Links are part of the puzzle, but if your site makes no sense and doesn’t do a good job of matching up intents to templates and pages, all the links in the world aren’t going to help. I want to take people through the process of matching intents to templates first. Don't worry we'll still get to links, but we'll start with the more under-used part. The process is roughly: building your keyword area, gathering all the SERP data, grouping those keywords into intents, analysing those the SERP groupings for those keywords, turning the output into page and keyword targeting and then evaluating how the process went, because crucially this is a process. You probably won’t nail it first time. For the links part we'll evaluate 5 main principles for building an information architecture. - Aim for a shallow pyramid - Don't have dead end pages - Use anchor text - Link topics together - Don't link to non-indexable URLs

1. Getting your house in order

7. What is
Information
Architecture?

12. We don’t really
agree

13. And no-one uses less
than 2000 words and
at least 3 acronyms.

14. “Deciding how something will
be organized”
abbytheia.com

15. “Deciding how something will
be organized” - (DHSWBO)
abbytheia.com

16. What do SEOs think it
means?

17. LIINNNKKKS

18. (INTERNAL)
LIINNNKKKS

19. Matching up
intents to
templates &
pages

20. How you link &
relate those
pages so
search engines
understand the
relationship
Matching up
intents to
templates &
pages

21. How you link &
relate those
pages so
search engines
understand the
relationship
Matching up
intents to
templates &
pages

22. 4

24. 2000

27. How you link &
relate those
pages so
search engines
understand the
relationship
Matching up
intents to
templates &
pages

28. Your customers will
see the right pages at
the right points in
their journey.

30. Don’t worry we’ll still look
at links

31. How you link &
relate those
pages so
search engines
understand the
relationship
Matching up
intents to
templates &
pages

32. Matching up
intents to
templates &
pages

35. How about
some real life

40. Matching up
intents to
templates &
pages

42. I re-targeted the guide
and redirected the
advert.

43. Bounce Rate Pages / Session
Before 56.23% 1.53
After 31.47% 4.70

44. Nah we’re
good.
CHANGE ONE
MONTH
FIVE
MONTHS

45. Keeping this
tangible

46. Lucky Images /
Shutterstock

47. Lucky Images /
Shutterstock

48. Lucky Images /
Shutterstock

49. Lucky Images /
Shutterstock

50. Example:
Buying a car
Lucky Images /
Shutterstock

51. Matching up
intents to
templates &
pages

52. Matching up
intents to
templates &
pages

54. GIANT
SPOILERS

55. Matching up
intents to
templates &
pages

56. Who buys your product?

57. Who buys your
product?
Dave
● Looking to
upgrade on
old car
Alice
● Moved out,
now, getting
first car

58. Who buys your product?
Build customer profilesWhat are the steps to buying?

59. What are the steps to buying?
Building
requirements
Compare
competitors
Looking
around
List of cars
Looking for
deals
1 2 3
4 5

60. Who buys your product?
Build customer profilesWhat are the steps to buying?
Build customer profilesHow can you reach people in each step?

61. How can you reach people in each step?
Building
requirements
Compare
competitors
Discovery List of cars
Looking for
deals
1 2 3
4 5
Offline
Social Organic Search Organic Search
PPC
EmailOrganic Search

65. How can you reach people in each step?
Building
requirements
Compare
competitors
Discovery List of cars
Looking for
deals
1 2 3
4 5
Offline
Social Organic Search Organic Search
PPC
EmailOrganic Search

66. Who buys your product?
Build customer profilesWhat are the steps to buying?
Build customer profilesHow can you reach people in each step?
Build customer profilesWhere search is the answer, get keywords

67. Where search is the answer, get keywords
Building requirements - vw golf
vw golf review
vw golf reliability
vw golf exterior
vw golf specs
vw golf mpg
vw golf r horsepower
vw golf tdi mileage
vw golf length
vw golf interior dimensions
vw golf trunk space
vw golf tire size
2012 vw golf review
2012 vw golf interior
2012 vw golf mpg
2012 vw golf specs
2012 vw golf reliability
2012 vw golf length

68. Who buys your product?
Build customer profilesWhat are the steps to buying?
Build customer profilesHow can you reach people in each step?
Build customer profilesWhere search is the answer, get keywords
Build customer profilesHow to split those keywords into pages?

69. How to split those keywords into pages?
vw golf review
vw golf reliability
vw golf exterior
vw golf specs
vw golf mpg
vw golf r horsepower
vw golf tdi mileage
vw golf length
vw golf interior dimensions
vw golf trunk space
vw golf tire size
2012 vw golf review
2012 vw golf interior
2012 vw golf mpg
2012 vw golf specs
2012 vw golf reliability
2012 vw golf length

70. Who buys your product?
Build customer profilesWhat are the steps to buying?
Build customer profilesHow can you reach people in each step?
Build customer profilesWhere search is the answer, get keywords
Build customer profilesHow to split those keywords into pages?

71. Turning
keywords
into pages

72. bit.ly/page-to-
keyword

73. We start with
our keywords
vw golf review
vw golf reliability
vw golf exterior
vw golf specs
vw golf mpg
vw golf r horsepower
vw golf mileage
vw golf length
vw golf interior dimensions
vw golf trunk space
vw golf tire size
2012 vw golf review
2012 vw golf interior
2012 vw golf mpg
2012 vw golf specs
2012 vw golf reliability
2012 vw golf length

74. Go and scrape
the top 10 - 20
for our
keywords
The URLs that
rank 1 to 20
Rich snippet
information

75. Your favourite rank
tracking tool.

76. Get title &
meta for the
top 10 - 20

77. Export with rank, or just
crawl them.

78. Get domain
strength

79. APIs or URL Profiler

80. Go and get all
the existing
pages and
templates

81. Enough data
gathering.

82. Review
vw golf review
vw golf reliability
vw golf exterior
Specs
vw golf specs
vw golf mpg
vw golf r horsepower
vw golf mileage
vw golf length
vw golf tire size
vw golf trunk space
vw golf interior dimensions
2012 Review
2012 vw golf review
2012 vw golf interior
2012 Specs
2012 vw golf mpg
2012 vw golf specs
2012 vw golf reliability
2012 vw golf length
Take a punt at
grouping the
keywords
semantically

83. TERM

84. TERM LANGUAGE APIS

85. TERM BY HANDLANGUAGE APIS

86. Review
vw golf review
vw golf reliability
vw golf exterior
Specs
vw golf specs
vw golf mpg
vw golf r horsepower
vw golf mileage
vw golf length
vw golf tire size
vw golf trunk space
vw golf interior dimensions
2012 Review
2012 vw golf review
2012 vw golf interior
2012 Specs
2012 vw golf mpg
2012 vw golf specs
2012 vw golf reliability
2012 vw golf length

87. Match up the
groups we
made to
pages

88. SpecsReview SpecsSpecs
2012
Review
2012
Specs
Retarget
Create

90. What pages is
Google
showing for
your
grouping?
vw golf interior
dimensions
specific
specific
specific
specific

91. What pages is
Google
showing for
your
grouping?
vw golf reliability
specific
specific
general
specific
specific
specific

92. What pages is
Google
showing for
your
grouping?
2012 vw golf reliability
general
general
general
general
general

93. Specs
vw golf specs
vw golf mpg
vw golf r horsepower
vw golf mileage
vw golf length
vw golf tire size
vw golf trunk space
vw golf interior dimensions
What actually
ranks?
What ranked
General specs page
General specs page
General specs page
General specs page
Specific dimension page
Specific dimension page
Specific dimension page
Specific dimension page

94. We’re going to look for
occurrence of terms in
the URL, title & meta

95. You’ll average across all
the keywords for a page

96. You’re stronger than
competitors
You’re weaker
than competitors
SERP is
specific
pages
SERP is
general
pages

97. You’re stronger than
competitors
You’re weaker
than competitors
SERP is
specific
pages
SERP is
general
pages
Specific pages
Few specific
pages

98. You’re stronger than
competitors
You’re weaker
than competitors
SERP is
specific
pages
SERP is
general
pages
General or
specific pages
Specific pages
Few specific
pages

99. You’re stronger than
competitors
You’re weaker
than competitors
SERP is
specific
pages
SERP is
general
pages
General or
specific pages
Specific pages
Few specific
pages
Deprioritize

100. Is this group
genuinely new? (i.e.
no-one has covered
them)

101. Source:
https://www.instagram.com/avocadotoast/?hl=en

102. Source:
https://www.instagram.com/avocadotoast/?hl=en

103. Source:
https://www.instagram.com/avocadotoast/?hl=en

104. Source:
https://www.instagram.com/avocadotoast/?hl=en

105. Source:
https://www.instagram.com/avocadotoast/?hl=en

106. Source:
https://www.instagram.com/avocadotoast/?hl=en

108. You’re stronger than
competitors
You’re weaker
than competitors
SERP is
specific
pages
SERP is
general
pages
General or
specific pages
Specific pages
Specific Pages
Few specific
pages

109. Review
vw golf review
vw golf reliability
vw golf exterior
Specs
vw golf specs
vw golf mpg
vw golf r horsepower
vw golf mileage
vw golf length
vw golf tire size
vw golf trunk space
vw golf interior dimensions
2012 Review
2012 vw golf review
2012 vw golf interior
2012 Specs
2012 vw golf mpg
2012 vw golf specs
2012 vw golf reliability
2012 vw golf length
Original
keyword
grouping

110. Review
vw golf review
vw golf exterior
Specs
vw golf specs
vw golf mpg
vw golf r horsepower
vw golf tdi mileage
vw golf tire size
2012 Review
2012 vw golf review
2012 vw golf interior
2012 vw golf mpg
2012 vw golf specs
2012 vw golf reliability
2012 vw golf length
With updated
keyword
grouping, re-
target and
create pages
Dimensions
vw golf interior dimensions
vw golf length
vw golf trunk space
Reliability
vw golf reliability

111. SpecsReview SpecsSpecs
Dimensions
2012
Review
Reliabilit
y

112. We wait.

113. Rinse &
Repeat

114. Go to search
console. Pull
down data.

115. Look for how
well
assignment
worked and
ping-ponging
Suspicious SERP Flux: bit.ly/2wMES8M

116. Re-work
keyword
targeting
New keywords that need
assigning
vw golf trunk space
vw golf boot dimensions
vw golf fuel consumption
Existing keywords that
are changing pages
vw golf tire size
vw golf mileage

117. Consolidate
pages you
don’t need
Specs
Old blog post
on VW golf
specs

118. If you’ve sorted out
the targeting. If it all
makes sense...

119. LIIIIINNKKKKS
SpecsReview SpecsSpecs
Dimensions
2012
Review Reliability

120. How you link &
relate those
pages so
search engines
understand the
relationship
Matching up
intents to
templates &
pages

121. How you link &
relate those pages
so search engines
understand the
relationship

122. Roughly work from
first principles
And be ready to compromise.

123. In the beginning there was page rank

126. Google has
added a lot
more

127. 1. Theoretically important.
Important aspects of links

128. How important
are links now?

136. 1. Theoretically important.
2. Anecdotally but not consistently
important.
Important aspects of links

138. It’s hard to
isolate and
measure
CONTROL VARIANT

139. 1. Theoretically important.
2. Anecdotally but not consistently
important.
3. Really hard to measure.
Important aspects of links

140. ~60% had the
wrong intuition
dis.tl/2OK99hz

142. 1. Theoretically important.
2. Anecdotally but not consistently
important.
3. Really hard to measure.
4. Complex to use and be technically
correct
Important aspects of links

143. Roughly work from
first principles
And be ready to compromise.

144. 3 more users bounced when
you added more links.

145. Those links are hard to pull in. It’ll
add an additional 3 days of dev.

146. How you link &
relate those pages
so search engines
understand the
relationship

147. Aim for a shallow pyramid

148. Shop
Blog

154. What do you mean I can’t put all my
category links on the homepage?

155. Doorway pages

156. Relative navs
Car Hire in LondonHotels in London

158. Why not map
every page?

159. Only the first
path is shown

160. A different
story

161. Finally.
Insight.

163. Aim for a shallow pyramid
Don’t have dead end pages

169. Aim for a shallow pyramid
Don’t have dead end pages
Use useful anchor text

170. Anchor text. Use it.

171. Aim for a shallow pyramid
Don’t have dead end pages
Use useful anchor text
Link topics together

172. Review
VW Golf

173. Review
Reliability
VW Golf

174. Review
Reliability
Specifications
VW Golf

175. Review
Reliability
Specifications
2012 Review
VW Golf

176. Review
Reliability
Specifications
2012 Review
History
VW Golf

177. Dimensions
Review
Reliability
Specifications
2012 Review
History
VW Golf

178. Dimensions
Review
Reliability
Specifications
2012
Review
History
VW Golf
Dimensions
Review
Reliability
Specifications
2012
Review
History
BMW

179. Aim for a shallow pyramid
Don’t have dead end pages
Use useful anchor text
Link topics together
Don’t link to non-indexable URLs

180. All indexable pages
should be unique
landing pages

181. Let’s get
sculpting

182. 50%
0%
(We’re ignoring the damping factor here)
10
5

183. Redirects
Blocked URLS
Non-canonical URLs
No-indexed URLs
Things we
want to avoid

184. Altering links

185. example.com/url1

186. example.com/url1?tracking=nav
example.com/url2?tracking=nav

187. #
Methods to pass data across page
requests

188. Removing links

191. What looks like a
link but isn’t a link...

192. <a href=”/blog/”>Blog</a>

193. <a href=”/blog/”>Blog</a>
<a onclick="window.location.href=/blog">Blog</a>

194. <a href=”/blog/”>Blog</a>
<a onclick="window.location.href=/blog">Blog</a>
<span onclick="window.location.href=/blog">Blog</a>

195. <a href=”/blog/”>Blog</a>
<a onclick="window.location.href=/blog">Blog</a>
<span onclick="window.location.href=/blog">Blog</a>
<span data-href=”/blog/”>Blog</a>

196. <a href=”/blog/”>Blog</a>
<a onclick="window.location.href=/blog">Blog</a>
<span onclick="window.location.href=/blog">Blog</a>
<span data-link=”/blog/”>Blog</a>
<span data-href=”/blog/”>Blog</a>

197. Aim for a shallow pyramid
Don’t have dead end pages
Use useful anchor text
Link topics together
Don’t link to non-indexable URLs

198. This is not a 1 month win

199. Next week

200. Who buys your product?
Build customer profilesWhat are the steps to buying?
Build customer profilesHow can you reach people in each step?
Build customer profilesWhere search is the answer, get keywords
Build customer profilesHow to split those keywords into pages?

201. Who buys your product?
Build customer profilesWhat are the steps to buying?
Build customer profilesHow can you reach people in each step?
Build customer profilesWhere search is the answer, get keywords
Build customer profilesHow to split those keywords into pages?

202. Aim for a shallow pyramid
Don’t have dead end pages
Use useful anchor text
Link topics together
Don’t link to non-indexable URLs

204. Get your house in order

206. @dom_woodman
bit.ly/page-to-keyword