Deep Silo Builder Help File

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Contents

What Is Deep Silo Builder?

The deep silo builder will create a properly Silo Structured site on your blog without any advanced technical knowledge necessary. The plugin will create all the needed infrastructure and along with the menu widget will set up the required linking structure, url settings and on-page factors that you need.

This plugin uses two tiers of static pages with blog posts underneath to create a structure that will rank quickly and well.

This plugin will accept the XML blueprint output from either Krakken or Network Empire Builder to quickly create the silo pages and supporting posts. Additionally, you can create the silo structure manually directly in the blog by adding each page one at a time - either by using the normal WordPress functionality to add pages and posts or directly into the plugin area where you can visually see the structure you are creating.

This plugin is ideal for a money 'website style' blog; where as our Simple Silo Plugin is often times more ideally suited for a 'news style' blog.

Disclaimer

It is not recommended that you use this plugin on an already established site with rankings that are important to you. In order for this plugin to function optimally the permalink structure needs to be changed from the WordPress default, and this can disrupt an existing site.

We highly recommend you make a backup of your blog before you install and activate this plugin.

By installing this plugin you agree to indemnify Network Empire LLC and hold Network Empire LLC blameless for any issues this plugin might create on your blog, it's content or your rankings.

Using Deep Silo Builder

Requirements

  • A Self Hosted WordPress blog
  • php 5.3
  • Reasonable Hosting
  • You cannot have this plugin active when either the Simple Silo Builder or Video Silo Builder Plugin are active

Installing

If you are upgrading from a previous version, the following must be done:

  • you will need to delete the previous version and
  • install this version,
  • then click the Manual Silo Builder tab to update your old site structure to the new site structure.

Install this WordPress plugin as you would any other, upload it to your blog and activate.

Upon activation, the plugin will:

  1. Adjust your blog's permalink structure to /%category%/%postname%/
  2. Create a menu for the silo landing pages
  3. Create a Home page if one does not already exist
  4. Change the blog landing page to the Home page.

If you desire, you can change the home page back to a blog roll.  You can also rename the Home page to what ever name you want.

You may install this plugin on an unlimited number of your blogs with a single license.

Getting Started

Menus and The Silo Sidebar Widget

Once activated you will need to add the silo widget to your sidebar for the silo menu to be created automatically.

Additionally you will probably want a menu on the top or above the silo widget that will contain all of the top level silo pages.

Creating The Silo

From this point you can create your silo structure one of three ways:

1. Through the plugin Silo Importer Tab where you can choose:
  • If your pages should be set to publish immediately or be in draft mode
  • If you want the Silo Shortcode to create the On-Page Contextual Link Block
  • Select the File from your Hard Drive that you want to Upload
  • Select any advanced settings for the meta title and slug to enhance visitor usability or reduce over optimization
2. Through the manual interface or one page at a time,
3. By creating pages and posts normally and adding them to the silo structure as you go (look for the "Silo Structure" box in the upper right side of the screen as you add pages and posts to your blog).


On-Page Contextual Link Block

When adding content through the import you have the option to add a block of contextual links to subordinate pages using a Silo Shortcode that is included in the Content Body.

There are three parts to the contextual link block made by Shortcode:

  1. The header at the top
  2. The number of links it will show,
  3. Including an excerpt with each link,

The header at the top can be set on the settings tab in the Menu Heading field

Best Practices

On the Settings tab there is an option for Blogroll on Front Page. This will revert the settings to a static page called Home if the plugin is deactivated and reactivated. Once you have the blog set up the way you want it, you should check this box to override having the plugin readjust your settings should it be deactivated and reactivated. If you end up with two home pages because you upgraded from a previous edition just delete the new page that's empty.

Installing Plugin on a Preexisting Site

At this time it's not recommended that you upgrade a pre-existing site to a silo structure for two reasons:

1) The plugin needs a specific permalink structure and if your site already has pages ranked, this can disrupt those rankings. If your permalink structure is already set to /%category%/%postname%/ then there won't be any problems.  If it's not set to that, then you will want to add a 301 redirect from the old url to the new ones.

2) When you create a silo or category in the silo plugin, it will automatically create a wp blog category with the same name, if it doesn't already exist.  Here's a video demonstration of how to add pages and posts to a silo structure using the simple silo builder.  The same procedure is used for Deepp Silo Builder, except that two layers of pages must be created prior to adding a post to structure.  In other words, you would need to add a silo landing page, then a category landing page and then under that you can add a post.

Features and Benefits

Site Structure

1. Silo Structure consisting of the home page, two levels of static blog pages for the silo and category levels, with posts underneath as supporting articles. The supporting article posts are optional.

Image:Website-4-layer-2015.png

2. A new static page called Home will be created if none exists.

2. The blog landing page will be converted from the existing setup to the new static 'Home' page

3. Permalink structure is automatically set to /%category%/%postname%/

Site Creation

Sites can be created either through importing a blueprint from Krakken and NE Silo Builder, or via the Manual Silo Builder Tab in the plugin.  Note that pages and posts created manually via the normal wordpress methods can also be added to the silo structure.

1. Creating a Site Via Blueprint Import Function

  • This plugin accepts one or more website blueprints generated by Krakken and NE Silo Builder to create a properly Silo Structured site
  • Advanced Import settings allow you to choose titles and slugs to be keywords, titles or headlines to better protect from panda penalties (available when importing from DWS only)
  • The same blueprint can be imported multiple times and each time only new items will be added; older imported pages and posts are not updated
  • Multiple different blueprints can be imported to make a large site
  • You can add additional pages and posts to an imported blueprint via the Manual Silo Builder Tab or by creating a page or post normally through the wordpress functionality and using the Silo Structure box to position it where you want it in the silo structure.

2. Creating a Site Via the Manual Silo Builder Tab

  • To manually create a silo structure, in the Manual Silo Builder Tab select the page under which you are going to add new pages.  If the site is new, only the Home page may be selected.
  • Select if you want draft or immediate publish mode
  • Adding keywords to the box at the bottom of the screen, one keyword per line.  These keywords will become the URL slug for the page as well as the title.
  • A Drag and Drop functionality is available for moving silos or supporting pages around, after they have been created either manually or imported, to adjust the site the way you want it.

3. Page and Post Edit Screen Enhancements

1. You can add existing pages or posts to the silo structure on the edit page or edit post screen

2. You can update the meta title, meta description and meta keywords fields for posts on the edit posts screen

3. You can see a preview what the meta title and meta description will look like in the SERPS screen: 

Deleting items from the Silo Structure

To delete items from the silo structure use the Manual Silo Builder Tab.  Simply select the point of the Silo Structure you want to delete and then select "Delete" in the options box at the bottom, then click "Make It So" and that element and everything beneath it will be deleted. 

This means that if you select a silo page to be deleted, it will delete not only the silo landing page but also all of the category and supporting article pages underneath that silo.

Menus and On-Page Inserts

1. A special sidebar widgets creates the Silo Linking Structure. Sidebar menu widget options set the title, number of links and optional thumbs

2. On-page silo short codes include titles with links to the subordinate articles and can optionally include post article excerpts. The title of the insert is controlled on the settings tab.

3. Optionally On-page silo short codes can be automatically included on pages and posts as they are created

4. Style adjustments, available on the Silo Styles tab, are available to help the widgets fot seamlessly into theme.  It allows you to adjust the link color, the size of the link and the line height:

Reports

  1. Export the Silo Blueprint for clients and personal records
  2. Indicates articles that are in draft mode

Behind the Scenes Features

Our plugin will detect if other SEO plugins exist and stop duplicate meta description and keywords from appearing in the head. If the other plugins already contain data for these fields, that data is copied into the fields our plugin uses in case those plugins are disabled - if you change the data in our field on a single page, it will update Yoast so that title is displayed.

Are Perpetual Plugin Upgrades Included?

Yes, you will always have access to updates of the current level of plugin development and all future point releases.


Are New Plugin Point Releases Automatically Updated in the WordPress Control Panel?

Yes. Our system automatically informs WordPress installation of a new release and encourages you to update to the next point release.


Troubleshooting

FAQs

Planned Enhancements

Deep Silo Builder Changelog

Version 4.3.0 (14 December 2016)

  • Added highlights to Manual Silo Builder when moving items
  • Added ability to delete entire silo structure from Manual Silo Builder
  • Changed permalink handling to the less obtrusive system used by Video Silo Builder
  • Improved efficiency of Manual Silo Builder delete function to use far fewer database calls
  • Improved database handling of the shortcode, reducing number of table entries. Efficiency also improved with shortcode on Import page
  • Improved detection of breadcrumbs in widget. Now just a single database call, rather than running a new silo as a dummy
  • Fixed breadcrumb handling, so if multiple breadcrumbs are requested, only the first displays the breadcrumbs, with sidebar taking preference over content
  • Made breadcrumb notice clearer
  • Removed link to homepage in silo widget
  • Improved excerpt handling and generation
  • Changed Silo Title in shortcode from strong to h3
  • Cleaned up some warnings on Import page and related to use of silo styles
  • Fixed Silo Exporter
  • Fixed error notice upon saving individual pages when using other SEO plugins
  • Fixed error notice upon saving individual pages caused by Wordpress bug where it tries to create a page twice, once as a nav menu item
  • General cleanup

Version 4.2.3 (28 November 2016)

  • Fixed issue with rearranging Category level entries
  • Upgraded implementation from WP_PLUGIN_URL to plugins_url()
  • Fixed issue with implementation of meta_input

Version 4.2.2 (10 September 2016)

  • Changed implementation of removing Yoast spam comments to be more discriminating. This will fix an issue with several front end editors like Themify.
  • Changed required capability from edit_themes to activate_plugins

Version 4.2.1 (1 August 2016)

  • Reordered code for meta keyword & description in updateSEO() to match video silo
  • Fixed issue with widget showing Home instead of current page when excerpt set to true
  • Added dws_id to insert_post with legacy support for pre Wordpress 4.4.0.
  • Changed from get_currentuserinfo() (deprecated by Wordpress now) to wp_get_current_user()
  • Updated product links
  • Fixed separator icon for breadcrumbs
  • Made silo widget information clearer
  • Set breadcrumbs and excerpts to false by default
  • Made breadcrumb message in widget conditional
  • Removed schema from shortcodes & widget
  • Set top level Silo structure to display (if set) in widget for 404 pages
  • Fixed SEO title generation (throwing up error on 404 pages)
  • Set dashboard widget to false.

Version 4.2.0 (5 November 2015)

  • Fixed some logic errors around checkboxes
  • Corrected capabilities check (previous way will be deprecated by wordpress in December 2015)
  • Fixed a number of php warnings & notices throughout
  • Corrected the way excerpts are created & pulled

Version 4.1.4 (31 October 2015)

  • Fixed an issue with some hosts where activating the plugin would block the ability to add new plugins.
  • Also fixed some php notices that were popping up

Version 4.1.3 (17 October 2015)

  • To allow users to use another SEO plugin for meta title/description/keyword by checking a box in settings.
  • Added WPMU's SmartCrawl to the list of SEO plugins.

Version 4.1.2 (26 August 2015)

  • Adds dismissable nag to admin after upgrade, prompting to visit Manual Silo Builder.

Version 4.1.1 (11 August 2015)

  • Add note to Category level (not possible on Silo level) when page is in trash.
  • Added redundancies if there are multiple pages connected to a particular category. Can happen if user duplicates/clones page. Checks by slug match which is the correct page & category connection, then resets the rest to what they should be.
  • Checks if a page has been deleted, but not the category. If so, will delete the category. Won't touch the category if the page is merely in the trash.
  • Housekeeping check. Cycles through all the wordpress categories, checks if they are supposed to be matched to a page and if that page doesn't exist, deletes the category.
  • Change widget dropdowns for thumbnails, breadcrumbs & excerpts to checkboxes, as with vsilo.

Version 4.1.0 (7 August 2015)

  • In the sidebar widget, number of posts controlled separately from number of pages
  • Added term meta so category connects to related page. Before it was just page connecting to category. Now it is a two-way connection.
  • Added ability to delete whole Silos or Categories to trash from the Manual Silo Builder. Also deletes the related categories and sends any child posts to trash. Alert in place upon selecting "Delete" option.

Version 4.0.0 (28 July 2015)

Major fix of many systems. The main ones:

  • fixed menu ordering
  • connected pages with their categories, with legacy and disconnection fallback
  • all silo levels update/correct (legacy ids replaced and deleted) on opening Manual Silo Builder page
  • will create SEO Silo Menu, but won't replace already set menus
  • connection between page & category is now through unique id (with slug fallback) rather than through page title
  • "cannot remove" text now on Category level pages if they have subordinate posts
  • allows updating of Silo level pages
  • changing the title or slug of a Silo or Category level page won't send all the posts into Uncategorized
  • generate and apply unique slug for Category level pages if they are not unique across different Silos
  • better handling of saving posts to reduce chance of infinite loop
  • updates matching category order if page order changes
  • removed feature that increased excerpt length beyond standard wordpress behaviour.
  • spelling, spacing & formatting fixes

Version 3.1.0 (15 July 2015)

  • Changed how home page create works. Now if there is a Page set as Front Page, it won't create one called "Home". It will only do that if it's set to blogroll.
  • Fixed the html for the widget. It was sometimes creating too many ul and li and sometimes not enough.
  • Added checkbox to Silo Settings to allow user to use a blogroll as their front page.
  • Display the silos on pages that aren't part of the silo, like the contact or about us page, instead of displaying a blank space.
  • Finally, a raft of spelling corrections which had been annoying everyone on the development team :)

Version 3.0.4 (23 June 2015)

  • Changed widget display so home is always the value set in widget admin, not the site title in sidebar widget.
  • Fixed widget on posts so it adds the missing <ul><li>.

Version 3.0.3 (9 March 2015)

  • Improvement to connecting wordpress page to matching category
  • Fixed if statements so widget shows <h3> as intended, not all the time
  • When importing from DWS, if xml contained invalid characters (usually from copy/pasting from MS Word), import failed. This removes the invalid characters and allows importing.
  • Changed shortcode wrapper markup to styled <span> instead of <code>, which caused issues if copy/pasted to visual editor
  • Changed widget to only display <span> and <div> if called for. Eg not in sidebar. In article, only if excerpt/thumbnail called
  • Changed widget <h3> to <span>
  • Added class to excerpt. 'silo-text-sidebar' for sidebar widget, 'silo-text-body' for article widget.
  • Removed stray pipe from <title>

Version 3.0.2

  • Added ability to update plugin through WP Dashboard
  • Bugfixes on excerpts in widget
  • Minor improvements to reordering function

Version 3.0

  • Significant rewrite of most functions.
  • Change of name from WP Ultimate Silo to Deep Silo Builder

Version 1.6

  • Site Name on Sidebar Widget became a user entered variable with "Home" as the default. This option is available in on the widget.
  • Imports or manually updates to the structure will automatically change the title capitalization to upper case the first character of each word, unless the word is all capitals, in which case it remains unchanged.
  • Give the silo structure (currently on the settings page) its own tab called "Silo Map".
  • Drag and Drop on Manual Silo Builder page - you can change the order of silos, move categories between different silos, and pages between different categories.
  • Fixed [wpu_silo links='10'] - would cause a fatal error

Version 1.5

Features

  • Added optional thumbnail image when thumb exists in page or post to Sidebar Widget Menu & Contextual Menu Area
  • Posts can now be added to the silo structure from standard WP post editor with new Sidebar Widget in the post edit area
  • Plugin performs check to insure a file was specified for upload
  • Modified to add pages to the background so there would be no timeout during large file uploads

Fixes

  • Cannot import more than 30 Silos without crashing to 504 error.
  • if a fresh blog is created, user must first "save" video options or videos will not load
  • the plugin ignores draft and publishes posts
  • In tab loses focus from going from Description to keywords in Post Meta Data box
  • when importing multiple files, in subsequent files the pages are imported improperly in a number of ways, breaking the silo structure
  • Adding a second import file causes all new pages to load as silo landing pages
  • Adding a second import file causes supporting pages to be created as pages, categories and posts

Version 1.1.1

Bug Fix: Fixed update to Menu, checks if menu item exists. Allows for handling multiple xmls. Update: Meta Tag Handler. If SEO Ultimate is installed, this feature disables. Add Meta Title, Keywords, Desc to Pages/Posts

Version 1.1

Added Features

  • Menu Created based on silo, must enable under menu location.
  • New node management for imports (under Advance Settings).
  • Fix Home/Menu permalinks (Slug appears in anchor).
  • Sidebar fixed with proper sub links.

Related Products

Simple Silo Builder WP Plugin - a two tier silo plugin

Video Silo Builder WP Plugin - a three tier silo plugin with optional automatic addition of youtube videos and banner shortcodes with semantic markup for business, videos and video sitemap

Video Krakken WP Plugin - an auto-posting plugin that includes youtube videos and banner shortcodes


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