How Site Structure Affects SEO (And How to Use it to Your Advantage)

As you create your business website, either with a digital marketing agency or on your own, it’s essential to get your site structure right. A website shouldn’t be a random collection of pages; it should be organized so that not only can search engines navigate and understand it -but so can the people who visit it.

So let’s talk about website structure – what it is, how it affects your SEO, and how to take advantage of this basic yet often overlooked area of website development.

What Is Site Structure and Why Does It Matter?

Website structure refers to how the content is organized and connected on your website. Think of it as the skeleton of your site. Just like our actual skeletons, everything connects in a meaningful way. You know – “the knee bones connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bones connected to the hip bone…” (You singing the song yet? I am.)

Take Uyo Digital Marketing as an example. Two of our services are “web development” and “web maintenance.” These two services are related in many ways, so they are grouped on our website. How? They are grouped in the website navigation, link to each other, and have the same parent page.

Site structure might seem basic and obvious, and in some ways, it is; however, a well-organized website framework can give you a lot of advantages.

SEO Advantages to Well-Organized Site Structure

Well-structured sitemaps help search engines index your content and rank it better on their search engine results pages. In addition, website structure guides search engines, helping them understand what your business is all about and what is the most important content on your website.

If your website architecture is clear, search engines can crawl your website more accurately, resulting in higher and more valuable rankings.

On the flip side, poorly structured websites can seriously struggle in search engine results, giving your competitors ample opportunity to rank higher than you. They could garner traffic and conversions that might have otherwise gone to you.

UX Advantages to Well-Organized Site Structure

Search engine bots are not the only ones browsing and navigating your website. Real, live people are looking at it, too.

Good site architecture is mainly intuitive and invisible. No one notices it unless it’s not there. But if you want sales, you’ll want a well-organized site structure because visitors stay on your website longer, return to your website more often, and take more of the actions you want them to (like calling you or making a purchase).

Think of the times you’ve tried navigating a website, looking for the thing, and couldn’t find it. You most likely got frustrated and then went to a different website. You undoubtedly didn’t make a purchase, did you? As a business owner, you’re now responsible for providing good user experiences, so things like that don’t happen to the visitors to your website.

Good Site Structure Starts With Good Planning

If you’re not developing your site structure at the earliest stages, chances are good your website will not be the best. At Uyo Digital Marketing, planning this element happens during our first stage of the process, the discovery phase. We start with site structure because, like a skeleton, site structure will determine the look and feel of everything else. 

Consider the following when planning your website structure:

• Who is your target audience, and what are their browsing habits?
• What are your content pillars?
• What are the subtopics of your content pillars? How will they relate to each other?
• What keyword research have you done, and what are the results?

Even if you are planning on building your website yourself, talking about your website planning with an expert can transform how your website makes you money and grows your business.

6 Best Practices For Planning and Improving Site Structure

Now that you know why site structure plays a vital role in SEO let’s look at ways you can improve your website architecture.

Make It Make Sense

The website structure should be intuitive. To make things easy to navigate for users and search engines, set up a page hierarchy where similar pages - like service pages or event pages - are grouped. Name links in your navigation logically. Remember that simplicity is key.

Improve Internal Linking

Internal linking, or linking related pages together within the content, not only strengthens your site structure but also invites visitors to stay longer and move further down your conversion funnels. It also strengthens your overall SEO in other ways, like building site authority.

However, internal linking should also be logical. Don’t link to a page just for the sake of it. Instead, link pages that relate to each other in some way, whether it’s two blogs talking about similar topics, two events held in the same location, or two products that customers typically purchase as a set. Breadcrumb navigation is another way to build up your site structure and improve user experience.

Don’t Bury The Important Stuff

Strive to have all pages be reachable within three or fewer clicks to ensure your content is easily accessible. Breadcrumb navigation and other internal linking measures can help you achieve this. However, beware of orphan pages or pages not linked anywhere on a site. An orphaned page is not easily accessed anywhere other than from a direct link.

Consider Your Main Navigation

While navigation within the content is important, your main navigation is more so. This is because your visitors will continually refer back to this portion of your website to find what they are looking for, making it easy for them to use.

In general, less is more when it comes to the main navigation. However, sometimes you can’t avoid an extensive dropdown menu if your website offers a ton of content. If this is the route you take, considering user experience is essential. Mega menus and fixed scrolling bars are good tools to have in your pocket.

Give Yourself Room to Grow

As you continue to add content to your website in the form of blog posts, products, and service pages, your website structure could quickly get cluttered and disorganized. This disorganization is especially true if you are busy (which most business owners are, of course.)

Don’t sabotage your thorough planning by not following through on your plans later. Set up categories and tags that will continually make sense to visitors as you add content. Future-proof your URL structure by making it as simplified as you can from the start. And write down the processes you want to see when adding future content. Future you will thank you.

Remove Old Content

As the content on your website grows, there will inevitably be some that just doesn’t suit you anymore. For example, industry standards might change over time, or maybe there are products and services you don’t offer anymore.

Removing that information from your website will save you from many headaches and missed opportunities. You’ll avoid customer calls about old out-of-stock products and lost customers due to poor user experience. This step can be more complicated than simply clicking a “delete” button, so turn to this blog we wrote about best practices for deleting old content.

Website Backbone

Site structure is the backbone of your entire website and could easily make or break you when it comes to ranking well on search engines and providing a good experience for your site visitors. Don’t overlook it. Instead, take the time to plan it out well, and your customers (and profit numbers) will thank you. 

Of course, you don’t have to plan it out alone. The experts at Uyo Digital Marketing can help.