How to Structure Your Content Onsite and Off

Here’s a little something I wish I had figured out a long time ago. Structure your onsite and offsite content to make sense to the user.

OK, so maybe I finally have a profound grasp of the obvious. Now how do you accomplish the … obvious?

Think of it this way. First, keyword research. Think of keywords as the titles to your posts, offsite articles and videos, whatever. They can also be your headers and alt tags. Or rather, your keywords get worked into titles and headers that make sense to the reader.

Remember the first rule of rhetoric as taught by the ancient Roman orators: say one thing. Let each video, article, audio recording (like a Roman speech), even every comment say whatever can be put under a single umbrella topic.

Put another way, all the content of your article relates to one keyword or keyword phrase found in your title. The keyword is the umbrella and the all the content fits under it.

And every keyword fits under the umbrella of your site topic. Ideally your homepage site URL is at least representative of the umbrella, so every keyword is relevant to what your URL means in plain English (or whatever language your site is in).

Now it gets a little more complicated. But don’t make it too complicated. Its just that there’s a difference between onsite and offsite content. Onsite content is your stuff. Offsite content is like votes about your stuff. Or independent witnesses. Even if you write it.

Ideally, each page, post, audio, and video ON your site will act like an umbrella term for as many OFF-site pieces of content as possible. To illustrate in keyword terms, the titles of, say, five offsite articles or guest blog posts are subtopics of a single onsite page topic. Actually, the titles need not be subtopics, but should at least be directly relevant to the onsite keyword.

For your marketing purposes, the idea is for your offsite content to advertise your onsite content. Offsite stuff should point viewers to click to your site so that they have a chance to sign up or buy from you.

… Which introduces a complicating wrinkle: Anchor text. Anchor text is the “click here” words that link your offsite content with your relevant onsite content. Anchor texts are keywords, or that’s the way the search engines look at it. Anchor texts are like titles in that they convey a unifying, umbrella topic, notably the one topic of the onsite content to which the link points.

Anchor text in your offsite content should relate that offsite content with your onsite content. As a matter of fact, anchor text can ALSO relate one piece of onsite content (or one onsite page) with another piece of onsite content.

For example, see another post on this blog regarding how to write headlines–isn’t that relevant?–or another post on tips for choosing keywords.

I suppose the old principle of saying one thing was intended to maximize the potential to capture and hold the audience’s attention. Its easier to organize if you have a single guiding light or pole star.

Of course in the internet age, people type in searches looking for one thing. If they find your offsite or onsite content in their search, you have a better chance of capturing and holding your viewer’s attention if your content stays on topic.

P.S. Much of the above I owe to Niche Profit Classroom, with which I am affiliated.

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Tags: anchor text, structuring content