Getting traffic to your website is only part of the battle when it comes to good SEO. Once you’ve got a visitor, you need to grab them, and hold on. You’ve got to make it both compelling and easy for them to navigate the pages.
Why Site Navigation Is Important
Once a visitor finds your site and clicks on it, you will want them to stay for a while and check out all of your content. If you take the time to write and post some great information, will it make a difference if no one can find it?
Hopefully, all this exploration will result in a sale from one of the companies you are affiliated with, or a conversion. After all, that is why you’ve worked so hard to monetise your site, right?
Another plus is that this increases the chance that a visitor will bookmark your site, or add an RSS feed to visit again, and often.
Here are some suggestions for making your website easy to navigate via a variety of Intrasite Links.
Blog Post Permalinks
Take a look at the blog posts which are most popular – the pages visitors land on and exit from the most often, and those that relate most directly to the most popular keyword searches. These are the posts that you want prominently displayed on your home page.
Take a moment to ensure that your permalinks are properly configured, as well. If these posts are old, then you want a permalink address that contains the best keywords, not necessarily the title or the default structure assigned by WordPress or Blogger.
List All Your Categories
A tag cloud is a popular way to list all the categories of your posts in an aesthetically pleasing way. But even if you merely list them in a column, make sure they are easy to find, and to read.
It is a mistake to just list your older postings by month and year. How could a visitor tell what content is included in your articles from a year ago without seeing the categories?
Of course, you will want to make sure your categories are good ones, too. Remember to use your most popular keywords and phrases as category titles.
Include A Site Map And A Search Tool
Always include a site map in addition to a search box– whether yours is a regular website or blog. There is nothing more frustrating for a visitor than to look for content and not find a tool that makes it easy.
Google offers both a search feature and a site map plug-in for free. So there is no reason not to utilise them both.
Related Posts Plug-In
When you create a new post on your blog, be sure that you include a list of related posts beneath it. This is a great way to keep visitors on your pages. After all, chances are that someone who searched for particular content and found one article will want to read more. You can select either a ‘Similar Posts’ or ‘Related Posts’ plug-in for your WordPress blog.
Remember that the more links you can create within your site, the easier it will be for visitors to navigate it. If you have to, get rid of some of the ‘fluff’ – like a calendar, if that makes your design with extra Intrasite Links look more visually appealing.
