Realize an SEO-friendly internal mesh on Prestashop
Today, when considering the creation of a website or a redesign of an existing site, the implementation of a natural referencing strategy is necessary. To do this, it is essential to define a strategic framework in accordance with your means to define a relevant action plan.
However, whether it is a showcase website, e-commerce or catalog, there are fundamental processes that it is impossible to do without. The internal mesh is one of them. As part of the referencing of an e-commerce site created with Prestashop, it is important to define a clear hierarchy to guide the engines naturally to the most important content (and therefore the products). Discover our advice for setting up an efficient and intelligent internal network.
In this section:
What is internal mesh?
Le natural search engine optimisation is above all a discipline of content. It's impossible to perform on Google without quality and relevant content. Today, natural referencing is no longer limited to the technical optimization of the web pages of its site and the repetition of the targeted keyword in the page. Must be demanding with its content. The latter must be reflected from the design phase, during the definition of the site tree structure where the internal mesh technique will be particularly useful.
Internal mesh: definition
Internal linking is a natural referencing technique which consists of build your site through logical links between your web pages. These can be grouped by theme, this is called the siloing. Internal networking is illustrated by the creation of links between the pages of the same site to transfer power and authority from one page to another.
In France, Laurent Bourrelly gave birth to the concept of semantic cocoon to define the structuring of a site by silos waterproof themes, the aim of which is to feed a so-called "mother" page from web pages arranged at different hierarchical levels. The semantic cocoon is one interpretation of the internal mesh technique among others, but it remains the most famous.
Thus, the objective of the internal mesh is to build a relevant, logical and intelligent circuit of links to allow search engines to understand which pages are the most important on a site. The internal mesh is applied through vertical relationships (hierarchical) between different levels of pages, but also through horizontal relationships (pages of the same level).
Like an inverted funnel, the internal mesh technique must allow the deployment of a main content to a secondary content and therefore more specific, with the aim ofenrich the user experience by offering relevant answers to user requests. To do this, it aims for a clear and relevant organization of content between them on the same website.
What is a good internal mesh?
When we talk about the construction of a relevant internal mesh, it should be known that there are several indicators which characterize a good mesh. We must not lose sight of the fact that the objective is the transfer of authority to a target page. This is good because if we go back to the sources of SEO, Google uses the authority and relevance of a page to rank it and define its positioning in search results. In order to determine this authority, Google relies on multiple signals. the number of links that a page can receive is one of these signals. The home page being the one receiving the most links on a site, it is considered as the main page.
However, it is impossible to limit the definition of a good mesh to the only quantity of links. Indeed, other indicators, such as relevance of anchors and link and the authority of the referring page determine the quality of the links. These criteria are important to define an intelligent mesh.
Also, you should know that the authority transmitted through a link is diluted relative to the number of links on a page. In other words, the more links there are on a page, the more the juice transmitted will be divided. The good distribution of links on the pages helps to design a relevant and efficient network.
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to believe that the internal mesh designates a simple sum of links. A good internal mesh designates path of logical links created between pages of common themes to redirect a whole amount of power to a main page. These links are meant to chew up the work of search engines by indicating directly what the main pages are.
Build a relevant network on an e-commerce site
If the construction of an internal network is necessary on a showcase site as on an e-commerce website, you should know that the latter must be adjusted according to the content presented. Indeed, the number of pages (and therefore of potential links), the type of page and the marketing and commercial objectives will differ quite widely depending on the type of website. It is therefore necessary to apply a method perfectly suited for a Prestashop online sales site at the risk of generating bad results.
Internal networking: what opportunities on a Prestashop-type e-commerce site?
When we talk about a Prestashop sales site, we are talking above all about product sheets and product categories aimed at conversion. The content must necessarily be organized to create navigation routes that lead to maximum sales. It is therefore essential to create paths guiding users to the main pages, that is, those that sell.
The product sheets will be your target pages. Thus, the internal network of the site will have to be exercised around it. In order to orient your links strategically, thehe composition of your product sheets will be a fundamental element. Indeed, a product sheet can be the target of several types of links:
- Links from a product category: these links can be arranged in a description in order to benefit from a semantic contextualization or in a list of products (or catalog of products) that is more neutral in terms of semantics.
- Links from the reception: whether it is about promotions or the highlighting of certain products for several reasons (trends, seasonality, latest releases, etc.), certain product sheets may receive links from the home page of the site. The latter will therefore have a privileged link from the home page, the most powerful page of a site.
- Links from other product sheets: Within the product pages, it is common to organize your network using different types of links. Often generated automatically on CMS (Content Management System) such as WordPress or, in this case, Prestashop, the links can appear within similar products, complementary products or even best-selling products. This type of networking makes it possible to highlight certain content in order to guide users, but also search engines.
If these links can be distributed randomly due to dynamic modules focusing on categories or tags, it is necessary to take advantage of every existing link on a page. In addition, the control of these links is more and more abstract due to a growing number of articles.
However, the internal mesh requires a perfect mastery of each link. Faced with this part of randomness in the promotion of products within the different modules (similar, complementary or better-selling products), the use of a tool like Prestashop must allow you to define the central products of your strategy (depending on their profitability, your stocks or even margins) in order to provide them with extra visibility as well as gain in authority as part of the internal mesh.
Optimize your internal network using external tools
As you will have understood, optimizing its natural referencing does not only involve the work of its meta tags or its netlinking. The organization of content through the internal mesh is essential for optimize its positioning and therefore its visibility within search engine results pages (SERP: Search Engine Results Pages).
At this level, there are premium Addons, like SEO Internal Linking, which automate, in part, the work of internal linking (creation of links, addition of attributes, automation of the update and creation of files, etc.). Nevertheless, it is important to keep control of your internal linking work. Indeed, the modules can be of great help. However, you remain the sole decision maker as to which navigation routes to create.
This solution can be preferred if you have the management of several sites. Then, the automation of certain time-consuming tasks will be an essential element in your workflow.
However, setting up the internal network of a website requires anticipation. In short, the technical implementation should only respond to the application of your strategic framework defined upstream. Native or via an extension, a CMS like Prestashop must allow you to have complete control over the links you want to highlight.
What is the added value in calling on the professionals of a web agency?
The definition of the internal network integrates the strategic construction phase. This is why this work involves taking a position aimed at making relevant decisions based on opportunities that arise in your market, means that you can allocate to the project as well as your business priorities. This work of strategic reflection is therefore reserved for competent and experienced professionals.
Indeed, natural referencing is a discipline whose results can be observed over the long term. Your decisions yesterday will therefore make your success tomorrow. However, to do this, you must make the best choices based on the information you have. Certain technical criteria require perfect knowledge of the SEO profession. From this reflection will result the internal mesh of your website.
Making internal links as part of SEO work is not trivial. Indeed, the importance of links (internal and external links) in the eyes of search engines no longer needs to be demonstrated. Improving the internal networking of its website through a content-centric link strategy is essential. Not only does this help improve the user experience through content enrichment, but it also allows search engines, through their algorithms, to determine which pages on your site are most important.
The contribution of professionalsweb agency in Toulouse is important in terms of time, skill in choosing the networking strategy and technical achievement in setting up links that lead to your target pages. As part of a website redesign, the redirection work can be added to the action plan to be implemented by the referencer (s) in order to concentrate all the power of your links to get the best performance.
Also, it should also be noted that the professional developers of a web agency are fully able to implement your requests in terms of link building. Indeed, on Prestashop, like on any other CMS, a development professional will be able toadapt the dynamic modules present on your product sheets in order to highlight the links that are of interest to you.
In short, internal networking is an essential technique for on-site optimization for natural referencing. This is all the more true when one carries out a commercial strategy using an e-commerce solution like Prestashop.
By identifying your best opportunities thanks to the figures generated via your site or by analyzing user behavior, theThe implementation of an internal networking strategy must lead both robots and users to the most relevant content on the site, in this case to your star products.
Thus, this is an aspect that should not be overlooked if you want to gain visibility on engines like Google by making your way through the ultra-competitive e-commerce market.
