Comments on: New Hyperlocal Experiment: Topic Pages

By: Ongoing SEO Tactics for Hyperlocal Blogs : HyperlocalBlogger

Ongoing SEO Tactics for Hyperlocal Blogs : HyperlocalBlogger — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:11:55 +0000

[...] for this post about ongoing SEO, and it’s a reminder of something I wrote about previously: Topic Pages. These are useful when you find yourself blogging repeatedly about a single topic, like an annual [...]

By: Google Offers a Topic Page Plugin … Skip It : HyperlocalBlogger

Google Offers a Topic Page Plugin … Skip It : HyperlocalBlogger — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:44:32 +0000

[...] this for a koinkydink: Just when we’ve been talking a lot about topic pages for local blogs, Google announces a set of WordPress plugins for what it calls “Living Story [...]

By: Creating Multiple Community Pages On Your Hyperlocal Blog

Creating Multiple Community Pages On Your Hyperlocal Blog — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:51:10 +0000

[...] McGee at Hyperlocal Blogger has recently written a similar article about how he is creating hyperlocal topic pages. Matt is using SEO on his topic pages to drive additional traffic. Check it out if you would like [...]

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:22:47 +0000

I just posted a brief update on this topic page experiment. You can see that at this URL:

http://www.hyperlocalblogger.com/update-topic-page-experiment/

By: Update: Topic Page Experiment : HyperlocalBlogger

Update: Topic Page Experiment : HyperlocalBlogger — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:20:15 +0000

[...] been two weeks since I posted here on HLB about creating permanent topic pages for our hyperlocal blogs — an attempt to solve the problem of old blog posts getting search [...]

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:27:06 +0000

Great conversation here, thanks for all the replies.

@Jason — I’ll update the topic page for this event every year with the new details like date, time, raffle prize, etc. But a lot of the stuff will stay the same. As long as the URL stays the same, it should eventually become the page that people find when they search for info about the event.

@Shafqat — I’ll be doing it manually. There are no feeds that I’m aware of related to this event that I could pull in. It’s very small-town stuff we’re talking about. And yes, definitely need to write a good intro paragraph as you mentioned, something that will remain constant as an explanation of what the event is on a general level.

@Steve – yes, I do often link from Flickr photos back to blog posts where the photo is used, or where there’s more info related to the photo. It does occasionally send some traffic, even if there are no direct SEO benefits.

By: Steve Sherron

Steve Sherron — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:51:47 +0000

I think this is a good idea for all hyperlocal bloggers. I’m not sure if I can hide a “page” with the theme I’m using, but I will check. Are you going to build links from Flickr back to your site, even though Flickr is nofollow?

Thanks for another helpful article.

By: Alistair

Alistair — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:09:25 +0000

If you're looking for some amazing examples of topic pages, have a look through an experiment that Google ran with a number of the top newspapers called Living Stories. These go far beyond a simple hand curated page, ala wikipedia style, but it does give you an idea of what is possible with this concept and I personally think it is fantastic.

By: Ed Walker

Ed Walker — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:12:02 +0000

@Shafqat Thanks – will keep you updated.

I agree about the summary. It’s important to do that. If you’ve got a lot of content you can split it as well, maybe by year, maybe by content type. Whatever the easiest way to mix it up is.

I think it would be really handy that everything you mention ‘Topic X’ in an article you’re linking to the ‘Topic X’ page.

You touch on reader engagement as well – that’s very important. People will stay on your site longer if they see there are more articles about that topic to read, give people the chance to immerse themselves and they will!

By: Shafqat

Shafqat — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 21:48:03 +0000

@Ed – absolutely correct. By intelligently linking from and to the topic pages, you can create a lot of engagement for your readers. We’ve found that putting the “Related Topics” on an article page mean a lot of readers click on one of the related topics to explore further rather than just bounce.

Again, for the long running/complex issue, its even more important to have a summary at the top of the topic page. A list of 50 articles will overwhelm a reader who arrives at a topic page to get more context.

Good luck with your topic pages on your blog and at work!