Your Theme-Based Content Site is made of a home page that
gives the “what's in it for me” about your site. It elaborates on the VPP
(Valuable Preselling
Proposition)
and delivers the major benefit statements.
Think of your site as a pyramid, with the home page crowning the pinnacle.
Your home page should link to seven other pages. These seven Keyword- Focused
Content Pages will contain content that is about your most profitable keywords
and that fit with the whole Site Concept and VPP.
Review your master keyword list and select your seven best keywords
(select on the basis of profitability and fit). You will link your home
page to these seven, both within the body copy, as you outline what the
site is all about, and from within a text or graphic navigation bar (navbar).
Your home page should not link to any of your merchant partners, it’s
too early. Its job instead is to link to your highest profitability pages.
It must get the click to at least one of these seven pages. This is important
for two reasons
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Your visitor hits a money page, your highest profitability Keyword- Focused
Content Pages weave “in-context” text links to your merchant partners while
overdelivering great content. This is how you make your income, so we want
to lead your visitors to your highest potential pages.
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Your spider-buddy follows the links and indexes (i.e., brings back to the
Search Engine’s database) your most important pages first, and most reliably;
the deeper a spider has to go, the more likely it is that he misses and
fails to bring your bacon back to his database home.
So we want to structure our site so that the highest profitability pages
have the best chance of being dragged back to all those spiders’ homes.
We’ll call your seven highest profitability pages “tier 2” pages, since
they are on a second tier below the home page. Each of these pages can
themselves link to 5-10 pages, “tier 3” pages.
You likely won’t pick the absolute 7 highest potential keywords. Some
will be too close in meaning. Others may not easily lead to a tier 3, as
we’ll see in a second. So you pick the 7 that make the most sense and help
to form the strongest site overall.
tier 3 pages should relate to the tier 2 page that links to it. For
example, let’s say that “outlet malls” is one of the most profitable keywords
that your research has found. What do you do?
Create a tier 2 Page (outlet-malls.html) called Top Factory
Outlet Malls Where You Can Shop Via The Net. This page links to tier
3 pages
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a page that ranks the top shoe outlets that allow you to shop via the Web
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another that rates the top clothing outlets
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also to the best fur discount malls, clothing outlets, Nike outlets, etc.
Here’s a key point about tier 3: your main keyword tier 3 might be not
so profitable. There is not much demand for “fur discount malls.” But that
does not mean that your “best fur discount mall” page has to suffer. Find
a stronger, more in demand, related keyword. For example, I would focus
on “fur coat” (use your demand window to verify, of course). Offer great
content about fur coats, and then lead into the best places to get great
bargains on these expensive items.
The formula is the same: overdeliver great content. Then get the click
to your merchant partners.
So, your tier 1 home page links to 7 tier 2 pages (not more, because
your navbar starts looking pretty congested). And your tier 2 pages each
link to 5- 10 tier 3 pages. Something like this
This clean, 3 tier approach yields an easy, navigable site, for both
your visitor and your spiders. Spiders always come in through the front
door (as long as you submit the home page to them). From there, you’ve
left a nice trail to follow. So they can easily index the rest of your
pages.
Humans may find any page, tier 1, 2, or 3, via the engines. So each
tier 3 page should provide a link back to its related tier 2. And the same
for tier 2 to tier 1. Otherwise, keep internal linking only to what’s really
necessary and relevant. Remember that your real goal is for your visitor
to click to your merchants!
After 3 TIERS and 50-70 pages, it gets tougher to get pages indexed.
By this time, however, you should pretty much own this little niche. And
your time will yield greater returns if you set up your next niche site.
For example
Worldsbest-ElectronicFactory-outlet-stores.com
Remember, each niche stands on its own.
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Worldsbest-SportsFactory-outlet-stores.com
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Worldsbest-ElectronicFactory-outlet-stores.com
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Worldsbest-FurnitureFactory-outlet-stores.com
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Worldsbest-MusicFactory-outlet-stores.com
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Worldsbest-WhateverElseExistsFactory-outlet-stores.com
But once you have three niches established, there's one more tier, above
all the other ones. Let’s call it tier zero
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Worldsbest-Factory-outlet-stores.com
This Super Home Page links to all the other home pages and again,
delivers the VPP and major benefits of your mini-portal.
By now, too, you are likely offering pay-per-click banner advertising
and even linking to your own store. You’ve got a thriving business! But
that’s a bit down the road. |
As the spiders gather up your tier 1, 2, and 3 pages, the computer programs
that analyze them are getting smarter and smarter, and theme-focused. What
does that mean to you?
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They’ll analyze all your pages in their databases and decide upon the overall
theme of your site. So none of your pages should be off-theme, or you’ll
confuse it. If you have a great idea for a highly profitable Keyword- Focused
Content Page that is off theme, save it for your next niche.
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Have you already created a bunch of gateway pages by simply duplicating
one of your pages and then replacing one keyword with a different one?
These “almost identical” gateways were successful through 1998 and 1999.
But they are losing effectiveness rapidly and will soon be compressed out
of existence by these smart programs that look across all the pages in
your site, even across different sites! Time to make a change.
So much for the structure of your site. Now let’s fill that structure with
content. |