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There was a point in my learning curve where I thought directory depth was a determining factor in how certain pages performed. I do believe it was a factor at some point in history but that is no longer true. You could have a page sitting at http://www.example.com/t/e/n/l/e/v/e/l/s/ deep and it could perform as well as any other top level page /t/.
Its all about click paths.
A link from your home page to a product ten levels deep will bring that page up in the food chain and put it right at the top of the click path. Basically, one click access. That's like going from the home page to a primary category.
Anything sitting at the top levels of a click path are where your power is. Are you harnessing the power of your internal links to take advantage of click paths? Are you sure that the paths you've established are the right ones?
Do you have a new group of products that you need to gain maximum exposure for? Place the links to those products in an area on one of your top click path pages and watch what happens. Don't bury them in the click path and put them 3, 4 or even 5 clicks away.
Think of it from a PageRank™ perspective. Let's say level 1 is PR9, level 2 PR8, level 3 PR7, level 4 PR6, etc. Notice as you go down the click path, to the deeper levels of your site, PageRank™ normally diminishes (barring outside influences ;). That's how the click path works.
/r/t/e/n/l/e/v/e/l/s/
/9/8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1/0/
Now, taking this one step further, how the heck do you manage click paths on a medium or large scale site? Hmmm, I'd have to give away the recipe, I'll give hints, how's that? Think click paths. Larger sites usually have a bit more power to work with. Level 2 and 3 click paths provide enough power to push further down the chain. Its like building a pyramid from the top down. Think of it like a Borg Pyramid. :)
We can even go one step further and discuss horizontal and vertical click paths. Heck, we can even throw in diagonal click paths while we are at it.
What's your click path look like?
What's your click path look like?
I actually had to go look to be sure. It appears that any page on my 1,500 page site is with-in 3 clicks from the home page, if you take the most direct path. But there are choices, so it could take 4 or 5 clicks, depending on the exact path used.
The top level pages do carry some weight I guess, but put together links from enough bottom level pages and the impact seems to add up too.
The top level pages do carry some weight I guess, but put together links from enough bottom level pages and the impact seems to add up too.
Ah-ha, Reverse Pyramid Link Paths. I like it. We'll sit here and coin all sorts of neat terms and in the process build upon the Pyramid. ;)
A site can have multiple 'entrances'. That is the point of deep linking - delivering the visitor to a given point asap.
We can even go one step further and discuss horizontal and vertical click paths. Heck, we can even throw in diagonal click paths while we are at it.
Absolutely. A site is simply interlinked pages - it is the link connections that give the appearance of structure. We would all be better off if we could just view the nominal home page as a branding signage page rather than as 'the entrance'. When any page can be an entrance it is interesting to chart click paths - a site becomes a much more fluid entity.
From experiments in attracting and converting Social Media site traffic I have found that actually creating multiple semi-customised 'home pages' that bypass or short-circuit the normal site architecture hierarcy can work extremely well in pulling up deep pages (or pushing traffic on down) by enabling other groupings of site information.
I hear many more ecommerce operators talking about tracking click paths (usually looking for conversion failure points) than content webmasters. Perhaps this thread will wake a few up to the possibilities. When a reasonably successful site can have thousands of backlinks there is little excuse for stratified page power. Or for pyramid schemes.
Harnessing the power of your internal links.
This is not a pyramid scheme. ;)
I'm referring to internal links in the original post along with the word "basic". There is of course much more to it than the above, hence the discussion.
But, it all does start with the Pyramid.
This is not a pyramid scheme. ;)
Allow a guy a little literary licence...
I just wanted to nudge click paths out of the box, the site pyramid. I see that mental image as a long time restraint on site linkage design.
Click path analysis and subsequent linking implementations is a powerful tool for both the visitor and conversion rate. Almost glad you exposed it. :-)
that way you have many strong pages with inbound links leading to the depth of your website
