Technology

How Site Structure Impacts SEO: The Importance of a Well-Organised Website

Site structure is one of the most important aspects of SEO. If your website isn’t well-organised, it will be difficult for search engines to understand your content and rank you accordingly. In this article, we will discuss the importance of site structure and how you can improve yours to get better SEO results.

First, what is site structure?

Site structure refers to how your pages are arranged within your website. It’s important because it helps visitors find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, which increases the likelihood of them staying on your site longer and coming back again later on (more about this below). 

Any Sydney SEO specialists would agree that a good site structure is crucial for both users and search engines.

Why should you care about your website’s structure?

A well-organised website will make it easier for people to navigate through all its different parts without getting lost or confused along the way. A poorly organised one might leave them feeling frustrated or even angry at having spent their time trying out something new only to be disappointed by its lack of clarity in terms of where things go next. 

If these people are your website’s target audience, you’re doing yourself a big disservice with an unclear or hard-to-navigate website.

In contrast, when site structure is done well, it can result in:

  • Higher time on site – Because visitors can find what they’re looking for more easily, they’re likely to stay longer on your website and explore more pages. This not only increases the chance that they’ll convert into customers but also gives search engines more data to work with.
  • Increased return visits – If people like what they see the first time around, there’s a good chance that they’ll come back later on. Again, this is great news for users and search engines alike!
  • Improved user experience – A well-structured website makes it easy for people to find what they’re looking for without having to search too hard. This leads to a better overall user experience, which is something that both Google and Bing take into account when ranking websites.
  • Better crawlability and indexation – Search engines need access to all the pages on your website in order to properly index them and rank them accordingly. If your website is poorly organised, it will be difficult for them to crawl through all its pages and determine which are the most important. This can lead to lower rankings and less traffic from search engines.

How can you improve your site’s structure?

There are a few different ways that you can improve your site’s structure:

  • Add breadcrumbs – Breadcrumbs are a great way to improve site usability and navigation. They help users understand where they’re at within your website by showing them what page they’re on as well as which section of the site it belongs to (e.g., ‘Home > Category’). 

Breadcrumbs are also good for SEO because they help search engines crawl through all pages of your website more easily, resulting in better indexation rates. This leads us into our next tip:

  • Create an XML sitemap – An XML sitemap is like a table of contents for websites that shows how each page relates to another within the same domain name or subdomain (e.g., blog posts). 

When creating yours, make sure to include all the important pages on your website (including those that might not be linked to from the main navigation) and submit it to both Google and Bing.

  • Use internal links – When you link to other pages on your website from within your content, you’re telling search engines that these pages are important. This helps them understand your site’s hierarchy better and can result in better rankings for those pages. Try to use a variety of anchor text when linking internally so that it looks natural.
  • 301 redirects – If you’ve ever changed the URL structure of your website, you’ll know how important 301 redirects are! They tell browsers and search engines that a specific page has been moved to a new location and should be redirected there instead of showing an error message (e.g., 404 Not Found).

When it comes to your site structure, you want to make sure that it’s easy for people to navigate through all its different parts without getting lost or confused along the way. If you’re not sure how to best go about it, consult a reputable SEO agency.

Christopher Stern

Christopher Stern is a Washington-based reporter. Chris spent many years covering tech policy as a business reporter for renowned publications. He has extensive experience covering Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commissions. He is a graduate of Middlebury College. Email:[email protected]

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