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Website Structure: What are the Types and It’s Importance for SEO

Written by Sabrina Sedicot Jun 19, 2023 · 4 min read

Did you know that 57% of Internet users will not recommend a company with a well-designed website structure on a mobile device?

Organization and structure are both key today. This relates to the experience provided to the consumer and how Google views your website.

With that being said, below, we’ll explore website structure in more depth, looking at the best website structure types and the importance of website structure in regard to SEO.

What is site structure?

There’s only one place to begin; what is website structure? Site structure is the manner in which you arrange the content on your site. Or, in other terms, it’s the posts and pages on your website.

Site structure deals with how this content is structured, linked, and displayed to the user.

Internal links, navigation, breadcrumbs, and taxonomies, like categories and tags, are all tools you may use to enhance the structure of your website.

Your users will navigate your website more effortlessly if you do this correctly. Also, Google can better index your URLs!

Types of website structure 

Now, let’s delve a bit deeper and look at the different types of website structures. There are four main models here, which are as follows:

1. Database model
2. Matrix structure
3. Sequential structure
4. Hierarchical structure

Let’ s explore each one in more detail.

1. Database model

This is the most common paradigm for websites with a lot of user-generated material.

2. Matrix structure

Online news publications frequently use a structure like this for their websites. Despite being present, the site architecture isn’t as evident as in the hierarchical model.

3. Sequential structure

You use a sequential structure when you want your users to follow steps or any other sequence.

4. Hierarchical structure

The most frequent type of website structure is a hierarchical one. This is based on a main page, the parent page, and child pages, i.e., categories and subcategories, which branch off the main page.

Importance of site structure for SEO

Whether it’ s luxury web design or an e-commerce store, site structure is critical for SEO. Let’ s take a look at the importance of website structure in more detail:

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• It will help to keep your site organized – Your website will get bigger with time. If your site lacks a decent structure, you may write frequently or add additional product pages or case studies, which could cause things to become disorganized. Everything will have its place when you start with a logical structure, making it simple to arrange or categorize pages, and for visitors and search engine bots to locate them.
• Users can intuitively navigate your website – Users value easy navigation. Without it, you risk having visitors leave your site. Navigation should be made easy by your site’s design, lowering bounce rates, clearing up any uncertainty they might have otherwise had, and eventually increasing conversion rates. Also, Google favors websites that perform effectively, have high click-through rates, and have lengthy average page views. Hence, by enhancing user experience, you’re also strengthening the site’s reputation with Google.
• You tell Google which pages are the most important – Internal links not only assist with site crawling and benefit SEO by highlighting a page’s significance. A page will seem more essential to Google and may be ranked higher if you have more internal links. For instance, a homepage link should be in your header menu on every page. However, a blog post you made two years ago will have fewer links pointing to it, indicating that it is a page with lower importance. You can aid your vital pages in ranking higher by telling Google which of these pages is more important. You can also avoid competing with yourself in search rankings, especially if you have many pages on the same subject.
• It helps Google locate your site, to begin with – Also, it will make it easier for Google to find the pages on your website. This is because, if it can see one page on your website, it should be able to navigate all the others thanks to your site’s internal linking and site structure. Google may not always find everything on your website, but by structuring your site properly, you increase the likelihood it will.
• It gives Google a better understanding of your website – By assisting Google in understanding the goal, content, and offering of your website, a solid website structure will aid in the indexing of your pages. Google can then deliver more pertinent search results to users looking for your goods or services.

How to create an SEO-friendly website structure?

So, what is the best website structure from an SEO perspective?

1. Create a simple hierarchy – Designing a website with numerous categories that branch into organized subpages is a fantastic idea. Users (and search engines) can navigate your material more easily. They can interact with your top-tier pages initially as well (and these are often your most important ones).
2. Organise sub-pages into local categories – Your pages become more structured and organized with categories. Your content will be challenging to navigate without them. Expanding on this, classifications don’t need to be unchangeable. A current variety, for instance, might get a new page added to it. You may also quickly create new types of sites you design that don’t fit into any of your existing ones.
3. Make the most of internal links – Your navigation menu becomes crucial since the way your pages are organized substantially influences how your site is structured. You can direct readers to your primary content and subcategories from this page. Nevertheless, you can also include internal links in your posts to point readers to other pertinent content. You may aid search engines in identifying your website as an industry authority by linking various pieces of content that address various facets of the same topic. It may be challenging to establish this authority if your pages are dispersed randomly and have no discernible connection to one another.
4. Incorporate effective keywords – You must consider traffic potential when selecting keywords for your article. You may locate suitable keywords and assess how easy or difficult it will be to rank for them using tools like Semrush, Google Keyword Planner, and Ahrefs. It’s critical to consider how competitive a keyword is. You have a very low probability of outranking popular websites. Thus you may wish to choose long-tail keywords. Despite having fewer searches, these are simpler to rank for since they are more precise.
5. Delete old pages – Having older, out-of-date pages on your site that still get indexed by Google uses up your “crawl budget.” This is the maximum amount of pages a search engine can crawl. The speed of a website is one variable that affects this score. Cleaning up your website will increase crawlability. For instance, you can remove pages that are no longer relevant or update content that already exists.
6. Provide clear navigation – To make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for, your navigation menu design must be clear and easy. In light of this, make sure your top-level items are available from any webpage. To assist users in exploring your website, your menus should be scannable.
7. Boost the speed of your website – An important sign of a user-friendly website is its speed. Yet site performance also has an impact on how search engines interpret your website. You’ll likely rank lower the longer it takes them to crawl your pages. Your website’s performance may be impacted by a variety of variables, including user location, browser type, and your hosting server.

Final words about site structure

So there you have it: everything you need to know about website structure and how website structure analysis can improve your user experience and SEO ranking. If you follow the tips and suggestions we’ve mentioned above, you can make sure your website is structured effectively so you can achieve better visibility and more traffic.