Site structure is one of the most important aspects of designing a website that many might overlook. From revenue to Google rankings, site structure has a wide reach that can affect all aspects of your business if done incorrectly. But is site structure important for SEO?
A good site structure is essential for SEO and allows it to rank higher. It will make it easier for search engines to crawl the site and understand which pages are important. It also improves the site’s user experience, which also affects rankings.
Read on for more about why site structure is important, how search engines deal with a poor site structure, and how to create the best structure possible.
Why Is Site Structure Important?
Site structure, also known as website architecture, is essentially organisation. Without an organised site, search engines might struggle to find the information that they’re looking for or might be unsure which pages are the most important pages on the site.
Keep a Well-Organised Kitchen
Imagine it like organising the kitchen in your home. If all of your kitchen items were scattered randomly, with ladles in the fridge and spoons in the oven, a guest that needed to come in and cook would get frustrated, take much longer to find the ingredients and utensils that they need, and likely even give up before they manage to. They would also struggle to know which utensils are the best and would likely use sub-par utensils as they’ve missed the best ones.
In a well-organised kitchen, the guest would take just a couple of minutes to get used to where everything is, find everything they need, have a nicer experience, and use only the best pans and utensils.
In this analogy, the guest is Google, the kitchen is your website, and the pans and utensils are the content and information on your site. We don’t want to confuse Google, create a poor experience, or make it confusing which content is important.
Is Site Structure a Ranking Factor?
Site structure is a ranking factor that can also impact other ranking factors. On its own, it will allow search engines to find and index content quickly, which affects how fast you’ll start to rank and how high you can rank.
A poor site structure also means you’ll have a poor user experience, with UX being a direct ranking factor. Because your site is more confusing and harder to navigate, this will reduce the user experience.
For more information on what crawling and indexing means, read our guide: What is crawling and indexing in SEO?
How Will Search Engines Deal with a Poor Site Structure?
Because they won’t be able to crawl your site efficiently, search engines will change their behaviour compared to how they would crawl a well-structured website. These changes may include:
- Crawling pages less often
- Not crawling the entire site
- Reducing your site’s ranking
- Missing pages altogether
- Confusing which pages are important
To help you understand how crawlers understand your site’s data, we wrote this handy guide on what Google sees when it crawls a site.
What Is the Best SEO Structure for a Website?
A strong website architecture should follow best practices to ensure search engines can crawl the site. I’ve seen clients with sites that try to be ‘unique’ in their navigation and reduce the navigation bar to just one button. However, there’s a reason why a standardised format is used across almost all high-ranking websites – because it’s easy to use!
Here are a few ways that you can create a good website architecture:
- Group related content together in navigation menus and category pages.
- Organise pages in a logical hierarchy that follows standard practice. E.g. Home > Service > Sub-service.
- Minimise the number of clicks needed to reach content. Using the example above, you could include Service in the navigation menu while the Sub-service is under a dropdown. This makes it accessible while remaining un-cluttered.
- Make the most important pages stand out, include the Service page in the navigation bar instead of hiding it behind multiple clicks.
- Avoid orphan pages, particularly for important pages.
- Use internal links to related pages.
- Submit accurate sitemaps.
- Optimise your site’s URLs to include breadcrumbs. E.g. for an article, using https://www.example.com/blogs/example-blog/ rather than just https://www.example.com/example-blog/.
- You can also take steps to optimise your crawl budget. Read our guide on crawl management for more information.
Fine Tune Your Technical SEO With Wildcat Digital
At Wildcat Digital, we’re experts in fine-tuning your site architecture to ensure search engines can crawl your site easily. We also cover every aspect of your technical SEO, able to take your site from a technical nightmare to a dream come true. Visit our technical SEO page for more information, or get in touch with a member of our team to discuss your website’s requirements.
Jamie Stowe
Senior SEO Account Manager
