Hey all, So, these days, I'm seeing a lot of SEO'd sites that use main keywords as navigation links. Doubleyourdating.com is a good example of this, with main links in the navigation to "Meeting Women" "Attraction" etc...all of which the site ranks highly for. And yet, from a design/ui perspective, this approach just SUCKS. Not only can you only target so many keywords on a page, but it makes navigating the site a little funky from a user's perspective (but that's just my opinion). *Much* better would be to have main links like "About Us" "Contact Us" "Products" and then put all those keyword terms under a section called "Articles." My question is -- is there any way to merge these two approaches? Couldn't you get the same rank and position from having traditional navigation items and then grouping all these keyword phrases under an articles section? Any thoughts? I'm a bit new to the SEO game, so please bear that in mind...
Welcome mate, to the world of SEO! The point you've raised isn't that typical. Google gives huge weight to anchor links as well as internal linking structure. So, to use and merge both linking practices (as you've asked), use traditional linking as your main website; and use keyword phrases as hyperlinks within the content of your page; this is also a very important factor for Google (links within content). But I don't get one thing, you think that it would be FUNKY to place keywords as main navigation? I think it's more user friendly because users' first intention is to get to know what the website is offering (like services, products, downloads and etc.); they are not there to know about "ABOUT US and related pages... (may be later but not in the beginning) Traditional linking and keyword linking (not keyword stuffing) DOES have an impact from SEO point of view. Think for yourself mate, the more candles you'll have in a room, the more brighter the room will get...Just don't overdo it and keep everything natural. Hope you get the picture. Good luck,
Hi, In my own experiences, it is really necessary to use your targeted keywords and their variants in your left or top navigation bar and bread crumb bar. This technique has been proven to be effective for SEO purpose. I don't think this would have conflicts with web designing. A well structured template or theme would work. have a nice day,
Thank you! Ok, so I get that having the keywords in the navigation and breadcrumbs is a good idea. However, after a while, it seems that this would become unmanagable. We just have too many keywords to display there. So, either we'd be forced to pick certain keywords, have multiple sites, or list them all. Seems like it'd get a little crazy. Is there any other way to accomplish this? Perhaps have all the main navigation (about | products | contact ) as IMAGE links, so that google can't pick up on them, and then have another image link titled "Articles" with text links in a left column for all the keywords? Thoughts anyone?