Step-by-Step Guide on How to Plan Website Structure for Better SEO
It is no surprise that the key to building a solid online presence is through a stellar website.
Website design companies spend hours refining how the website looks to ensure the structure remains such that users are drawn to it and keep coming back. And you may think hiring the best SEO companies to revamp your SEO strategy can do the job, but good SEO starts from having a good website.
Here’s a step-wise to help you understand how to plan the right website structure that enhances your SEO performance.
What is website structure?
What is website structure?
In simple words, website structure can be defined as the manner in which various pages of a website are organized. Website structure focuses on how these pages are connected to each other and how users navigate through them. You can think of it as the architecture of your website — similar to how an architect chalks out the plan before commencing the construction of a multi-storied building, web designers work on organizing various web pages to ensure the entire web content is linked in a seamless manner.
Website structure takes into account the navigation, breadcrumbs, internal linking, URL structures, and categorization. Here are the three most common types of website structures used for building the best web 3.0 designs:
Sequential structure
In this particular form of website structure, various web pages are connected in a linear manner. For instance, you can start from the home page to move to the service page, product listing page, and contact us page. This is a great option for small businesses where the focus of the website is to showcase a particular brand or product.
Hierarchical structure
Experts at a website design company will tell you that this website structure is the most common type of architecture and it works regardless of the type of website you have. It has a hierarchy of categories and you can move from generic pages to more specific ones. Such a structure is particularly useful for large websites where the users need a clear path to navigate through multiple web pages.
For instance, on an e-commerce website such as MVMT, the website has a main page with the various product categories listed on top. As soon as you click on a particular product, you can see a drop-down menu for specific types within that product category. This makes it incredibly easy for the user to find exactly what they need without having to browse through irrelevant product pages.
Network structure
In this architecture, a user can access every page from any other page. It is an unusual structure most commonly used for those websites that have very few pages. That way, it becomes easier to connect them.
The good news is even if your website structure is not on point currently, you can always avail of website redesign services to put it back in order.
How does your website structure impact SEO and how to build a stellar structure for better SEO?
You may think SEO doesn’t feature high up on a web design checklist. But as the truth is web design has a direct impact on your SEO. For starters, the user experience you deliver to a visitor plays an important role in deciding your rank. And how can you impress anyone with a poor website structure?
Secondly, technical SEO relies heavily on the right website architecture. You cannot implement several principles if you don’t have the right structure. Lastly, an effective structure ensures your audience can quickly skim through the content and gain valuable insights. Imagine the plight of someone who has to endlessly scroll through multiple pages to simply learn how to contact you — the search engine won’t look at this favorably and push your ranking a few spots below.
So how does one go about planning the perfect structure for the best SEO results? While there is no magic bullet, web design and top branding agencies rely on a few simple principles. Here’s a breakdown of what you need to keep in mind:
Understand your site hierarchy
You cannot decide to create a useful website structure without a basic understanding of site hierarchy. You need to understand which pages of your website are more important and need to be right at the forefront. It is useful to create a map before you start the actual groundwork of establishing a website structure.
To do this, identify the key web pages on your website that are going to provide the maximum amount of valuable information to any visitor. You don’t have to get rid of the rest of the pages, but this exercise gives you a fair idea about what needs to be higher in the pyramid.
Perform a competitor audit
It is never a bad idea to check how others in the market are designing their website. In fact, it helps you understand why certain competitors click with the target audience more than your business.
Review their website architecture and evaluate how they have built it. Understand which pages are performing the best and what makes them tick. Make a note of the highest-performing keywords on their website. The expert at a leading website design company in mumbai will tell you that the best part is you don’t have to do this manually — there are several paid tools available in the market that can help you gather this intelligence about your competitor’s website.
Collate a list of keywords you want to target
Using keyword tools, make a list of keywords you want to showcase on your website. After all, keywords are fundamental for any SEO exercise. Once you have a list, map out how each of these keywords fits within your site hierarchy. This is a crucial step as you would want to avoid keyword cannibalization at all costs.
In simple terms, keyword cannibalization is defined as having the same target keywords on more than one page of your website. Doing this prevents or cannibalizes web pages to rank, and neither of them performs as expected. Also, avoid creating your site hierarchy by solely taking the search volume into account. This is an underrated tip as the top keyword for a page may not be the one with the highest search volume. Ensure there is no duplicated, as that adversely impacts your chances of ranking higher up on search engine results.
Think about your URL structure and internal linking
Keyword stuffing in your URL is a surefire way of bringing your ranking down. You need to make sure your URL is easy to remember and contains readable words. Keep the URL as short as possible and use more hyphens than underscores to denote breaks between different words.
For an effective site structure, you also need to think through how internal linking on your website works. There has to be a clear connection between the various pages on your website — it should all be seamless, and none of the pages should look like they don’t belong to your website. Internal linking acts like a GPS for the search engine. They help the algorithm understand the site structure, what the pass link authority is, and how users can navigate between different pages.
As a thumb rule, you must ensure every single page has a link that leads to the page and from the page. This ensures search crawlers can index your website better and locate all the content. Remember the more valuable your page is for attracting relevant traffic, the more internal links it should feature.
Work on your navigation and check the performance of your website
You can have different types of menus depending on the site architecture you are following. Regardless of which menu you choose, make sure that it can be accessed easily by both mobile and desktop users. Ideally, you should have breadcrumbs so users know how they landed on a particular page and how to go back to where they came from. It will simplify the user’s life and also aid the algorithm in better understanding the hierarchy of your website.
Add relevant header, footer, and tags on each page and add a sitemap. Sitemaps can help you to keep a note of all the pages on your website and also help search engines to index them faster.
And to finish off, make sure to test your website multiple times before you launch it to the public. Get as much feedback as possible from different stakeholders to iron out the creases. Ask the users how easy or difficult it is to navigate through different pages and read the content. The more input you receive, the better your website will be.
Get ready to create an SEO-friendly website structure
If you are in search of the right web design company that can work on a website structure that benefits your SEO efforts, reach out to Spinx Digital. Our SEO and web design experts will ensure you have a website that delivers the right results for your business and makes it to the top of the search engine results page.
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