onboarding silo

Page Summary:

  • Website siloing organizes pages into clear topical sections using parent, child, and supporting content, with internal linking and navigation that reinforce topic relevance and crawl paths.
  • A silo structure uses hub pages and related subpages to concentrate link equity, clarify entity relationships, and improve indexing, while keeping URL structure, breadcrumbs, and menus aligned to the content hierarchy.
  • Silo execution includes keyword mapping to page intent, controlling cross-links between unrelated topics, reducing orphan pages, and maintaining consistent anchor text, templates, and technical foundations that support performance and usability.

Why Website Siloing Matters for SEO and Topical Authority

Website Siloing is a method of structuring a website’s content by grouping related information within distinct sections or ‘silos’. By organizing content this way, search engines can better understand its context, improving your SEO performance.

The Importance of Website Siloing

Website Siloing offers two primary benefits: enhanced SEO performance and improved user experience.

  • SEO Benefits: Search engines can better understand and index your website by organizing your content thematically. This increased clarity can improve rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs).
  • User Experience: Siloing also benefits users by creating a clear, intuitive site structure, making it easier for visitors to navigate and find the information they need.

How to Implement Website Siloing

  • Plan Your Silos: Begin by categorizing your website’s content into broad topics or themes, each representing a distinct silo.
  • Create Your Structure: Architect your website to reflect these silos. This usually involves creating main category pages and linking them to related subpages.
  • Link Strategically: Within each silo, implement internal linking between the pages. However, minimize linking between pages in different silos to maintain the integrity of each silo’s theme.

Professional Website Siloing with Salterra

Website Siloing is a strategic task requiring understanding your website’s content and SEO best practices. With Salterra, you can ensure this process is handled professionally and accurately to yield the best results for your website’s SEO performance and user experience.

Contact Salterra today to optimize your website with siloing! We look forward to helping you enhance your online presence and user navigation experience.

The first thing we consider when discussing siloing is the website’s structure. This might seem a bit basic, but it’s always a good place to start. So, why is a good silo structure so important? It directs the right traffic to the right area. People often get frustrated, and bounce rates are high when they can’t get to where they want to go quickly.

Let’s say you have a plumbing website that also offers HVAC services. If somebody is there for HVHC, they don’t want to go through all the plumbing stuff to get to the HPAC part. Your siloing dictates where your traffic goes. And I’ve always told my web designers and my team on the web design side that, you know, their job is to navigate where they want the traffic to go.

So, depending on the client services location, you have the public and both sides, two completely different animals. Once you have a solid silo structure in place, you produce higher-quality content, and it’s easier to micro-focus it. Siloing will help in the following:

  • Direct The Right Traffic To The Right Place
  • Public and Bots
  • Better Crawl Quality
  • Easier to Micro Focus
  • Auto Ranking (Mass Page)
  • Go After More Keywords

Getting Started with Your Silo

I’m all about research before I even dig into anything. I want to know everything I can about what I’m getting into. Niche research, keyword research, URL structure, meta tags, and title tags are typical of the work we do for a basic audit. We want to find out. What is the current state of the website is now.

And then again, where do we want that stage to be when we’re finished? There can be several things: changing the navigation structure, adding pages, removing pages, and splitting pages. There are many ways we look at and map our silo structure.

That includes the following:

  • Niche Research
  • Keyword Research
  • URL Structure
  • Meta Tags
  • Title Tags
  • Body Word Content
  • Internal Linking Structure
  • Navigation Structure
  • Footer Structure
  • Sidebar Structure

We want a clear snapshot of what we’re about to do.

URL Structure For Siloing

There are many ways to look at this, and we all encounter different URL structures. Let’s look at the different types of URL structures:

Domain Structure:

Brand Only (salterrasite)

The best URL structure you can have is a brand-only URL.

  • Best for multiple services and locations
  • Best for Growth & Expansion
  • Best for Authority and Power
  • Partial Match (Salterra-web-design)
  • Good for specific services/multi locations
  • Good for growth into new locations
  • Not good for introducing new services
  • Exact Match (Boston-web-design)
  • Good for one service and 1 location
  • Not good for service expansion/new locations
  • The challenge is not to over-optimize the URLs

Inside URL Structure

Brand Only (salterrasite)

A brand-only domain would be a business with multiple services and locations. It is easily scalable to new services and sites, and it provides authority and power across many markets.

Partial Match (Salterra-web-design)

Partial-match domains are for focusing on a brand and a single service.

Like I put here, sell Salterrawebdesign. So. It’s suitable for specific services and multi-location. I can go after all kinds of locations within web design under the web design umbrella, but it does make it a little harder. And even in some spaces damn near impossible to go into. Other services, such as internet marketing software and software development, might be a little closer. Still, you can trap yourself, especially in a highly competitive market.

  • Salterrawebdesign.com/??
  • Salterrawebdesign.com/massachusetts
  • Salterrawebdesign.com/Boston

Exact Match (Boston-web-design)

Exact-match domains are limited to one service and one location and are not suitable for expansion, whether in services or sites. The challenge is that it’s just very hard not to over-optimize the URL structure. So, if you have BostonWebDesign.com and you publish a series of blog posts on web design and cover different types of web development, you’re moving into software development and web design.

  • Bostonwebdesign.com
  • Bostonwebdesign.com /massachusetts
  • Bostonwebdesign.com/??

URL Structure Conclusion

You must watch how you build out your structure when blogging and siloing your inside pages. We have implemented the internal URL structure in a couple of ways and haven’t seen much difference in the internal page structure. We always start with each service having its own service page.

I believe in the state structure more than the city structure.

So, the Massachusetts web design would be the state—top of the state silo for the web design and Massachusetts. And Boston would be the city page.

Obviously, you saw through a web design.com, slash Massachusetts, and Salterra web design.com/Boston. So, we can do Massachusetts slash Boston, you know, a bunch of different structures that way. It doesn’t matter. But we prefer shorter URLs to longer ones.

So, exactly match the same type of thing by some web design slash Massachusetts. And then by some web design, you can’t do much more for Boston except, you know, obviously, load up supporting content. Okay.

Project Example of Siloing

We are going to build a structure around the following:

4 Services

Project Locations

  • National
  • 3 states
  • 5 Biggest Cities/per state Min.

Basic Site Structure

All service-based websites use the basic type or website structure:

Standard Pages

  • Home
  • Contact
  • About
  • Services x 4
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

Below is the new content we will need to build out the local areas:

New Content Site Structure

New Pages Needed Minimum

  • 3 State Pages
  • 5 City Pages
  • 4 Service Pages/City Info
  • 28 Total Pages

New Supporting Content Needed

  • 12 Blog Pages
  • 12 External Pages for Properties
  • 24 Total supporting Pages Month 1

52 Pages of New Content in the 1st Month

Home Page – Title, Description, H-Tags

The home page structure should follow the basics formats:

Keyword = Brand Services

  • Home Page
  • Brand Keyword in Title
  • Brand Keyword in Description
  • Brand Keyword in h1 (1-h1 top of page)
  • Keyword Variable in h2 (Web Designers)
  • Keyword Variable in h3 (business Web Design)
  • Keyword in Body of Text

Examples

Title – Salterra Web Services provides Web Design, SEO, Internet Marketing, and Software Development.

Description – Salterra specializes in helping businesses with all things digital. Web Design, SEO, Internet Marketing, and Software Development. Contact Salterra today

H1 – Web Design – SEO – Digital Marketing – Hosting

H2 – Web Design

H2 – SEO

H2 – Internet Marketing

H3 – Salterra Web Design Services

Salterra’s Perfect Silo

Salterra silo

Salterra Homepage

One of the biggest mistakes we see is people trying to rank their homepage for everything. So we want, at a minimum, to rank for your state; you don’t want to rank any city on your homepage. So you can cause keyword cannibalization and all kinds of problems by focusing. All your efforts are on the homepage and not on your insight pages.

I tell people all the time: your homepage is just to get someone off, whether it’s by phone, email, or an internal page, and into a silo structure. One of the things we try to ensure is that it’s all set up from a brand perspective. On the homepage. So the brand keyword in the title and the description, and the H1 keyword variables, H2 keyword variables, H3, and then the keyword, and the body of the text, that’s normal.

We will also place an H4 at the bottom of the interior pages. So it’s Salterra web services, providing web design, SEO, internet marketing, and software development. So this is a nationwide site, so I’m not mentioning Arizona. We do all these services.

I’m not trying to rank the homepage for any of these services except Salterra.  The description. Salterra specializes in helping businesses with digital web design, SEO, internet marketing, and software development. Contact us today. The H1 includes web design, SEO, digital marketing, and hosting.

That’s it. That’s the homepage. That’s what we do throughout the entire website. Again, I want them to leave this page as quickly as possible.

Home Page Silo

Web Design Silo

This is a web design silo. When someone comes in and clicks Web Design, the link they’re going to pop into the Web Design silo. This silo focuses on web design.

My main nav structure changes. Most people do not do this. I started doing this about a year ago and saw incredible results with ranking for multiple keywords. It’s not that I went from page 2 to page 1 for a keyword. I just went from ranking for 300 keywords to ranking for 600 keywords.

So web design, business websites, church websites, you can see the. The results from Google in six months ago, five months ago, um, e-commerce websites and WordPress website hosting has its silo. So, target markets for our web design silo. Again, nationally, we do send National links there.

We’ll send state links to Arizona, Texas, Nevada, and Colorado. Those were the four we focused on when we started. And then the internal link plan, the same type of deal, web design, variations, naked variations, and brand topic.

Silo Web Design

SEO Silo

Here’s our SEO silo, same thing, local SEO, national SEO.

E-commerce SEO gets a free quote, blah, blah, blah—so same type of thing. We know the results and the numbers; we go after the same target markets, and our internal and external link plans are always the same. So it was going through these internet marketing silos, the same way as software development, silo, the same way.

Search Engine Optimization Silo

Internet Marketing Silo

Silo – Internet Marketing

Software Development Silo

Software Development Silo

Local Web Design Page

So city pages is where the money’s at. Some people call them city service pages, the same thing. We build ours very precisely across all our markets. And so I show mine here. You can review this and see what I’ve done here. I don’t have a problem with that. So basically, the Phoenix web design page. Phoenix, in general, is one of the top five hardest markets in the U S, so just going after web design is pretty freaking tricky.

Target words for web design, honestly, Phoenix, web design, and Phoenix web design variations, and the page structure. I have web design content and Arizona content in the sidebar. I have about Phoenix content, accordions, and the bottom. I have links to the Phoenix area. I have links to the GMB and driving directions to my office in Tempe.

And if you want to see this page, Check out the schema. The target market is Phoenix and Phoenix only. The link plan is internal and external. I do some exact matches here, but they’re typically through a tier-one buffer site. I’m a big believer in buffers, but you can see the same thing, but the money page is the money page.

Local Page Silo

Keep Track Of Your Silo

It’s very important to keep track of how your site and crawl map look. And once you do this, you’ll find out what a successful prey page structure looks like. You can review these. I don’t care if you prevent these rankings; the point I’m making is that the internal pages rank, not the home page.

Siloing Results

Results Of A Perfect Website Silo

Of all these search volumes, the inside page is capturing all the traffic. They’re not even going to the homepage. This is why it’s crucial to have a solid silo structure: you will get the right pages ranking for the correct terms. And that’s what you want. That’s the way you don’t have any keyword cannibalization.

That’s how you can clean up your structure and improve it for your boss and your customers.

Salterra Website Silo Structure

Check Out the Salterra YouTube Channel Playlist for Siloing & Internal Linking Strategies

FAQs about Website Page Siloing

Website siloing is the process of organizing content into structured categories or “thematic silos.” Each silo focuses on a specific topic, with supporting pages internally linked to a main pillar page. This structure helps search engines understand the hierarchy, context, and relationships between entities on your site.

Siloing improves crawl efficiency and reinforces topical relevance. By connecting related content within the same silo, you build stronger entity associations and signal topical authority to Google. This enhances rankings for both primary and long-tail keywords, supporting AI overview and Knowledge Graph visibility.

Site structure refers to your overall website hierarchy, including navigation and architecture. Siloing is a method within site structure that groups semantically related content. Think of site structure as the blueprint, and silos as the specific thematic wings that organize your content.

When pages within a silo link to each other contextually, they create semantic connections. These internal link signals tell search engines that the content belongs to a cohesive topic cluster, making it easier for algorithms to map entities, improve indexing, and show your pages in AI overviews and featured snippets.

All websites can benefit, but it’s especially valuable for multi-service, eCommerce, and content-heavy sites. Industries such as digital marketing, real estate, legal, medical, and home services use siloing to manage hundreds of pages while maintaining SEO clarity and search engine authority.

A basic silo structure starts with a pillar page (the main topic) and supporting cluster pages (subtopics). Each subpage links back to the pillar, and related cluster pages interlink. Using straightforward navigation, optimized breadcrumbs, and logical URLs ensures search engines can follow and reinforce the silo relationships.

Mistakes include:

  • Overlapping topics between silos
  • Too many orphan pages (no internal links)
  • Unclear URL structures
  • Excessive cross-linking between silos
  • Neglecting anchor text variation

Avoiding these errors ensures silos stay distinct and semantically clean.

You should review your site architecture at least twice per year. As new content is added, silos can lose cohesion. Regular audits help identify broken internal links, outdated topics, and entity gaps—keeping your site’s semantic SEO strong and adaptive to algorithm updates.

Yes. By siloing local service areas and location-based pages, you reinforce geo-entities (like “Tempe Web Design” or “Phoenix Roofing”). This improves map-pack visibility and ensures that local intent queries connect to the right landing pages within your siloed structure.

Salterra uses advanced SEO mapping, entity modeling, and internal link strategy to build siloed site frameworks. Each cluster supports a leading service or location page with optimized anchor text, structured data, and topical hierarchy—boosting crawlability, authority, and user experience.

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