If you attended BrightonSEO in October 2024, something Google’s John Mueller talked about during his keynote speech is that search engine crawl robots aren’t very smart.
In other words, if you have a very complicated website structure, the chances are that it will confuse Google and ultimately, your website rankings will take the hit.
That’s why how your site is organised, otherwise known as site architecture can benefit from being simplified if it isn’t already.
New to all things optimising your site structure for SEO?
Learn from the SEO experts here at Imaginaire on why site structure is important and how to organise your website in the most efficient way.
What Is Site Architecture?
If we think of the architecture of a building in terms of what it’s made of and how easy it is to get around (i.e. wayfinding), site architecture is much the same only for a website.
In short, site architecture is the organisation and navigation of a website.
Starting with the homepage, the site architecture can be physically mapped out by linking all of the pages (and the journey to those pages) in a diagram.
Ideally, the map should feel organised with each page linked to the next in a logical order. Likewise, each page should have a purpose, not be too similar to what another page provides or be redundant in value.
Overall, site architecture looks at how well all of this organisation is handled. If a website has been properly designed and built, it should have a logical site architecture.
Why Does Site Architecture Matter For SEO?
SEO is about far more than just keywords and backlinks. If your website isn’t crawlable by search engines and users also find the navigation confusing or frustrating, conversions become less likely.
Similar to wayfinding helping us to get around a physical building, site architecture is there to provide a clear structure about what your website is about. The content on the pages should also match the name and overall intention of each page, with the wider site architecture working in harmony.
As Google has stated, a complicated site structure is unlikely to be properly understood by search engine robots. Therefore, site architecture remains an important consideration for any SEO strategy.
How To Improve Site Architecture
The first step would be to determine if your site architecture has any obvious issues. For example, is it overly complicated? Is the journey on desktop great but poor on mobile?
By mapping out all of your pages, you can begin to understand if your site architecture has been designed with user-friendliness in mind. Ideally, the structure should be kept shallow to avoid overly complicated or confusing user journeys.
From there, optimisations can be made. This may involve consolidating pages to reduce the website bloat so that the journey from A to B is quicker and easier for users.
If any pages are to be moved or deleted, just be sure to add redirects so that users don’t come to an abrupt end with a 404 notice.
Once your website has been improved, you must continue to monitor its effectiveness over time.
Before adding new pages, think carefully about whether this is warranted or if the content would work better on another page or even a blog instead. Overall, keep things simple to avoid costly mistakes where your conversions are concerned.
Need Help With Your Site Structure Or SEO? Contact Us Today!
Building and maintaining websites, especially in terms of keeping everything SEO-friendly isn’t always easy.
With the right insights, you can uncover errors that could be preventing your customers from converting or even finding your website in the first place.
If you need any help with anything we’ve mentioned above or are thinking of undertaking a website redesign then you’re in the right place.
Contact the Imaginaire team today by dropping us a message or giving us a call on 0115 697 1158.
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Imaginaire
