What is Website Architecture? Building an SEO-friendly Site Structure

The depth of your architecture also affects how search engines crawl your site. So the lower the crawl depth, the quicker and more likely search engines can navigate to a webpage. If you find any of these pages, link to them at least once from a related page. This will ensure that both users and search engines can access the orphaned page.

• Additionally, internal linking can help to improve the relevance of a website for certain keywords, as different pages may focus on specific topics or keywords.
• Information architecture lets you get involved in the decision-making process on your site.
• It’s common to have different product variants or products that belong to various categories.
• To mitigate these consequences, it is crucial to invest in thoughtful information architecture design that prioritizes user needs, clear organization, and intuitive navigation.
• Category pages help you keep your site’s architecture organized in the long run, no matter how big your site gets.

The structure here is needed as every website has some specific goals which must be fulfilled and that is why a certain structure is required. Website architecture is prepared in the planning stage before the site is designed and developed. But if your site architecture is interlinked, spiders can follow your internal links to 100% of your site’s pages.

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It also means that search engine crawlers can easily follow the links between your pages and index them correctly. Created by designer Alex Gilev, this file contains an easy-to-use IA template and a Google Doc outlining the content structure of a real project he created. The template contains simple blocks for showcasing the flow of your app or website. You don’t need third-party software to edit this template — you can use the presentation software app Keynote. At this point in the process, you’ll want to decide whether search can improve the user experience on your website.

Your website’s structure should help users easily find information and help search engine crawlers understand the relationship between different pages. Internal linking is the practice of linking pages to your site, which is a fundamental part of your site’s architecture. By linking pages together, you add context and relevance, allowing users and search engines to move freely across the site.

Keep Your URLs User-Friendly

At the end of the day your site architecture is determined byhow your pages are linked together. But once you start adding thousands of different pages to your site, simplicity is HUGE. Second, a flat architecture means that Google spiders can find all of the webpages on your site . If you have pages on your site that are several clicks from your homepage , Googlebot will have a hard time finding and indexing those pages. Google Maps displays icons for specific types of places as well as labels for various types of directions . Artificial intelligence has become an indispensable part of our daily lives.

Search engine bots are unlikely to crawl pages buried deep in the structure. The more everyday language you have on those labels, the easier it will be to find information. However, defining the purpose and assigning pages call-to-action can help clear the vision and adjust the content and labels. In a website context, topical silos are thematically related groups of pages. When starting with website architecture, it is useful to write your VIPs down to make sure you give them priority at the later stages.

The Power of Good Information Architecture

This means studying how people interact with a given website, and then restructuring the design and navigational features to provide the most beneficial experience. In this way, user behavior not only informs the basic structure of a website but provides insight into which features are most favored by its users. Buildings in the style are often defined by flat roofs, open floor plans, https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ curtain windows, and minimal ornamentation. The style is also often called the international style or international modernism. I am a seasoned digital marketing expert with over 10 years of experience in the field. By prioritizing user experience, SEO, maintenance, and brand image, a well-designed architecture can help to improve website performance and drive business growth.

Well, if your website architecture design is poor – it is haphazard and cluttered, that’s exactly how visitors are going to feel – and you don’t want that. It shows how different parts of your site are related to each other in a crawlable format for search engines. These URLs are optimized for user experience and SEO purposes. And the cluster page’s URL shows the relationship between the pillar topic and subtopic.

The Principle of Focused Navigation

A top navigation menu appears on every page of your website and includes links to the most important parts. Microsoft Visio is a premium tool that offers dozens of premade templates, diagrams, and stencils to help you start diagramming your IA. The latest version comes with even more features to help you create professional sitemaps. Team members can also view, comment, and share Visio diagrams to improve collaboration. Make it easy for users to see where they are and to return to the homepage, no matter how many links they click on your site. While you may have heard buzz about the three-click rule, don’t limit ease of use to the number of clicks.

Every page should be linked to the previous and next steps of the customer journey. Aim to build your structure so that all elements are interconnected and allow navigating back and forth between all levels of pages. It is a good practice to keep the URL structure simple and have it follow a consistent pattern.

Why Information Architecture is Important

Bathroom Renovators, turf layers, concrete contractors, tilers… if you’re on the tools or organizing a team, we’ve got you covered. Website architecture feels like the type of term you’d hear in the building industry, not the marketing industry. The easier you can keep your site architecture, the easier it will be to manage it as your site grows. Breadcrumbs, as it relates to your site, are the links at the top of a page that indicate the place of that page in your site hierarchy.

Using a navigational menu is an easy way to connect pages and reinforce your site structure. Then, create content for each pillar topic and subtopic you’ve identified. Be sure to link the related topics together in accordance with the linking architecture you’ve outlined already—homepage links to pillars, pillars link to subtopics, etc.

What is Website Architecture in SEO?

Or, should you load more content as the user scrolls or clicks a “load more” button? Infinite scroll can be a nice way to help the user avoid clicks, making it especially helpful for mobile. However, pagination gives the user a greater sense of control. how to plan a website structure And the page numbers help them keep a “mental map” of where the product was. When you link to pages within your site, those internal links convey context through page relevance, link intent, anchor text and even the copy surrounding the link.