A well-planned and well-structured site is important in today’s web world as it helps in improving Google ranking results. A good site structure leads to a better user experience. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is not just using the technical tricks in a website; it is much more than this. The structure of the site matters a lot for a good SEO. The structure of the site makes the search engine understand the content on the site and how effectively and easily it will find the relevant content for indexing.
Why Site Structure is Important?
There are many reasons why the structure of the site is so crucial for a good SEO. Let’s have a look at some of them.
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It provides a great user experience
A good site design shows a great site structure. It is more obvious that the site is appealing to its users, the more it is appealing to the search engines as well. The site ranking is done using Google’s algorithm that uses the ranking from different searchers.
The user will stay longer on the site, if the site is created with a good structure. This will improve the dwell time and hence the ranking of the site as well.
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It will help in better indexing of pages
A structured site will help the search engines to find all the pages easily for further indexing. Indexing of pages is important because if the page is indexed, then only it can come in the search results of a search engine.
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It will improve the usability of the site
A well-structured site will help the users find the relevant content they are looking for. The less the user clicks on the pages, the more is the usability of the site. Usability is necessary for both the users and the search engines as well.
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It will help the site with site links
The listing format in the SERPs that shows the main page of the site with some of the internal links is known as site links. These serve as a huge advantage to better SEO. Site links are helpful in improving the site navigation as well, thus increase the user experience.
Creating a Good Site Structure
There are several areas that can be improved in order to increase the ranking results. Let’s have a look at them.
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Easy navigational structure
The information or content needs to be organized in a hierarchy. This is the first step in creating a good site structure. It is important to provide the user with easy navigation in a site; otherwise the user will never like to come to the site again. The users should stay longer on the site and this is only possible if they will get the relevant information they want on the site.
Even if the site is being created in a CMS, then also it is important to decide on the structure of the site for an easy navigation.
A hierarchy of information is how well the information is organized. The hierarchy should be simple enough to make sense. There should be proper categorization of information and the categories should be unique and distinct. The sub-categories should also be completely linked to the main category.
The main categories should not be too much. There should be a limit in the number of main categories and even in the sub-categories as well.
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Internal linking
The site navigation cannot control the depth of the website alone. This is not feasible as well. The categories should be decided according to the number of pages in a site.
The navigation paths should be structured right from the beginning itself. This will help you improve the site’s SEO. Back linking is very important in terms of SEO. Basically, there are two types of back links
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External back links
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Internal back links
External back links are those links that link to your website from some other outside site, whereas the internal back links are those links that connect the two pages with each other in the same website.
Internal links have many different advantages in terms of enhanced SEO of a site. One of the greatest advantages is that the internal links can decrease the number of clicks on a site, hence increasing the usability of the site.
The internal links should have keyword optimized texts along with some interesting content for the users.
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Keep shallow depth for the navigation links
It is very important to understand that the main links in the website should not be too deep in the structure of the website that the user feels difficulty coming back to the main links to the site.
The site should be kept shallow as much as possible. This is good or both the users and the search engines as well.
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A good URL structure for better site navigation
A good URL structure is also the most important aspect of creating a good site structure. A logical structure of the site hierarchy leads to a better URL structure in a site. The URL structure should always be organized according to the hierarchy of the site.
The URLs should always consist of real words or keywords, rather than symbols. This will increase the search of the search engines.
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Create a header enlisting the navigational content
The header of the main page is the most important link on a site. The header should list the other navigation links in the site. Adding number of menus can make the user distracted from the main content on the site. In order to make the pages visibility better, it is a good idea to create one header with all the links to the other areas of a site.
Dropdown menus do not enhance SEO, though they are considered for a unique user experience. The menus should always be in text form, rather than images as the text links provide better SEO.
The header and footer of the page should always consist of the same links. So it is better to copy all the links from the header to the footer of the page.
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Social sharing area
A website that has a good number of sharing links is also helpful in improving SEO. The sharing links should not be much in number as they will make the user feel messy about the site. The best content of the site should only contain the sharing links as users always want to share good content only.
Conclusion
A good site structure is a must prerogative for optimum SEO results. A good structure will always contain links that point to other links based on the same topic. A well-structured site will stay in the mind of the users and they will start remembering the URLs of the site easily. This will definitely help increase the search engine ranking of the site.
If the site is already working but it needs to be improved with a good structure, then it is important to correct one area of the site at a time, rather than correcting the whole site in one go. A consistent effort will surely bring good SEO benefits to the site. And this is only possible with a good site structure.
Author Bio
Keval Padia is a Founder & CEO of Nimblechapps, a fast-growing android app development company. The current innovation and updates of the field lures him to express his views and thoughts on certain topics.
