Website Structure

Website structure is a vital aspect in SEO in which how you organized your website. In this module, you’ll learn why website structure helps in SEO and what is the best practice to start improving it.

What is Website Structure?

A website structure tells how is different pages in your website are grouped and linked to each other by using hierarchy. By having a good website structure, it can get all the pages organized and presented to the search engine’s algorithm so that the spider bot can read the context easier. When you started a new website, things are simple since you only have few pages on your site. But as your website grows over the time, and you will have a new pages like blog or new product pages over the time. This is the time that things started to get messy. You might have a tons of great contents on your site that published long ago, but your website’s visitors find it hard to search that content.

Why Website Structure is Important in SEO?

Structured data is an emerging SEO factor and we believe Google’s Core Web Vitals update is going to become one of the most important components to an SEO strategy in the future. Making sure your website is well-laid-out, easy for search engines to crawl, and mapped properly will make it easier for your content to be indexed. Moreover, an intentional structure helps prevent keyword cannibalization. This means content that covers similar topics will be distinguished and organized from one another, giving users and crawl bots a clear idea of the intention for each piece.

Types of Website Structure

There are 4 most popular website structures used today by a lot of webmaster.

1. Hierarchical Website Structure

Hierarchical structure is also known as a tree structure, is the most popular website structure. It moves from larger, more general category pages into smaller, individual pages. An example of this is an e-commerce website that has high-level product categories (e.g., shirts) that flow into smaller categories (e.g., t-shirts, blouses, knits) that flow into individual product pages. Hierarchical structures are great for websites with large amounts of data like e-commerce. First, you would establish your informational pages and other categories that would be important to your visitors. A good place to start is with the pages that receive the most traffic. From there, you would determine how the rest of your pages fit amongst those categories. Always make sure you approach this in a way that makes sense for users and crawl bots since it will be very challenging to change this later.

2. Sequential Website Structure

A sequential, or also known as linear website structure is one that follows a simple page-to-page path. These are more common for simple websites or when creating a campaign with multiple landing pages. If you’re a startup or a small business, you probably only have a few essential pages you want to display so this approach would make sense. This would even make sense for large website checkout experiences The best use for this structure is when you want your content to have a chronological order. For example, an online course or sales funnel. A sequential website structure will ensure users go through the steps as you intend to make the process as straightforward as possible. To get started with this structure, look for areas of your website where having a logical sequence would help improve the user experience. This could be through your checkout process, highlighting benefits of your offerings, or for specific content topics.

3. Database Website Structure

A database structure is one of the most complex website structure types using a bottom-up approach. This approach requires special attention to tagging and metadata in order to create a searchable database for users to access. Site search is becoming more and more popular and can be a valuable tool for increasing conversions. A big advantage from a database structure is that it can be personalized to meet your needs. It can also be built over time since it is bottom-up so you don’t need to worry about making it perfect right away. As your website grows, your previous database files will become part of their own dataset under the new, larger structure. One challenge with a database structure is you will need someone on your team with extensive programming knowledge. This is an important part to make sure nothing gets lost in translation. The first thing you should consider is the level of data your website has before using this structure. If there’s a fit, find an experienced website programmer who can help guide you in the right direction and start strategizing categories.

4. Matrix Website Structure

A matrix structure is one of the oldest structure types on the internet. It’s complex and non-traditional that is best navigated using search and internal links. Wikipedia is a prime example of a matrix structure. There are seemingly endless possibilities for the next steps a user can take and with more than 80 percent of their traffic coming from organic searches, it works. Following a wiki-style approach is the most obvious use of a matrix structure. It lets you present a large amount of data and information in a word cloud-like format. You don’t need to worry as much about a parent-child relationships for pages or navigation. The next step in the sequence would depend on each user. This structure should mainly be considered when a website has a narrow focus as broad topics might be overwhelming for users. For example, this would make sense as a training database for company systems or fan-based websites for popular TV shows.

Choosing The Correct Website Structure For Your Site

The website structure you choose will largely depend on the type of website you’re building. While you can choose whatever structure you’d like for your website, it is best to choose one that aligns with your core ideas and how visitors expect to interact with your site. For websites that have a lot of data and where clear categories exist, then a hierarchical or database structure might be your best bet. If you want to deliver bite-sized chunks of data in chronological order, then the sequential structure is an easy choice. As for the matrix structure, following a wiki-style approach is really the best solution. This makes the most sense for sites with a lot of content or links that can connect together.