Hierarchy and structure are vital to the success of any web design project, ensuring all your pages are organised and relevant pages are all connected. Whether you are launching a new site or revamping an existing one, creating an effective website hierarchy and structure is essential to aid usability and optimise your pages for the search engine rankings.
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What is website hierarchy and structure?
Website hierarchy and structure refers to how a website’s pages are organised, connected, and presented to users and search engines. It acts as the blueprint for your website, shaping how information flows and how easily visitors can find what they’re looking for.
A good website hierarchy will typically group related content, use a categories and subcategories structure, and keep important pages no more than 3 clicks away from the homepage. Generally, when planning a website structure, it is displayed as a tree. For example:
- Homepage
- About Us
- Services
- Web Design
- Digital Marketing
- SEO
- Blog
- Guides & How To’s
- Case Studies
- Contact Us
There are many different ways that an effective hierarchy and structure can be implemented. The most common of these is through the navigational menu. URL structure and breadcrumbs can also be used. Internally linking relevant pages is also beneficial. Search engines will also use sitemaps to index website pages.
Why is an effective website hierarchy and structure important?
Having an effective website hierarchy and structure is important for both SEO and the user experience. Taking the time to ensure users and search engine crawlers can easily navigate and discover pages on your website offers lots of benefits.
- Improves the crawlability of your site.
- Strengthens your internal link structure.
- Prevents issues with duplicate content.
- Ensures pages are not competing against one another for rankings.
- Allows your users to easily find their way around your website.
- Creates a better user experience.
- Distributes page authority for ranking potential.
- Can increase conversions as users are more likely to browse further into your site.
- Reduces bounce rates as users are more likely to stay longer if they can find what they need.
How can you create an effective website hierarchy and structure?
Given the many benefits you can gain from an effective website hierarchy and structure, no doubt you’ll want to put this into practice. Fortunately, there are plenty of tips you can follow to ensure you create an effective website hierarchy that benefits your SEO and user experience:
1) Define your website’s purpose
The first way to create an effective website hierarchy and structure is to define your website’s purpose. Clearly defining your website’s purpose helps you to shape how your content will be presented and accessed. Consider your website’s main goal and your target audience.
2) Check the competition
Another tip for creating an effective website hierarchy and structure is to check out the competition. Competitive research is an ideal method for putting yourself in your user’s shoes. Browse your competitor’s website as a user to identify what they do right and wrong.
Generally, you should find that most of your competitors will generally use the same website structure. This should give you a very clear idea of how visitors will browse your site, making it much easier to create your own user-centric hierarchy and structure.
3) List your content
The next step is to list all your content in a content inventory, splitting it into major sections and subpages or related topics. This ensures that all relevant content is grouped into its relevant section, making it easier to categorise and organise. The major sections that you categorise content will be the links that appear on your top navigation bar.
4) Organise it logically
Once you have listed your content, it’s important to organise it into a logical order. Group related items and order them from broad to specific. This forms your hierarchical structure. A good rule of thumb is that any page should be reachable in three clicks or fewer from the homepage.
5) Visualise your sitemap
Another step that can help you in creating an effective website hierarchy and structure is to visualise your sitemap. This helps you visualise how everything will connect and ensures there are no orphaned pages.
6) Ensure simple and clear navigation
Ensuring you have simple and clear navigation is another way to create an effective website hierarchy and structure. This ensures that all users browsing your site can easily navigate and find what they are looking for while improving the user experience.
To ensure a simple and clear navigation, use straightforward, descriptive labels for your navigation links. For example, using ‘pricing’ instead of ‘rates’ or ‘our offers’. Don’t over clutter your navigation either, and stick to a maximum of around 6 top-level items in your main menu.
If you need to add more to your navigation, consider using drop-downs or expandable menus for subcategories. The use of breadcrumbs for navigation can also allow users to find their way back to a previous page if necessary.
7) Use a URL structure
Another important tip to consider for creating an effective website hierarchy and structure is your URL structure. The URLS for every page and category or subcategory should be reflective of your hierarchy.
For example, if you offer a web design service, a URL structure could be /services/web-design. Making the URL reflective of where a user is in your website, as well as readable, helps both users and search engines navigate your website much more easily.
8) Internally link your pages
Internally linking relevant pages is also an effective method for creating better website navigation. If another page on your website is related to another page’s content, then naturally link each page within your content.
This improves the user experience through easier navigation while also allowing search engines to see the structure and relationship between your content. In some cases, it allows users to discover pages that they may not have otherwise come across.
However, it’s important to remember that you don’t add too many internal links to your pages. A good suggestion is to include 3 to 5 links for every 1000 words. That way, you can keep users engaged in your content while giving them just enough encouragement to dig deeper.
9) Page and content hierarchy
As well as the overall website hierarchy and structure, you should also ensure each page has a clear and organised structure. This is most typically achieved through the use of heading elements (H1, H2, H3, etc.). This ensures your pages are easier to read and better to understand.
Every page should have a single H1 that clearly defines what the page is about. Then, the content on the page should be split and organised into appropriate subheadings, using H2 for main subheadings and further headings (such as H3) for more in-depth sections.
10) Tags and categories
Tags and categories can be an effective method to easily organise similar content. Most commonly, tags and categorises may be used to organise and sort blog posts or product listing pages.
Categories are used to broadly group pages together. For example, on your blog, you may use the category ‘SEO’ to group all relevant blogs on this topic. You can then set subcategorises, such as ‘Local SEO’, to further organise all your blog posts.
Tags, on the other hand, are used for describing specific details on a specific blog post or page. They typically act as index words for your site, which makes it easier for users to discover pages if they conduct a site search. Ideally, you should have no more than 5 tags per page.
11) Ensure mobile-friendliness
Our last tip for creating an effective website hierarchy and structure is to ensure mobile friendliness. Given that the majority of web traffic now comes from mobile devices, it’s only natural that your hierarchy, structure, and navigation are mobile-friendly.
To ensure mobile friendliness, consider using collapsible menus that a user can press to expand or collapse. This avoids over-cluttering the small screen space on mobile. Consider using a hamburger menu as a way to simplify your navigation menu on mobile devices.
An effective website hierarchy and structure is a powerful tool that can ensure you successfully guide users, improve the user experience, and boost your SEO. Taking the time to develop such an effective website hierarchy and structure will pay off in improved engagement, easier navigation, and stronger search performance.
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