Some people say that a silo structure will help your web site earn search engine points. Here's how to create that structure using WordPress.

If you tried creating categories and sub-categories in the past, you probably ran into the duplicate content issue. If, for example, you had a category called Category1, and your post's address looked like this:

www.example.com/category1/title-of-post-1/
www.example.com/reviews/title-of-review-1/

Your visitors will see all your posts under Category1 by simply visiting:

www.example.com/category1
www.example.com/reviews

However, they would also see something similar if they visit:

www.example.com/categories/category1
www.example.com/categories/reviews

(Assuming you did not change the default permalinks setting in Wordpress.)

Here's the solution in Wordpress: Create Pages (and sub-pages) instead of Posts.

With Pages, your articles (sub-pages, actually) can look like this:

www.example.com/PageTopic/SubpageTitle/
www.example.com/reviews/title-of-review-1/

Since this is a Page and not a Post, you won't find this page in
www.example.com/categories/reviews

...which means you won't find a duplicate entry. Some may argue that WP Pages are placed in the "Uncategorized" category, but if you check www.example.com/categories/uncategorized you probably won't find any Pages listed there.

If you visit the Forum on Silo Structure, Theme Coverage & LSI (The Plan Part II), you'll read that each silo (or folder in your web site) should have at least 5 articles to establish a theme.

In other words, each parent page you create in WordPress should have 5 sub-pages.

You might be wondering how usable your WP site will be, because the WP search button allows your visitors to search only through posts, but not through pages. In SEO-Friendly WP Plugins, check out the Search Everything Plugin.

So, will this work? Do WordPress pages perform better than WP posts in the search engines? Stay tuned for the results...

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"Silo Structure SEO and WordPress"
First Posted: March 2, 2007 | Filed in: SEO

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