Is the Website architecture (site structure) a task for your SEO agency?

Who Is going to create my website architecture?

I have been working in the last years with multiple small to medium websites and almost all business owners had this dilemma.

Is my website architecture a matter of Web developer, UX designer or to an SEO professional or SEO agency?

The answer is not so simple, so it is better to detail a bit. Before doing this it is important to let you know that the better your website structure will be, the better an internal authority your website will have.

As a rule of thumb, you’ll have more chances to rank higher for the search terms related to your business organically – basically with a minimum of off-page optimization, if other important SE’s ranking factors are fulfilled -.

Can a web developer create my website structure?

Let’s start with the web developer’s job. In more than 10 years of experience in the SEO field, I have never found a developer to think in broader terms of creating a website that will also rank higher in SE’s (search engines).

Web developer’s job is to build your website in terms of front-end and back-end. They will always create the website by using the easiest way they learned over time.

Until you’ll have a very clear answer if the web developer has the experience and knowledge to create an SEO friendly site structure, you should not rely on the web developer as the professionals are going to create such architecture.

The default website structure or the structure he will find into the design is the most probable answer you will get out of your web developer’s job.

Can a UI/UX designer create my website architecture?

Usually, the UX designer is going to design the Top Navigational menu flow, but he is not going to define how the urls are going to be created and the most important the structure of directories on your site will be.

Can professional SEO’s create my website structure?

Definitely Yes!

Your SEO agency or your professional SEO’s are the guys in charge of improving your website rankings in Search Engines.

Why an SEO friendly website structure matters?

The SEO website structure, or also called the website taxonomy is the most important part of a website if a website owner wants to improve his search engines visibility organically.

Just think for a second of your preferred Walmart store and how they order the items in categories, subcategories and finally by-products.

Website architecture is a structure that will help your website visitors to easily identify your website hierarchy and will help search engine spiders to easily “crawl” and index your website pages, but most importantly to create an organic authority for the most important pages of your website.

SEO website structure has a major role not only for search engines but for the visitors and later on for the users of your website. They want to navigate easily and to find easily the information they need and the products they need.

Having such website, important KPI’s will indicate that the visitors stay longer, they will visit multiple pages without a quick exit and definitely if the information and the product are what they are looking for, they will revisit your website having the same great experience.

A good site architecture will create an internal website authority.

We as SEO’s know that links are matter as one of the most important ranking signals. But, what if you’ll get links pointing to the most important pages of your website organically? This is one goal of a good site structure.

Having an easy to crawl and well defined hierarchical structure will make Google display all your important pages in SERPs (search engine result pages) as site links.

Sitelinks are going to generate a big advantage for your brand since any visitor will visit from one single click the page they are interested the most.

Moreover, sitelinks will offer your brand more exposure for anybody will search by using your branded search terms and a competitive advantage for all the websites are present into competitive markets with competitors are trying to improve the rankings optimizing for your branded search terms.

How Google will create the sitelinks?

Based on your website architecture, Google will identify the pages are the most important ones and Google will also identify the website sections that have the highest authority.

How Google will crawl and index your website faster?

We know that a website is crawled by “Googlebot” and other search engines “spiders” by navigating from one page to another. Making this navigation easy and without any “interruption” will result in more pages crawled and indexed in one single “Googlebot” visit.

Is the website architecture an important factor for good on-page optimization?

Any on-page optimization will start with a solid foundation and a good website architecture is one of the factors. So the straight answer is, yes.

What will make a good website architecture?

Some important details will make the difference between your website and your No. 1 competitor website. But when it comes to on-page factors, definitely the site architecture will make a significant impact.

• Let your SEO agency or professional’s comes with keyword research that will identify the key elements of your website hierarchy.
• Focus on having the most important website categories away from fewer clicks possible from your homepage.
• Create under your main categories, relevant subcategories, and product pages.
• Localize your website if you have an international website and start using locations if you want to optimize for a certain city or state. Group your website pages under these directories.
• Create a Top Navigation menu that uses HTML, CSS and includes your main categories and subcategories.
• If your website if a medium to large website, take in consideration to create breadcrumb navigation. It helps your users to easily browse from the current page to the previous ones.

Conclusion

Website architecture is a task for your SEO agency but at the same time a collaborative project. Any good website architecture needs implementation and the developers are the guys to go for this.

As well any good site structure requires a good design and a good User flow and for that, you’ll need an experienced UI/UX to create that experience. Don’t forget that a good website optimization starts with on-page factors and an SEO friendly website structure is one of the most important factors to consider. Last but don’t least, don’t hesitate to contact onwardSEO for any SEO advice inquiry. We are here to help you with your SEO efforts, it’s part of our mission.

About the Author:

Eugen Platon is a professional Digital Marketer with more than 10 years in the SEO field. His experience in the SEO field has been proved by significant ROI generated for multiple companies. His core competencies in SEO is backed by solid knowledge in Web Analytics and SEM segments.