What is a Website Silo?

A silo is essentially a structure that’s given to a website to make it easier for users to navigate their way through it. It’s a great technique that’s used to visually group and display website pages together, usually by category, that works well for both user experience (UX) and SEO. 

Website siloing will generate optimisation around a particular topic that you wish to place more emphasis on. Google will also crawl your website and see siloing as a positive aspect, which will, in turn, boost your rankings. But let’s delve into what a silo structure is, why it’s important and the different types of siloing that’s out there.

What is a ‘silo’ structure?

As already discussed, a silo structure will group content, whether it be website pages or articles you have published, together in a way that search bots will deem positive and easy to navigate. If you have multiple website pages on your site that are advertising many products and/or services, then it’s likely they’ll already be grouped by category. The general rule of thumb is to have around five or six website pages under one category, but each of those pages in that specific category will be linked to the other pages that sit under the same category also. Think of it like a flow chart or the layout of a family tree.

Why is a ‘silo’ structure so important?

A silo structure might also be referred to as a content cluster. It’s a strategy used by digital marketers to improve website information architecture as well as to make it easier for website users to navigate your site and find exactly what they’re looking for, which will subsequently reduce bounce rates and increase conversion rates. You might also find that grouping your content in this way makes the website look more professional and aesthetically-pleasing which, in turn, will help to build up your brand and gain trust with customers in the process.

Each soil that is created will encourage the user to look further into the products and/or services you have on offer, because they will all be relevant. For example, let’s say your company fits bathrooms, someone who is looking to renovate their bathroom will need more than just a plumber. Your company could offer plumbing services as well as plastering and tiling services. 

If someone clicks on your bathroom suite range page, they’ll learn you can not only supply the suite, but fit it as well. They’ll also find out that you can do all of the finishing touches for them as well. If every single one of your relevant, categorised pages are siloed, then the user will be able to find this out much more easily than if they were laid out as separate website pages. They can follow internal links and go backwards and forwards through the pages at their leisure, but with very little effort required on their part.

What are the different types of ‘silo’?

There are different ways of siloing relevant content on a website. If you aren’t sure how to do it, then look to a digital marketing agency, such as us here at Kumo, for help. We will be able to overhaul your website, siloing relevant pages together to make things easier for your customers and to boost your rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs). We’ll be able to talk you through every stage of the process, explaining what’s being done and why it’s beneficial for you and your business. The different ways of siloing include:

An organisational silo

This is the most simple way of siloing content. It involves putting content into specific categories in order to make it obvious to Google, and other search engines, that the content is about a particular topic. A silo that is ‘organised’, will allow your website to rank for a wide range of different subtopics, especially if all related pages are internally linked to each other. This is an especially successful tactic if you’re looking to improve SEO rankings on Shopify sites.

Physically siloing

This is the building of link structures into the URL itself. For example, if you wanted to physically silo a page that contains content about a specific product, let’s say it’s a toothbrush, then the URL might look something like this: http://www.brushmyteeth.com/toothbrushes/electric/dental/*product* . This is something that was once considered to be an important part of siloing. 

However, SEO professionals in the industry deem it to be less critical nowadays. This is because Google has gone far beyond the basic URL organisation technique. The search bots need to be able to see real content that’s grouped together in a relevant manner with solid keywords in order to deem the site trustworthy. Although you can still silo content in this way, it’s no longer considered to be a wholly effective method.

Virtual siloing

This is more focused on how a search engine indexes the content it sees. An internal link will group relevant pages together which automatically discounts unrelated pages. As a result, the landing page of each silo is strengthened from an SEO point of view. This specific structure will indicate to the bot that those pages are connected together via a series of specific keywords and phrases. 

This means that those pages will be far more likely to rank for those keywords and phrases than any other page on your site, if it’s unrelated. Going back to the bathroom example, your tiling, plumbing and bathroom plastering pages will all be internally linked and contain keywords that can be used interchangeably between them. 

However, you might also offer kitchen units, kitchen fitting services and kitchen tiling services. Those kitchen service pages will not rank for “bathroom tiling” because they’re all completely unrelated and nor will there be any internal links to bathroom fitting services from your kitchen services pages. Although, a separate silo can be created for your kitchen pages, just like how they would be for your bathroom pages. This means they’ll rank for “kitchen tiling”, and so will all of your other kitchen services pages.

Kumo Digital have over two decades of experience in the digital marketing industry. With an innovative, forward-thinking approach to everything we do, you can count on us to catapult your business into the spotlight, setting you apart from your competitors. We have a team of PPC experts, SEO specialists, dedicated website designers and knowledgeable content writers at the helm of our operations, so you can rest assured that you’ll only ever be receiving unrivalled customer service every single time. For more information about how we can help you today, get in touch with a member of our professional team – we’re always pleased to hear from you.