Doorway pages

[pcs800]

I have an online shopping mall, with about 480 stores in it.
And have created about 6 doorway pages to put out on the net.
They seem to have worked because my hits have soared in the last few days.
My question is, how many doorway pages is normal?
I mean, we sell everything from shoes to computers to food.
Should I have a doorway for every group of items?

 

[RISTMO]

I think that you should organize it by category to make it easier for the user. eg. computers/electronics, musical instruments/cds, maybe put the shoes with the clothing... etc.

That way, if the links to the doorway pages are clear, the user can get straight to what he/she wants. I wouldn't make too many--computer related stuff should be with the game boys...and if there are 2 or more closely related categories that are both small, combine them! Just make it easy for the user. Look at

http://www.amazon.com

and

http://www.ebay.com.

They have their main categories setting different departments off.

Rick -----------------------------------------------------------

http://www.arabchurch.com

 

[pcs800]

I don't think I was clear on my question.
The mall itself is already up, you can look at it at

http://www.bargainmonkey.com

Doorway pages are pages that deal with only one category per page, so you can push the group of keywords on the search engines.
Like if internet user X, types in "seafood" into Yahoo search, it should come up with my doorway page on groceries.
If user X types "Shoes" into yahoo, it should come up with my doorway page on Clothing.
This way, I don't have 400 billion keywords on my main site. I have a doorway for each category.
All doorway pages point to the same url,

http://www.bargainmonkey.com

My question is, how many doorways are normal for a site of this type?

 

[RISTMO]

I think that it is fine like it is. There are a lot of categories (maybe try subgrouping?), but they make it easy to go to what you want. If the subgrouping thing works out well, maybe make a doorway page for each category only (not the subcategories), but otherwise, it is probably fine.

Rick -----------------------------------------------------------

http://www.arabchurch.com

 

[pcs800]

Yes that's what i was thinking too,there are 22 categories, all with multiple sub categories.
I was just wondering if it was normal to have 22 doorway pages, each with keywords pertaining to the categories.
Did you look at the site? Did you find it easy to navigate?

 

[RISTMO]

Actually, I'm using 1024 X 768, so the right frame scrolls (<-- & --> way). Setting the margins to 0 should fix that.

Other than that, it was easy to use.

Rick -----------------------------------------------------------

http://www.arabchurch.com

 

[pcs800]

I am changing that right frame to display a scrolling java text link box. So that will be out of the way.
Thanks for your input Rick, if you find anything else about The Bargain Monkey that you would make suggestions on, let me know.

Have a nice day!
Eric

 

[cian]

Just a quick comment.
It's VERY slow to load, you may want to look at that, especially the right hand navigation.

Also, just personal preference but instead of greeting the visitor with a large picture of a monkey you could just have a small picture and links to the various categories. I think it's important on a site like that, that the user immediatly sees links to the various categories.
And the images you use for navigation are difficult to read, i'd suggest using a simple clear font with maybe greater contrast.

As for doorway pages, who not have 22 more specific doorway pages instead of 6 more general ones?
Maybe an SE guru can advise you but I think having more will allow you to optimise each category to attract visitors much better than trying to attract them with less. If that makes sense???



Nollaig shona agus athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh.
::

http://www.endamcg.com

 

[pcs800]

Yes, i planned on making 22 specific pages. As for the slow loading, the site is pretty largs for dial-up, but for dsl, cable, isdn, t1, it is fine.
The world will be rid of dial-up completely in a few years anyway.
I will consider your suggestion about the navigation images, text will definitely load faster.
Thanx for you suggestions, keep 'em coming!
Eric

 

[cian]

Hi,

'Fraid to disappoint you. Dial-up will be around for many years to come! Not all countries have put much work into developing internet access, even some of the most developed European countries have far to go

I have a fast connection here but still the left col took quite a while to download.

Nollaig shona agus athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh.
::

http://www.endamcg.com

 

[RISTMO]

Ok. I wasn't going to say anything, but since someone else noticed it too...It was very slow here too. I thought it was just my connection, since everything was slower than usual yesterday, it took a long time for the site to load.

Rick -----------------------------------------------------------

http://www.arabchurch.com

 

[pcs800]

Ok, don't get in an uproar, I will look into trimming it up a bit.
The only page that I noticed to take a long time to load is the search page. But when I get the server extensions enabled on my server, it will fix that.
Also, the server is running on a dsl connection right now, so that's going to be slower than a T1 when there are lot's of viewers at once.

 

[cian]

don't get in an uproar
Just trying to help!



É
::

http://www.endamcg.com

 

[pcs800]

Ok, I took the advice of you people here that are helping me out. I changed the front page, the logo is much smaller, and there are text links to all the categories. I looked at the menu on the left, it is only about 20k, so I do not know why it takes a long time to load on your computer. I can't get it much smaller than that unless I just use text with no java, and that would be boring. (I like my flashy things)
But i will trim the site up as I go, thanks for all the comments and suggestions! Feel free to post here any new suggestions you may have.
Eric

 

[cian]

I think it's better.
Do you really want those large images of the stack of coins and bills?
Just personal preference but i'd remove those and organise the links differently, similar to what you might see on a directory such as

http://dmoz.org/.

Just personal preference mind...

Also, if the java nav is 20k and each coin stack is 8k and the monkey is 6k andthe other images are...it starts to build up.

Again, just my own opinion

É
::

http://www.endamcg.com

 

[jordanm]

There isn't an ideal number of gateway pages into a site. Potentially each page in the site is a gateway page and should be optimized for the search engines. Pages that are highly specific and targeted on key phrases depend upon the number of key phrases you need to target for traffic to your site. If you have identified 10 key phrases/words then you may only need 10 highly targeted and optimized pages. SEO optimization is slow and actually hard work so the number of pages is really limited by your time to optimize and monitor them.

Jordan

 

[pcs800]

Yes, that format is nice and neat looking (dmoz.org), I wil be trying to put the links in that type of order. But I think I want to keep the stacks of coins, I want to maintain the jungl-ish look of the site.


Thanx Jordan for the info on doorways (gateways)
I have a &quot;no index&quot; on all of my pages accept the main page because I am using frames. I do not want a search engine to link directly to one of the category pages, because the user would, then not see the navigation menu and other frames, liniting them to one page of my site.
This is why I wanted to use doorways. And yes, it is definitely hard work! I have been building and rebuilding doorways, and optimizing them for search engines, over and over. But it seems to be paying off, I am actually getting a respectable amount of hits lately.
Thanks again!
Eric

 

[RISTMO]

I have an idea. Instead of no-indexing the other pages, why don't you just add javascript at the start of the page:

<script type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;>
<!--
if(top==self){
self.location.href=&quot;sub_category_doorway_page.html&quot;;
}
//-->
</script>

It is better to have all the pages indexed.

Rick -----------------------------------------------------------

http://www.arabchurch.com

 

[pcs800]

what will that script do for the page?

 

[Wullie]

Hi mate,

That script will automatically re-deirect to the framed version if a user hits one of the other pages outside of frames.

Hope this helps Wullie

http://www.freshlookdesign.co.uk

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