domain.

The reason I say sub-domains would be more effective is because
search engines tend to treat a sub-domain as its own site. In
other words, a search engine sees http://blue.widgetts.com and
http://widgetts.com as essentially 2 different sites.

Keep in mind that such a strategy is of the most benefit to
larger sites. If you don't have a large site, or don't foresee
your site growing to become a large site then I wouldn't
recommend the sub-domain layering tactic.

This is because, as I've said, the search engines will treat
your sub-domain as a unique site. So, if you've only got 10 or
15 or even 50 pages in your sub-domain, chances are it won't
rank as competitively as it would have as a sub-folder of a
larger site.

Now, to make your content even more competitive, why not
combine these two strategies – use a sub-domain and sub-folders
to provide you even more control in site organization as well as
an even greater chance of ranking.

This is because the broader sub-domain can rank competitively
for the broader terms while the sub-folder content can rank
competitively for the less broad, more specific terms.

What you are doing by combining the two strategies is getting
more bang for your buck. This is because you are covering more
area on the web, allowing your site to rank for both broad and
specific terms.

Then, with some good strategic interlinking you will be able to
even further promote the broad areas of your site by linking all
your internal pages to the pages above it.

While I'm not entirely dismissing the layered content theory
presented above, I am saying consider your situation. If your
site is a smaller site, by all means use the layered content
approach. If it's larger, then use the sub-domain approach.

Also, remember that there could be multiple ways to organize the
same content.

For example, in addition to organizing your sub-domains or
sub-folders by color in the widget example, also consider
organizing them by features. This way, a chosen widget could be
linked to from multiple related categories.

Not only that but you've now bulked up your site with a bunch
of additional pages. These new pages are required to help
create the sub-domains and navigation required to drive
visitors to the individual widget pages.

This type of multi-category linking is common among many large
sites. One good example is Ebay. It organizes its top auctions
into sub-domains like antiques, art, autos and clothing. Then,
within the categories the sub-folder structure is used to
further segment the site.

In conclusion, if you've been looking for a way to most
effectively organize your site while helping to improve
rankings, consider these options. Through the use of sub-folders,
sub-domains or a combination of both you can effectively
organize your site, segment your products and target searchers
more effectively.
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Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers
(http://www.textlinkbrokers.com). Textlinkbrokers is a link
building company.
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