Glossary
Spoke Page
A page that answers one specific head query in depth, links up to its pillar and across to sibling spokes. One query, one URL.
In plain terms
A page that answers one specific question in depth, links up to its pillar, and across to its siblings. One query, one URL: the rule that stops a site competing with itself.
A spoke earns its place by going further than the pillar can on that one subject, with the detail someone actually deciding would need.
Why it matters in Kenya
On this site, WordPress development, M-Pesa integration and website redesign are spokes. Each is a real buying decision somebody searches for by name, which is why each gets a page rather than a paragraph.
What to do about it
Four checks you can run on your own site this week.
- Start from the query somebody actually types, not an internal service name
- Answer it fully, including price and process where you can publish them
- Link up to the pillar and across to two siblings
- If two spokes would say the same thing, you have one spoke, not two
More terms
Other words you will meet when commissioning web, e-commerce or search work in Kenya.
- Entity OptimisationMaking a business unambiguously identifiable to search and AI systems as a single entity, through a consistent name, address and phone number, a connected schema graph, and a well-populated sameAs array.
- Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)Optimising content and structured data so that answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews cite the business as a source.
- Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)A near-synonym for AEO: structuring a site and its entity so generative AI search systems retrieve and attribute its content.
