Website Architecture: Best Practices for SEO

Website structure is the pillar of your website and if built wrong, it may ruin your whole strategy. Website structure acts as a compass for your users and a guide for crawling bots used by search engines. Also, website structure shows Google what pages on your website are important. In this blog post, you’ll learn how to build your website architecture in the right way.

What Is Website Structure?

A site architecture decides how content on your website is organized and connected to each other. It’s a compass for your users that shows where they can find the information they need at the moment.

A web page architecture is designed with user experience in mind. That’s why, before creating your website structure, you need to understand how users navigate your website, why they come there, and what their main goal is. Without this knowledge, you risk creating a confusing website hierarchy and losing your potential customers.

Why Is Website Architecture Important?

First of all, your rankings and website architecture are directly connected. In order to be found, you need to be ranked. Google finds and ranks your pages using internal links. Website SEO structure is shaped by internal links connecting pages. That’s why, if your website architecture looks cluttered and disorganized, Google won’t know what pages to rank and when.

The same when it comes to user experience. Your website’s architecture should guide your visitors, be simple, and structured. As a rule of thumb, users should find any information they need about your products or services in less than three clicks.

When your website’s architecture is disorganized, both users and search engine bots will get lost and just leave. That’s a bitter truth.

To sum up, here’s why website architecture really matters:

• It helps search engines crawl your website.
• It guides your users through your website, helping them find anything they need quickly.
• It increases time on the page because users can easily navigate through the internal links.
• If you link to high-priority pages, Google will give them more authority.

Now, let’s see some examples of the best website architecture.

What Does a Good Website Architecture Look Like?

Follow these rules to create a structured website architecture:

• Unite topically related content.
• Organize your pages in a logical order and interlink them with each other.
• Highlight the most important pages.

As we’ve already mentioned, it should take less than three clicks for users to access any page on your website. This is a golden rule when it comes to creating website architecture.

Also, if some pages are many clicks away from your homepage or not linked to other pages at all, Google bot may certainly miss them. Take a look at this website architecture diagram:

A website’s architecture where users can reach any page with four clicks or less is called flat architecture. We recommend using exactly this type of website’s architecture. Keep it simple — that’s a recipe for success.

How to Structure a Website

Now, let’s move to some tips on how to effectively structure site architecture for SEO to not turn it into a tangled maze.

Use Internal Linking Strategically

Internal linking is an essential aspect of website optimization that involves linking one page of your website to another. This helps users navigate your website more easily, and search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your content. Here’s how to improve your internal linking strategy:

• Create quality content

Before focusing on internal links, ensure that you have high-quality, relevant content on your website. This provides more opportunities for meaningful links.

• Understand your website structure

Identify the key pages and the hierarchy of your website. Understand which pages are most important and how they relate to each other.

• Use descriptive anchor text

When creating internal links, use descriptive and relevant anchor text. This helps both users and search engines understand the content of the linked page.

• Link to relevant pages

Link to pages that are contextually relevant to the content of the current page. This helps users find related information and improves the overall user experience.

Make Sure Users Can Access Your Pages in Just a Few Clicks

Here’s why reducing the number of clicks required for users to access information on a website is important.

• User convenience

Reducing the number of clicks makes it more convenient for users to find the information they are looking for. Users appreciate efficiency and may become frustrated if they have to navigate through numerous pages to access what they need.

• Improved user engagement

Websites with easy navigation tend to have higher user engagement. Users are more likely to explore additional pages and spend more time on the website if they can easily move from one section to another.

Create an Easy-to-Follow Navigation Menu

Creating an easy-to-follow navigation menu on your website is crucial for providing a positive user experience. Here are some tips to help you design a clear and user-friendly navigation menu.

• Keep it simple

Limit the number of menu items to the essentials. A cluttered menu can overwhelm users. Aim for simplicity and prioritize the most important sections/pages.

• Use clear labels

Ensure that menu labels are clear, concise, and easily understandable for your target audience. Use familiar terminology that matches user expectations.

• Logical order

Organize menu items in a logical order, typically from most important to least important. Users should be able to anticipate where to find specific information.

Optimize Your Website’s URLs

Optimizing your website's URLs is an important aspect of search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience. Here are some tips to help you optimize your site's URLs:

• Keep URLs simple and descriptive.

Use clear, concise, and descriptive URLs that convey the content of the page. Avoid using generic or cryptic strings of characters.

• Include keywords.

Whenever possible, include relevant keywords in your URLs. This can help search engines understand the content of the page.

• Use hyphens to separate words.

Use hyphens (-) to separate words in your URLs. This makes them more readable for both users and search engines.

Use Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are a type of navigational aid on websites that shows the hierarchical structure of the content. They provide users with a clear path to the current page and help them understand the relationship between pages. Here's how to use breadcrumbs effectively:

• Include breadcrumb navigation in your website's HTML code.

• Ensure that your breadcrumb trail reflects the hierarchical structure of your website. Each breadcrumb item should represent a level in the hierarchy.

• Label each breadcrumb item with clear and descriptive text. Use terms that users understand and that reflect the content or category.

Use HTML and XML Sitemaps

HTML and XML sitemaps serve different purposes, and they are both valuable tools in the realm of website development and search engine optimization (SEO).

How to Analyze Architecture with Netpeak Spider

Netpeak Spider helps you find weak points in your SEO website structure and the ways to improve it. Also, if you want to know the best practices for creating a website structure, Netpeak Spider will provide you with ideas.

To analyze the website structure, follow these steps:

• Launch Netpeak Spider.

If you want Netpeak Spider to analyze your website without performing a complete audit, select the ‘Minimum’ template in the ‘Settings’ tab.

• Enter the URL of the main page in the URL bar and start crawling by clicking on the ‘Start’ button.

• When the crawling process is completed, go to the ‘Reports’ tab → ‘Site Structure’ to see the URL structure.

• If you want to transfer the website structure data to a tab, use the ‘Extended Copy’ feature. It will allow you to copy the entire structure to the clipboard. You will be notified about successful copying in the bottom right corner of the screen.

• Paste the data into any spreadsheet editor (Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets, for example).

Conclusion

Website structure design can make or break your website. By keeping your website structure simple and organized, you increase the chances of higher rankings in SERPs, as well as save time for your users. Make sure to keep your website’s architecture simple and do not overload it with a variety of different pages.