Search engines (SE) are mobsters. SEs send out spies or “crawlers” on to your website to speed read through all of your content, specifically focusing on keywords. When the crawlers have read everything on your website they tell the SE everything they found and the SE indexes it. Once the content is indexed when users search for keywords the SE finds all the relevant pages and then picks out what it thinks are the best ones to show first. SEs, crawlers, and people are lazy, they all want content to be easy to find.

In order to please the mobsters and the crawlers, websites need to have a good Search Engine Optimization (SEO). To make the SEO as high as possible you want to make your site easy for the crawlers to read through, which is built on the structure of your website.

Are You following? No? Ok, let’s sum it up.

Your site structure needs to be as simple and easy to navigate; not only for your users but also for the crawlers to index your site better so you have more visits to your site. Better site structure = higher SEO = more website visits!

If your website has a higher SEO, it’ll significantly affect your click through rate (CTR). According to this guide on SEO by the Kissmetric Blog, “websites ranked number one received an average CTR of 36.4 percent; number two had a CTR of 12.5 percent; and number three had a CTR of 9.5 percent.” Those numbers show how important small changes in your SEO score can affect your business.

So let’s cover the basics of what makes a tremendous site structure!

1. Hierarchy

If site structure is the foundation of your website, the hierarchy of your website is the bedrock under the foundation. It's the foundation for the foundation. Whether you're designing your website for the first time or redesigning your old website site mapping is always the starting line. 

Website design hierarchy is just a flow chart of the information on your site. It starts with your home page which is your most important landing page that leads the consumers and the crawlers to the rest of your content. Then the hierarchy leads down to your categories and on to your subcategories. 

In creating a site hierarchy you are showing your consumers the most important information first. This is the beautiful curb appeal to your house before your guest comes through that front door. Having the most important information at the top of your hierarchy prevents your consumer from having to dig down through the subcategories, it makes the lazy crawlers happy because they found the meaty information fast. People don't want to dig down and neither do crawlers. 

By mapping out your hierarchy it prevents your website design from becoming cluttered and confusing. You want your users to be able to find everything they are looking for and not send them on a wild hunt through the jungle that is your site structure. If a consumer is looking for sandals you don't want them to have to search through pages and pages of shirts to find the shoe section. By creating a hierarchy your consumer is more likely to find what they need, and more likely to return. 

2. Shallow Website

Having a shallow website might sound redundant to having a hierarchy because the message is the same: make everything easy to find. Your site structure should follow the hierarchy you have mapped out. Then you follow-up by making a shallow navigation to your website. When referring to the depth of the website it's describing how many clicks it takes a consumer to reach their destination. 

To make ethe user experience pleasant the site structure needs to be shallow enough that a user can get to what they came to your site for within 3-4 clicks. Home > Shoes > Sandals. The users should need toe experience the journey that is Home > Clothing > Bottoms > Summer > Shoes > Mens > Sandals. Nope. They lost interest, and you lost a customer. Not only did they lose interest but the crawler indexed that information as less important because it was so deep in your site, that it's worth on your hierarchy was low.  

3. Using Internal Links

If you think that having your users reach their destination within 3-4 clicks is an impossible task, you should consider the advantages to internal links. Internal links are like getting a 2-for-1! Crawlers search of keywords within your content, having internal links mean that you will have those keywords on multiple pages, one page where the keyword is used for the content, like all the sandals on your shoe's page. And the keyword sandals could be internally linked on your shorts page. Shorts and sandals are related items making an internal link like a hidden passageway for the crawlers and users to sneak through your site with. 

Internal links are beneficial to the two previous site structure tips. Using internal links allows your hierarchy to remain intact while still keeping your site structure shallow so users can hop around your site quickly. Keeping your users on your site for longer raising their dwell time. 

It's a food chain out there on the world wide web. You are trying to please the crawlers, that are pleasing the SEO and they are serving the user. Now that your know the importance of site structure in relation to your SEO, 5J Design in Sioux Falls is here to help you build a killer website.