FEATURE FOCUS: Building a Web Site Theme with Silos, Part Three: Folder/Directory Structure

by Bradley Leese, June 29, 2007

The most critical aspect of siloing comes down to the implicit understanding of the Web site’s primary audience. Most Web sites are still often seen by owners and marketers as little more than a glorified brochure. Without a clear directory structure, visitors and search engines are easily lost as to the purpose and theme of the site. Continuing our evaluation of Heifer International, we find that this manner of thinking is in effect and may well be the cause of very narrow search engine rankings. Remember that although the specific recommendations that follow are for Heifer.org, the general principles of silo building apply universally.

Heifer.org garners mostly “Heifer” branded keyword terms. Though these terms produce high activity due this charity's existing high profile, they will do little to attract new visitors who are unfamiliar with Heifer International. It is important to unravel how this site fails to take advantage of high activity keywords and in order to help the site attract and accommodate new visitors.

Heifer.org discusses many subjects throughout their site, documenting their charitable success and the impact they have made towards ending hunger in Africa. However, all this information is not organised in an easily understandable way, nor does it explain to the visitor, be it human or spider, what benefit donating to Heifer International may provide the Governmental, Corporate, Philanthropist, Religious or fundraising groups that choose to give. In other words, the site fails to address the very people it hopes will donate; thereby excluding large groups from even being exposed and solicited to give to Heifer International.

Let’s begin with an exploration of the current status and organisation of Heifer.org. We will end in clear recommendations on how to structure the site towards maximum search engine ranking exposure.

Folder/Directory Structure

Currently Heifer.org is completely flat and offers no real identification of the site’s major subjects in the way it tries to organise content. While there does appear to be loose category grouping which matches the navigation, these subjects do not help Heifer.org to rank for high activity keywords.

URL Structure

The site URLs are numeric page names and lack any sort of logical subject grouping:

Home Page - http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.183217/

Our Work - http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201470/

Get Involved - http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201471/

Now after a careful examination of the Web site you will see that under each major navigation section there are subcategories sections: Our Work, Get Involved, Give, Learn, Inside Heifer. While these subjects may make sense to a human visitor, they do not do much to strengthen high activity subjects that will help Heifer.org rank in the search engines. After a complete evaluation of the site and the current site rankings for each major section, we see that the site is cleanly divided into 5 main parts plus the home page or introduction.

Current Subject Categories

Each major category is relevant for a primary subject theme and after extensive research discussed in Part II it was determined that the site is organised as follows:

From the onset, these categories don’t look too bad; however, upon closer observation they are far from obtaining the maximum opportunities for which the site of a high profile charity is relevant. Based on the current subject grouping used site wide, Heifer International is opting out of literally thousands of monthly visitors leading to potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from wealthy benefactors, governmental giving, corporate giving, fundraisers and individual families. Heifer’s site serves as a perfect educational tool about its own charity, but it offers very little for the people whose donation it needs to end world hunger.

Let’s begin with an analysis of how each of these landing pages or major subject category pages is currently ranking. Afterward we will examine the kinds of subjects the site should adopt in order to attract the greatest number appropriate visitors.

Home Page

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.183217/

Our Work

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201470/

Get Involved

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201471/

Give

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.195980/

Learn

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201472/

Inside Heifer

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201473/

Branding Keywords

Let me reinforce the idea that the problem is not that Heifer International is badly ranked. In fact, we see that they are ranked for some high activity terms. The problem is that these terms are 80% branded terms about Heifer International and the remainder are words that do not target potential donors. While it is critical that any charity be ranked for its name, it is also important to understand that if those keyword phrases are all that the site ranks for, then major traffic opportunities are being missed.

Medium Activity Keywords

Attracting Donors

In order to encourage the maximum amount of donors to give to Heifer International, the Heifer.org Web site needs to dedicate major sections of the site to attracting visitors and then converting these visitors to donors. Instead of expanding the Web site by discussing the organisational structure of the charity, there needs to be several Web pages of keyword rich text content added discussing why giving to Heifer.org is in the best interest of the donor. And in fact Heifer International does discuss these major groups; however, in much less frequency than is required to rank and be relevant for donors. These are the top categories that Heifer needs to focus on in order to increase donors to their Web site:

Generic Charity / Individual Giving

The entire Web site should be a focus of the nature and benefit of giving. In discussing the larger organisations, there should always be an emphasis on individuals to give what they can and how easy and rewarding it is to give. There should be generic information about charities and what a charity is and how it operates with an emphasis on using common charity language to make the site relevant for all generic charity keywords.

http://www.heifer.org/charitygiving/index.html
+ 5-10 Articles

Celebrity / Philanthropy

A major section of the site should address Wealthy Established Families, Celebrities and Philanthropists, welcoming and inviting them to give. Discussion of all legal and related information should be provided to fully explain the benefit of a donation.

http://www.heifer.org/philanthropy/index.html
+ 5-10 Articles

Estate Planning

Build several pages answering the question "Why should heifer.org be made a benefactor in my will?" Explain through case studies or specific examples why Heifer International should be a “Charitable trust” within a will or inheritance.

http://www.heifer.org/estateplanning/index.html
+ 5-10 Articles

Governmental Giving

Explain the nature of nonprofits and the benefit of charities within the context of federal and state law. Explain the economics of charities, why governments can give more or what inherent problems are associated with charitable donations.

http://www.heifer.org/nonprofit/index.html
+ 5-10 Articles

Africa, Asian, South America / Third World Charities

Create a major section on the Web site that describes each geographic location that Heifer.org contributes to with specific sections within the main directory that target location-specific giving.

http://www.heifer.org/worldcharity/index.html
+ 5-10 Articles

http://www.heifer.org/worldcharity’africa/index.html
+ 5-10 Articles

http://www.heifer.org/worldcharity/asia/index.html
+ 5-10 Articles

Religious Giving / Charity

Appeal to denomination-specific charities with examples of each faith based involvement. Document within the appropriate section the groups that help to donate and their missions and organisational focus.

http://www.heifer.org/religiouscharity/index.html
+ 5-10 Articles

Corporate Giving

Consider the reasons for corporate giving and appeal to their interest in giving whether it be corporate social responsibility or tax deductions. Focus this section to document why corporations should donate to Heifer International.

http://www.heifer.org/corporategiving/index.html
+ 5-10 Articles

Fundraising

Provide ideas for all variety of organisations to raise money for Heifer International. Provide fundraisers ideas and case studies of fundraisers in the past.

http://www.heifer.org/fundraising/index.html
+ 5-10 Articles

Next: Part Four A, Link Structure

Learn how virtual architecture will help to focus content subjects and improve subject relevancy within site, navigations elements in internal and external linking. Learn the techniques used to build the maximum effective internal network and eliminate common errors that dilute category subject relevance.

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