Optimising your site to get Google sitelinks.
Google has unveiled a lot on the way its algorithm works and on how the company actually works to promote its own products on the engine. Google Webmaster Central has published an article on the SEO report cards that Google uses to maximize its products’ visibility on its own search engine. There is a lot of things present in there and it all gravitates around tuning up one’s pages for better ranking and increased user interest. One part on which I really perused is the building up of sitelinks.
Sitelinks for the dumb.
Google sitelinks are very easy to spot. They are direct inputs to a site’s inner links, categories, themes… The advantage of such an option is that it allows the user to go directly to some specific part of a site, thus maximising conversion by, for example, removing any redundant step like going through the main page. Sitelinks look like this:
The Google SEO report card defines it as such:
Sitelinks are often a signal to users that they’ve found the result they’re looking for and can help in finding information faster.
How to get sitelinks?
This is the trick question in the whole system. Webmasters can’t choose when sitelinks are shown. Up to now, nobody knows when, how and who triggers the sitelinks. There are different assumptions on the subject but no one really knows if it is human powered or not. However, the report card shows that there is a 56% of changes to have an incoming click through sitelinks on a search engine results page. So what can you do to get sitelinks then?
The SEO report card states that an improved site organisation and good internal linking strategies can improve the chances of getting them. Here are the instructions:
- use a hierarchical site structure
- use descriptive anchor text and links pointing to internal pages
- avoid deep nesting of content behind many subdirectories
Bonus feature.
The bonus given by Google concerning the sitelinks is that they can be optimised for providing relevant information, helping the users find the content they want faster and, a really nice way of putting things, taking up more real estate on the search results page (the result taking more space on the page).
The card coins good sitelinks as “Appealing Google Sitelinks”. These sitelinks are those that really do the job, those that give the relevant information or provide the user with the best options. For those oblivious of the use of Google Webmaster tools, there is an option in it that allows the webmasters to block unappealing sitelinks.
Let’s talk about this…
There you go then. Have your say on sitelinks. I think that some of the information must not be taken as rules of law but believe that they are nice starting points for such optimisations.
Have you been trying to get them for specific sites? Have you been working on them and have you had positive results? Will you be using the Google Webmaster Tools to get those links?
About the Author:
Sachin D. Brojmohun has extensive experience in terms of graphic design, CSS integration, usability and accessibility as well as in SEO. More about him and the Web Design Bureau of Mauritius here: Web Design Mauritius.
Twitter: kurtavish
says:
Nice article. On my side, huh, infact I don’t remember when I got sitelinks. You see it when search Island Crisis keyword.
I was in fact reading an article about sitelinks last year when I decided to check if I have mine. Hup…I found it lol. But I don’t know when exactly it started to appear and didn’t do anything (voluntarily). Maybe however without knowing it I did some of the things needed to get it.. but dunno.
I still need to decide which link to remove though in webmaster tool. Coz there are some which are not that relevant. Eg: the category personal should not be in site link.. in my case.
Kurt Avish´s last blog ..75 Percent of People Say World Will Not End in 2012
Twitter: sachindb
says:
It also depends on the popularity of your site. Island Crisis is, for example, is well seen by Google news and has a lot of weight, this is why you got your sitelinks that fast.
Using GWT is a good thing to manage your links.
Twitter: bbrian017
says:
The only thing I have ever done rehearing site link was block and remove some. I’ve never tried to set then up in any specific way because I simply didn’t know much about them.
I assumed if I kept blocking the ones I didn’t want I would eventually have the ones in which I did want. To be honest I got tired of it all and stopped paying attention.
Twitter: sachindb
says:
Great to have you commenting here Brian. I understand your frustration concerning sitelinks as no one has much information on how they are generated, it gets somewhat weird to try and modify them. Google has them set up manually but nothing more is said.
However, site structure can be improved and some doorways optimised to generate more traffic.
Twitter: WebTechWise
says:
Beyond quick conversions, Google sitelinks also give the website an advantage of looking more professional and eventually increase the chance of the searcher clicking on them instead of another website. I never really knew what are Google’s considerations for listing those links so these tips are very useful, thanks
Twitter: sachindb
says:
Great point Omer. Having sitelinks makes a site take more space on Google’s SERPs above the fold optimising its chances of being clicked compared to competitors’ websites.
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