Impact of removing category sidebar with keywords?

[insideARM]

Our site (a niche financial publication: insideARM.com) requires some more room in the sidebar. We're considering removing the categories (we call them topics) sidebar block, or cutting down the number of items displayed within it.

My concern is that we'd be removing a direct link to landing pages for important keyword terms from our most powerful page (the index). Sure, we have the terms listed in the footer, but I am worried that the position change will lower the value of the links. Our users don't really use these links for navigational purposes, which is why it comes up as a potential removed item.

Am I wrong to worry about this? Would we be crippling our category pages by doing this?

[AlanBleiweiss]

There's no one right answer here.  So many factors to consider.

1. Real Word Testing

For example, have you ever done heat maps or click tracking with a solution like CrazyEgg?  I ask because it could turn out to be that the "recent free reports" box gets hardly enough clicks to warrant it's being kept as compared to the "Browse Topics" links.

2. Existing On Page Optimization

From a different perspective, You've only got "fair" optimization on the individual topic landing pages.  For example, when I go to the link for the Debt Collection topic, it sends me to the url http://www.insidearm.com/browse-topics/?topicid=2515

When I look at this page I see the following flaws in your page level SEO:

You've got a weak page Title

No URL optimization

The overall keyword saturation across the entire page (including header area, main content area,k sidebar and footer areas causes significant dilution.

3.Section Level Sub-Navigation

When I'm in this section, the sub-category links do show up within the sidebar Topic link area for this section, yet the whole Topic nav box is way below the fold, which already causes a user experience problem.  Taking the further action of removing that box entirely would cause even more topical and user confusion.

4. Crawlability

At the code level, the page I reviewed has 385 links.  (65 of these are purely pointing to archives, and they're only at the code level, not seen by visitors, yet because they're there, search indexing crawlers do see them).  With so many links on a page, it's quite possible that search engines are not crawling your site as efficiently as they could be, which itself could be further harming your sites overall SEO in a way that needs to be factored when deciding which links on a page should or shouldn't be removed.

5.Perceived Duplicate Content Factor

All those links in the sidebar and footer - for the most part they're the same across the entire site correct?  If so, that's causing not only a topical dilution issue, it's also contributing to weakness in perceived unique page level content.

6.Sectional Navigation

SEO best practices DO call for a section level sub-navigation system up top or on the sidebar, though it should at least mostly be limited to links within that section.

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As you can see there are many factors to consider before just randomly ripping out one thing because you want the visual space for something else you or someone else in the organization perceives to be important.  It's not something to take lightly because of that very impact you express concern over.