Website SEO best practices include proper organization of content
Do you know that only 5% of the searchers navigate past the first page of Google searches? It’s true and that makes it is crucial that you design and develop a website that is search engine friendly. A search engine friendly website means that Google or any other search engine can navigate and crawl each web page easily. This allows search engines to interpret the content efficiently and index it in their database. Once the web pages are indexed, the search engine will return the most relevant pages related to the user’s search queries. That’s why website architecture is one of the SEO best practices.
What is Website Architecture?
In simple terms, website architecture is how the webpages are organized and connected to one another. How navigation to different webpages on the site is managed. It includes the order of webpages where users find information and the technical considerations that enable search engine bots to crawl your webpages. A website structure optimized for SEO allows easy navigation and creates an effective flow for both users and search engines.
Types of Website Architecture
Linear website structure: Also known as sequential structure, the webpages are connected in a direct fashion and follow a logical path of actions.
Network website structure: Each webpage can be accessed from any other web page. It is rarely used and can work only for websites that have very small number of pages.
Hierarchical structure: It is the most used website structure. It follows a hierarchy that moves from general webpages to specific ones.
Why SEO friendly website structure is important?
- Search engines evaluate the entire website architecture
- Search engines give a lot of importance to user experience
- Without a solid website structure, you cannot keep up with many technical aspects of SEO
- Better website architecture can get you more sitelinks
- It enables better and proper website crawling
SEO Best Practices for a search engine friendly website architecture
Make sure your site architecture is not too complicated
Websites with a flat architecture are more search engine friendly compared to the ones with a complicated architecture. Ideally, the users and search engine bots should be able to reach any web page in 4 or less clicks. Also, you don’t essentially need a website with hundreds of pages with loads of content. Remember, less is more. A complicated site structure is not only bad for SEO, but for user experience as well. When the website architecture is simple, you can easily navigate the site and find what you need. So, it is essential to plan your website hierarchy at the very onset and stick to it even as your website grows.
Use SEO-friendly URL structure
Google likes short and simple URLs. The URL names should be chosen keeping mind the users so one must use descriptive keywords and include the main search query for the page. It is best to use lowercase letters and alphanumeric characters, and words should be separated by hyphen. There are free site audit tools available that will not only help identify URLs that are too long, but can also pinpoint other issues in your site architecture.
Other SEO Best Practices
Category Pages – A must SEO best practice for eCommerce sites
You can organize your website architecture much better by using category pages. When you need to add a new page, you can simply add it to the right category and link to it from the category page. This ensures that no pages are added randomly and that the site structure remains simple and easy to navigate.
Use a sitemap
Using a sitemap is another SEO best practice. A sitemap can make it easier for the bots to find your content. For optimal crawling, Google also encourages you to use RSS/Atom feeds and XML sitemaps. These sitemaps guide search engine bots to the pages you want crawled and indexed as well as any recent changes you have made to the pages.
Use Internal Links
For SEO, it is extremely important how your webpages are linked together . So link the category pages from the navigation menu and from the category pages to the individual webpages within that category. Internal linking means linking your website content to other pages on the website. For example, if you have a blog, it is a good idea to add internal links with keyword rich anchor text. This not just makes your website search engine friendly, but user friendly as well.
Make sure website is secure and user friendly
As we said earlier, Google likes websites that are user friendly. You must strive to keep the page load time to the minimum. The website should be secure and use https protocol. It should have clear navigation and be mobile friendly.
If you want your website to rank well on Google, it needs to have a sound architecture. Its like having a strong backbone. For that you need a web developer who builds your website keeping in mind the principles of SEO. Get in touch with our team to know more about how to make the most of your online presence.
Is your website turning up on the first page of internet searches? If it isn’t an SEO audit can help. Contact us today and find out what needs to be done.