Content
This is where all of the visual/content elements of your website will be contained to display that information to your visitors. Images, text, hyperlinks, and more can be found within this section. The “terms” keywords grouping acts as a category filter from my Google Sheets classification example earlier. In contrast, the “parent topics” grouping can help you discover various main keywords and what pages targeting those main keywords can also rank for. That’s because it ensures that any two pages on your website are just a few clicks away from each other.
A correct understanding of the structure of a website makes it easy for designers to create meaningful website information architectures. The designer’s role is to ensure accessibility and create a website with a great UX that is easy to use. A good website structure improves the usability of our website by making it easier for users to find what they are looking for.
Take inspiration from your competitors’ websites
This part of a website is not displayed in the browser window. Think of this section as the place where all of your resources can be found and used to make up the styling and functionality of your webpage. A good homepage should properly demonstrate what services/products you have to offer, and where people should go next once they have decided you are the right choice for them. You can gather the data from the Related terms report by clicking on “terms” or “parent topic” keyword grouping in the sidebar. Google will have a hard time personalizing your search results. It can’t be sure if you mean pots in the context of cooking, gardening, or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.
Complex document structures require deeper menu hierarchies, but users should never be forced into page after page of menus if direct access is possible. With a well-balanced, functional hierarchy you can offer users menus that provide quick access to information and reflect the organization of your site. Users try to imagine the site structure as well, how to plan a website structure and a successful information architecture will help the user build a firm and predictable mental model of your site. The header is responsible for showing visitors the website’s company logo, the primary & secondary navigation menus, and contact information. The HTML tag defines the main content of a webpage that will be directly visible to the user.
Using Visual sitemap generators
Whether or not you have this data from your existing website or competitor analysis, it’s good to make sure you’re targeting the most suitable keywords possible. If you’re in the process of redesigning your current website, you can check whether you already have site structure depth problems. Use the Site Audit tool to crawl your website, then go to Structure explorer and open the Depth report. Structuring or restructuring your content doesn’t always have high priority within everything you have to do.
Nowadays, it also considers the content around the link to gather extra information. Google is becoming better at recognizing related words and concepts. Adding links from a meaningful context allows Google to properly value and rank your pages. Yoast SEO Premium makes internal linking a breeze by automatically suggesting relevant content from your site to link to. Adding this hierarchy and categorizing to your pages helps your user and Google make sense of every single page you write.
Design Your Navigation Menu
The glasses closest to the top of the pyramid end up with more champagne (or “link equity”) than the glasses at the bottom. A lot of it depends on what you want to achieve with the site. These are more specific than categories but are still not related to single items. So, for instance, if you had a site about sporting equipment, categories might be shoes, and then subcategories could be running shoes, basketball shoes, hiking shoes, and so on.
It matters not only to search engine robots but also to your website users. Because the more convenient and intuitive your website structure is, the longer https://globalcloudteam.com/ your potential client will stay on your website. If you design your site’s structure in the right way, your website will be awarded search excellence.
Basic Terminology for Page Structure
Sites with low dwell times and poor CTR always rank lower than websites where users like to stay longer. Logical site structure reduces bounce rates, and increases dwell times. As a result, you get better UX and search rankings all in one. It provides users with many options on where to go next and is best navigated via internal links or the search field, less via a navigation menu.
- It’s all about how you present and organize your website so it is recognizable and readable both to the algorithm and your users.
- It is particularly important that crawlers can find all subpages quickly and easily when websites have a large number of subpages.
- Typically, contacts, a search box, a language or region switch are also included in the header.
- Sort out hidden pages and dead ends in four easy steps with our orphaned content SEO workout, available in Yoast SEO Premium.
- This simple portfolio displays everything you’d need to know about Daniel’s work.
- However, each of these navigational areas are used to meet unique navigational needs of website visitors.
- They will then subsequently reward you with higher rankings.
After three years of writing, she’ll have more than a thousand. Alice will not be able to find her favorite story, because of the abundance of stories on her desk. Some outdated articles you might be able to update and republish, to make them relevant again. If an article is outdated but no one reads it anyway, you might opt for getting rid of it altogether.
What is the best way to structure a website?
This is similar to Google encountering a disorganized website. If the structure doesn’t make sense, Google may not understand the purpose of each of your webpages. And then might struggle to understand when and where your pages should appear in search results. Good site architecture can help your pages rank on Google.