Learn more about the critical role website architecture plays in the success of your website.
A well-structured site not only enhances user experience but also improves search engine visibility and ranking.
Find out how to structure your site for both users and search engines, with tips on organizing content, easy navigation, and passing link authority.
Discover the key elements of a good website architecture, including topic clusters and topical keyword research.
Make sure your site stands out and achieves top rankings on SERPs with these essential tips on website architecture.
Let’s get started.
What Is Website Architecture?
Website architecture refers to the arrangement and presentation of content (e.g. pages and posts) on a website. Essentially, it determines how users and search engines view the content on a website.
By enabling easy navigation between pages and enabling search engines to crawl and comprehend content, a website architecture enhances user experience.
A website’s architecture can be understood by examining the relationships between its pages, which are usually linked from its homepage and grouped into subcategories.
Think of a library – it is well-organized with books arranged on shelves according to their subject, author, or title.
The catalog system helps patrons find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently.
Now, imagine if the library were in a state of disarray – books randomly stacked on the floor, shelves overflowing, and no system in place to help visitors locate specific materials.
This scenario is akin to a website lacking proper website architecture.
Website architecture, just like the organization of a library, plays a crucial role in the functionality and accessibility of a website.
It is a critical component in Search Engine Optimization, helping search engines understand the structure and content of a site, and in turn, improve its visibility and ranking.
Website Architecture: What You Need to Know
The architecture of your website plays a big role in your success, no matter how big or small your site is.
You need to consider how your site’s structure affects both your users and search engines.
For your site to be easy to use and accessible for visitors, and crawlable and technically sound for search engines, it’s critical to adhere to SEO best practices when structuring it.
These include:
User-Friendly Site Structure
A website’s primary goal is to effectively present your products or services to your target audience, including prospective customers or clients. In all aspects of your website design and development, you must prioritize your users.
There are three key elements to consider when examining the importance of your website structure to your users:
Architecture Website – User Experience
You can make a huge difference in how easily your visitors can find what they’re looking for by structuring your website well. They’re more likely to stay and become a customer if they can easily find what they need.
Easy Navigation
In order to facilitate user navigation and promote prospects through the sales funnel, websites must have an effective structure.
By grouping content and making pages easy to access, site architecture can improve the user experience.
As a result, users will spend less time looking for relevant information and are less likely to leave the site, thereby maintaining engagement and promoting retention
How to Structure Your Site For SEO?
A website’s architecture is crucial to ensuring a positive user experience and optimizing search engine visibility.
Search engines can better understand and index well-structured websites, which results in improved visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Grouping for Topical Relevance
A site’s organization plays a major role in showing links between pages and posts from a topical SEO perspective.
You can demonstrate to search engines that you are an expert in your field by grouping similar content together.
As a result, search engines can better understand what your site is about and which keywords you should rank for.
Make Your Most Important Content Stand Out
By using a good website layout, you can highlight your best pages (sometimes referred to as hub pages or pillar pages) and get them to rank for high-demand and hard-to-rank keywords.
Easy Crawling
With a good website architecture, search engines can crawl your site faster (as well as identify new pages) more easily.
Google will have difficulty indexing your website’s pages if it can’t crawl all of them. As long as all content is linked somehow to another page, you shouldn’t face this issue.
Passing Link Authority
Quality SEO relies heavily on internal links to rank well. The distribution of link authority across your website is critical to optimizing the benefits of your link-building efforts.
To secure high-quality backlinks, it is advisaIt is imperative that you distribute link authority appropriately throughout your website in order to maximize the benefits of your link-building efforts likelihood of acquiring relevant and quality backlinks.
Clear Definition of Categories
Multiple pages with overlapping content can result in keyword cannibalization, which hinders website optimization.
By allocating a specific location for each topic or piece of content, a properly organized website structure can mitigate this issue.
What Does a Good Website Architecture Look Like?
A good site structure has organized content according to a topic with the most important pages of your website should be highlighted and the pages structured in a logical hierarchy.
Topic clusters determine the architecture of a website. Content is grouped around a central topic and linked to and from pillar pages.
The purpose of topic clusters is to maintain reader attention by offering multiple internal linking opportunities around a single topic.
You can use them to structure your site, group content that is topically related, and establish solid internal links.
For top rankings on the SERPs, topic clusters are crucial in demonstrating topical authority.
Topical Keyword Research
The objective of topical authority keyword research is to identify keywords and phrases related to your area of expertise or your established authority.
To increase your visibility in search engines, you need to identify keywords that potential customers or audience members might use when looking for information or products related to your field. Conducting a topical authority keyword research involves the following steps:
Start by defining the topic in which you have established authority or aim to establish authority. In this way, you will be able to determine the scope of your keyword research and ensure that you are focusing on keywords that are relevant to your business.
Use keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to identify keywords related to your topic. You may find it easier to rank for keywords with high search volumes and low competition.
Analyze the content and SEO strategies of websites that rank well for the keywords you have identified. By understanding what it takes to rank well for those keywords, you can optimize your own content accordingly.
Develop valuable and informative content around your keywords: Create valuable and informative content that provides value to your audience. In your title tags, headings, and meta descriptions, include keywords in a natural and relevant way to optimize your content for search engines.
Keep an eye on your rankings for the keywords you’ve targeted and adjust your content and SEO strategy accordingly. Maintaining or improving your topical authority will help you stay ahead of the competition.
To establish yourself as a trusted source of information in your chosen topic, you can conduct thorough topical authority keyword research to identify the keywords and phrases that are most relevant to your field. Optimize your content around these keywords to establish or strengthen your position.
Make a Plan for Your Site's Structure and Hierarchy
It is crucial to create a solid website structure in order to achieve success. Choose a pillar page that covers the broader idea for each of the topics you want to focus on. After that, plan out the supporting content that will provide more detail.
Pillar pages are like the cornerstones of your content – they provide a broad overview. Make these pages as broad as possible without going too deep. By doing so, you will be able to explore the specifics in other related pages.
Remember to make sure your main pillar page is linked to these supporting pages. As a result, your content will be more cohesive and make more sense as a whole.
And don’t forget to check out what your competitors are doing! Organizing your site structure can help you visualize how your topics fit together and where each page belongs.
Lay out the site's navigation menu
In addition to helping your users find the pages they’re looking for, navigation menus serve as a great indicator of which pages are most important.
Your navigation menus should also be carefully structured.
Here is an example of the primary navigation of two sites in the cyber security niche:
Press on the image to zoom in.
Compare this to:
As we can see in contrast to the first image, the second image does not go any deeper than top-level generic categories, making it difficult for users to find the right products.
Your navigation menus are a great opportunity to display your main pages to users, so be aware of the way you structure them.
Don't Create Too Many Sub Categories
Having a great website architecture means that your pages shouldn’t be hidden deep within your site, making it easy for users and search engines to access the content on the page.
You should be able to access all your site’s pages within three clicks of your homepage if you structure your site correctly.
You can prevent pages from getting buried deep within your site by using breadcrumbs and internal linking, but visualizing your site structure can help keep content within these three layers.
This prevents your site from having orphan pages, where a page isn’t linked from anywhere on the site. Direct links are the only way to access it from anywhere within a site.
Fix Keyword Cannibalization Issues
The problem of keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages within a website target the same keyword, thereby diluting the search engine optimization efforts of the site.
In addition to reducing search engine ranking performance, this can reduce traffic and lead generation.
This problem can be avoided by understanding keyword cannibalization and how it relates to the purpose of each page.
Essentially, keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages target a given keyword with the same intent.
The result is confusion for search engines, which cannot determine which page is most relevant based on the search query.
A strategic approach should be taken when planning the structure of a new website by taking into consideration each keyword’s intent.
By optimizing each page for a specific intent, keyword cannibalization is reduced. It is also important to regularly monitor the performance of each page and make any necessary changes.
Use Internal Linking Strategically
In order to plan an effective site structure, internal linking must be emphasized heavily. Links connect pages within a website and provide several advantages.
They help search engines understand a site’s structure and topical connections between pages.
The second benefit is that they help search engines index the content of the site more easily because they facilitate the transfer of link authority.
In addition, they make it easy for users to navigate the site.
Navigation links, contextual links, and breadcrumbs are among the strategies for implementing internal links.
Furthermore, internal links are crucial to topic clustering, and the Site Audit Tool can be used to audit a site’s internal linking structure.
Create an HTML Sitemap
Lastly, make sure you include an HTML sitemap when creating a great website structure.
In addition to helping users find all your pages, this sitemap helps search engines find them as well. It will prevent “orphan pages” from appearing and you will discover new pages quickly.
HTML sitemaps also help distribute link authority, making them even more important.
Do not underestimate how crucial it is to get your website architecture right – it can make or break your SEO efforts.
In summary. Users and search engines will benefit from your structure by organizing your pages by topic, distributing link authority effectively, and helping people find what they are looking for quickly.