3 replies to this topic

[jophenna]

Hi,

I run a site that sells a wide range of car parts. We have categories, and subcategories under those categories.

E.g.
Alternators (Category)
Ford Alternators, VW alternators (Subcategories)

Bulbs (Category)
Ford Bulbs, VW Bulbs (Subcategories)

Starter Motors (Category)
Ford Starter Motors, VW Starter Motors (Subcategories)

Currently, the navigation on every page has the full list of categories in it; so for example if you are in the Ford Alternators subcategory you can see links to every other category in the navigation bar, with the current category expanded; in the above example the navigation would show:
Alternators
Ford Alternators
VW alternators
Bulbs
Starter Motors

I am considering trying to make the subcategories pages more focussed so that if you are in the Ford Alternators subcategory, the navigation menu shows only links to all subcategories in that category, with a 'show all categories' link; e.g.
Show All Categories
Ford Alternators
VW alternators

The reason I wish to make this change is because we have around 70 categories, and if you are looking at 'Ford Alternators' would you really be interested in starter motors bulbs etc? I want to make the links on the page more keyword specific and reduce the number of links per page. We used to rank number 1 for most of our products in the UK. This is starting to slip and I want to make these pages more specific, so alternator pages have lots of links with the word 'alternator' in them rather than alternator, bulbs, etc.

I think that this may do the trick, but am a bit worried about making such a drastic change without hearing people's opinions about whether this could negatively impact our rankings first.

I hope this makes sense!

Thanks for any comments,
jophenna

[Scirish Guy]

I am not a pro but figured I would leave a suggestion to help out. I was thinking you could do this...

Have the categories on Top as so....This is Home Page

Alternators Bulbs Starter Motors Tires Spark Plugs



Then when they click say "alternators" and would then look like this...Alternators Page

Alternators Bulbs Starter Motors Tires Spark Plugs

Ford
Toyota
Chevy
Honda
BMW
Mercedes
More...



It will then have another sub box on the left side so they can pick what company and still be able to see what other categories you have to offer.

But like I said, I'm not a Pro, I am a just your average joe who surfs the web 5 hours plus a day. Your idea is not bad either, I was just throwing another idea for you so you can decide for your self what is best for your website. If you eliminate the Top categories and have them replaced with the sub categories, then how will your customer be able to surf with ease on your website to search for another part say "spark plugs". Having to click HOME to see the Main categories again is a pain in the butt.

Hope that kind of helps, lol

Alex

[jophenna]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your response.

The problem with that is that we have 70+ categories so it would have to be a vertical navbar.

I was looking to make the pages more targeted for certain keywords, so when you are in a particular category you only see links based on that category. Other irrelevant links are left out... That's what I'm looking to do, but I worried about risking hurting the ranking of other category pages by losing links to them from every page.

Thanks again,
jophenna

[Randy]

If I grasp what you're saying, you're right to be worried. Shutting down your internal navigation to the engines is quite likely to cause some of those interior category pages to take a drop.

If it were me I'd probably use CSS to toggle the full navigation open or closed by the Show All Categories/Hide All Categories link. This way you can simplify things visually for users, but since the links are still in the code, albeit hidden until a user activates them, the engines would still see them as valid links in your internal nav.