#080 Content Marketing VIP Newsletter
Find insights on internal linking and site structure strategy of Hitched, eCommerce content strategy, and free content brief template.
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5-minute reads that make you a better marketer, scale your startup, and are straight to the point.
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🎯 Actionable Insights
1. Hitched’s site structure and internal linking strategy
One of the principles of having an effective site structure is placing important pages 2-3 clicks away from the home page.
This helps in passing the value of backlinks and PageRank from one page to another.
Note: Not sure what is PageRank? Read this guide.
Let’s first understand the crawl depth of important pages of Hitched.
The above crawl depth chart shows that the majority of the category and sub-category pages are only 2 clicks away from the home page.
For a large site like Hitched, it takes a strategic approach to effectively implement internal linking.
Here are various strategies Hitched uses to minimize the crawl depth:
1/ Mega Navigation
Depending on the website size, structure, and goal, the navigation style is chosen.
In this case, Hitched uses mega navigation:
This solves a lot of site structure issues such as:
Grouping all important and related pages together
Improving the user experience by showcasing relevant pages at once (no need to click multiple times – which is the case of a regular dropdown menu)
Internal linking and structure of the site improve as everything is connected to the home page
2/ Internal link distribution from the homepage
Currently, Hitched has dozens of category pages (including marketplace directory category, blog category, product category, etc.).
So, one way of improving the internal linking structure is by using the home page to link to most of the category and sub-category pages instead of linking to any single product or blog page.
Here’s the homepage example of Hitched and how they have strategically linked to high-importance pages.
At the same time, the home page also features the latest pages (blog articles, new listings, and product pages).
This helps in indexing new content on Google faster and improving the ranking as PageRank is passing from the most authoritative page (home page) to fresh pages.
👉 Insights from Content Marketing VIP
2. Content strategy for eCommerce sites
One of the must-have content strategies for an eCommerce site is buying guide or how-to guide.
For example, if you’re selling home furniture, a buying guide for furniture will help in:
Driving high buying intent traffic to the site
Improving the internal linking strategy
Building topical authority in your niche
Passing PageRank from blog articles to the category, and product pages
Now, let’s understand the process of building your content strategy around this approach:
1/ Make a list of parent product category pages in your eCommerce site
Here’s an example:
From the above example, we can find some content opportunities such as:
Bed size guide (SV - 500+ per month)
Office chairs buying guide (SV - 100+ per month)
Mattress buying guide (SV - 900+ per month)
Note: Prioritize the keyword list with business value, search demand, and ranking difficulty.
2/ Write the buying guide
Make the content comprehensive and target different keyword variations in sub-headings.
3/ Internal linking with relevant pages
The buying guide is an opportunity to add CTA buttons or internal links to category and product pages.
Here’s the visual illustration of the internal linking strategy for eCommerce sites:
4/ Build backlinks to informational guide
Generally, getting backlinks to your category and product pages is hard as these pages do not provide enough value to readers.
A better approach is to build backlinks to your informational guide (buying or how-to guide).
And, passing the PageRank from guide pages to collection pages and product pages.
Here’s the eCommerce content strategy in action:
Lowes. com is an eCommerce site for home improvement accessories and appliances.
The website has done a brilliant job of building topical authority by publishing dozens of buying and how-to guides related to product categories.
For example, Lowes has published hundreds of informational guides that support its collection pages via internal linking and CTA buttons.
Even if you look at the buying guide articles, you will find links to related product pages and different product category pages.
Here’s an example:
TL;DR
Find the key product categories
Write a detailed buying guide optimized for long-tail keywords
Add CTA buttons or internal links from buying guide to category and product pages.
Build backlinks to your informational pages and improve PageRank
💬 Bite-sized Insights
1. Quick tip to improve your page title and increase CTR
The page title is one of the first things that a user notices about your page in the SERP.
A good title tag should encourage users to click on the results.
Here’s a quick example of how to do that (tips from Alek Asaduryan):
“For example, you’re writing a blog post about: best vacuum cleaners for pet hair
A good, engaging, and well-optimized title tag would be "10 Best Vacuum Cleaners for Pet Hair [According to Pet Owners]".
Here’s the breakdown:
Your primary keyword is “best vacuum cleaners for pet hair” and “according to pet owners” will help you differentiate from the others.
Here are some other tips for title tags:
Avoid typing in all caps.
Keep it short ( up to 50-60 characters )
Add numbers for better CTR
Year in the end
Make it always unique”
👉 Insights from Alek Asaduryan (follow him for more insights on SEO)
🗓️ Learning Resources and Tools
💡 1. A free content brief template that you can send to your writers (sharable)
Not sure how to structure your content briefs to produce better content?
Thruuu (a SERP analyzer) created a content brief sample that your freelance writers or SEO interns can use as a reference.
Best part?
You can simply share the content brief example link with the content team for faster content brief creation.
Here's the screenshot:
👉 Access the free content brief sample (by Thruuu)
💡 2. New guide to understanding Google Search ranking systems
This week, Google published a new guide giving insights on different ranking systems such as:
Core updates
BERT
MUM
Google’s product review updates
Helpful content updates and your website, etc.
Take your time and discover the different systems and algorithms that Google uses to provide search results.
👉 Explore Google’s new guide to Google Search ranking systems