New Guy question

Greetings all. I have jumped into the 'seo pool' and I am looking for some good site design direction. I'm picking up on the importance of external linking, but I would like some help on plotting out a solid internal site layout.

For simplicity let's say I have this type of layout:

1. index page
2. products pages each with the following sub pages:
   • faqs
   • customer testimonials
   • supplement facts
   • general info
3. customer service with the following sub pages:
   • contact form
   • return policy
   • shipping policy

Would I be correct in saying that from the index page I need to link to

• each product page
• the customer service page
• and not to any of the sub directories

And then I should cross link contact form to return form to shipping
and I shoudl link each faq to customer testimonial to supp facts to general info?


I am working from a graph that I found here: http://www.searchengineguide.com/grafx/pagerank_02.gif


Thanks all!

joe...
first of all...i must say that i like your user name...its cool.
...and your friendly avatar.
i have a friendly avatar too...i think its important to be friendly and promote friendliness here at the forum.
welcome to the forum and good luck.

as far as internal linking goes....
part of the answer lies in what your goal is.
are you trying to pump as much pagerank into the index as possible?
or are you trying to spread the pagerank around more evenly.

being that it is a new site.....
....and that its a small site....
i would assume you want to focus pr on the index page for now.
this is accomplished by the 3 general rules as follows:
1. make all external links point to the index page.
2. make each and every internal page point to the index page.
3. point to all the other pages as little as possible.

there certainly are other ways to describe the same thing diagrammatically...but these rules still apply.

later on...more complex factors may alter this slightly...but this concept is a good solid starting point for a new and small site.

[this is not the method you have described.]


.

Thanks for the feedback. I guess I do want to put the focus on the index page. There will be a collection of products there along with all of the other good info (catalog request, specials, etc).

When you say keeps the link to a minimum to all other pages except the index/home page, would it be ok to include a javascript or dhtml menu on the deeper pages so that the user can navigate to other pages but... do not include text links on those deeper pages?

Thanks again.

Hey Joe,

Welcome to the board!
You will find good success making sure that your internal linking is in order and additionally find how important it can be.
Regarding the linking model you proposed, I think it should be effective for your newer site.
You index page should link to all your product pages, this is a given depending on the initial directory structure, you can even fine tune and select the most important pages that are located in a sub directory such as /product/yourproduct.html to link from the homepage. Additionally the site map serves as an excellent place to launch new pages to the search engines mainly. One more thing you can do is establish specific topic areas and sections of your site that you want to internal cross link in way. All PR stays in the system and is concentrate on a specific page or area. Its a matter of increasing or decreasing certain links within the site to a particular page. For example, if you define a topic area such as "subject a" and another "just like subject a". Each of these two subject areas all contain 5 pages. Use these move internal link to the homepage, other subjects, the same subject, or any page you are targeting. Importantly make the linking meaningful and useful to the visitor. This will go ways longer than hiding a link. So in my opinion I wouldn't put javascript links in the deep parts of the site for the sake of maintaining a house of cards. Cause the house is gonna fall. Keep the linking natural and feel free to get agreesive with it.

Hope that helps, can you provide example of the links within the site.

Ben

i am not suggesting that.
there each page needs a 'hard' link pointing to it from within the site.
therefore...the minimum number of links possible to any page is 1.
...and....to focus pr on the home page...every page should link to the home page.
i would also add this to my list above:
4. minimize the number of pages linked to from the home page.
[generally this means just linking to the next tier down in the site hierarchy.]


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awww - I feel like I've know Joe all my life -

... "unless you p*ss me off" would be more accurate. You like his avatar only because you are waiting for the cable guy and think it is good karma to kiss up to an avatar that looks like one. To each his own.:smile:

Welcome Joe.. you will like your second home!

relaxzoolander doesnt get pissed off.