One out of two users who come to a website leave after visiting just one page. Website owners don’t have much time to impact users, but you will always want to make a good first impression with your layout.
However, a bad site architecture can only guarantee a high bounce rate. If you don’t think of your visitors first and deliver them a clean, easy-to-navigate website, they’ll bounce in seconds. And search engines won’t view your site favorably if it has a messy, confusing user experience.
The Importance of Good Website Structuring
A good website architecture means that your site is easy to navigate, aesthetically pleasing, and doesn’t bog users down with extra content. To put it simply, it’s a solid foundation for your website that makes for a favorable first impression.
Here are some tips to help you build a site structure that will increase your page ranking and conversion rates and keep users happy.
1. Create a Sitemap
Another thing that you can do is create a sitemap, a document that contains links to all the pages on your site.
While this may sound like overkill for a small website, it’s a great way to get an overview of your page structure. A sitemap is also a useful tool for new employees, who can use it to learn about the site content and link structure.
2. Create a Simple, Intuitive Navigation Menu
Now that your content has mapped out, it’s time to create a navigation structure that users can easily follow.
However, resist the urge to create a menu with an endless array of pages. Aim for a menu that has four to five items. The navigation bar should also be placed in areas where users can quickly see and click on it.
3. Keep URLs User-Friendly
Having a descriptive URL is also very important. For example, using a service like Squarespace, you can organize your content and give your website a clear layout without creating endless pages.
Squarespace allows you to organize your content into different categories to easily select the categories you want to include in your menu. Squarespace URLs have a simple and clean format that’s easy to share and remember.
4. Use the Pillar-Cluster Internal Linking Model
A good way to create internal links is to create pillar and cluster pages. Pillar pages are your website’s main pages, and these should be linked to from within the navigation menu. Each pillar page should also link to a cluster page, a supplementary page supporting the main page.
In this way, users can easily access all the main pages on your website by clicking on the navigation menu, and they can also explore related pages that support the main content.
5. Replicate the Website Architecture of Major Brands
Instead of reinventing the wheel, look at the website architecture of major brands in your niche to see how they have organized their content.
These brands have simple site architectures in which the left menu lists the product categories and the right menu lists the latest products. You can replicate this architecture by creating categories for your blog content and adding a new post whenever you publish a new blog post.
Conclusion
Creating an awesome website architecture is not an easy feat. It requires effort and patience, but the rewards are well worth the effort. If you follow the tips listed above and create a clean, easy-to-navigate website, your conversion rates will shoot up.
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