August 30th, 2010 by Jo

How much website structure affects search engine optimization very much depends on who you ask. It’s probably a question that many businesses now wish they’d asked a long time ago, especially if the structure of their sites is preventing them from moving with the times. Our four tips on why site structure matters are useful for anyone with an interest in SEO tools.

1. The structure of a site has a direct bearing on how well it can be perceived by search engines. Search engines send programs known variously as ‘robots, ‘spiders’ or ‘crawlers’ to investigate the internet and find out what’s on sites. Not just this, they use algorithms to process the data returned to them by crawlers and determine the relevance and popularity of sites to be listed on their results pages. Site structure is important because it will always affect the ways in which ‘crawlers’ see it and its content. SEO services agree that if there are three or more links to each and every page from others on the site, then it can be said to be well structured for search engine optimisation. If a site’s structure inhibits the number of internal links, then you can safely say that it’s not structured well. Crawlers need to be able to read as many of your ages as possible, and these links are the paths they will take. A site needs to be structured in such a way as to allow for easy and readily available navigation to and from a site map. A site structure that goes out of its way to be user friendly can generally be said to function well in terms of crawlers.

2. Site structure can help improve navigation between pages. It can be said that we see four ways in which optimisation can be improved by a publisher – search engine results pages, on-site optimisation, off-site optimisation and on-page optimisation. URL optimisation comes under the heading of on-site optimisation and it’s very important. Search engines take URL’s into account. Website structure should include good URL’s. In this context that means they should be short, meaningful and not overfilled with keywords.

3. The structure of a site affects its capacity for growth. It’s easy to imagine having to add new sections to a site at a moment’s notice – indeed it’s very common. If it’s something you can do without too much effort then you’re lucky. The fact is that for some it means rewriting the entire navigation system for their site, and that means their structure is not optimal for SEO. Search engine optimisation services generally agree that you ought to be able to increase the size of your site by 30% without needing to substantially alter your navigation system. Given the current climate of change and the increase in social media, it’s easy to imagine having to add content for new users. And so it can be argued that if your site doesn’t allow for its easy inclusion then it’s not useful. Site structure needs to allow for change in a world where it’s the only constant.

4. Search engine results page ranking can be improved with good site structure. The result page on a search engine gives the user their first glimpse of content after they’ve entered text into the query box and hit enter. It’s worth remembering that it’s very wrong to assume that all users will go for the number one search engine choice. Website structure can be seen as one of the SEO tools at your disposal for making your listing attractive to those faced with multiple choices on a search engine results page. If a short description makes it clear to the user that your site offers more relevant material for them, they’ll choose it first instead of what’s number one. They have free will and don’t always assume that most popular is best.

It is to be hoped that after thinking about our tips you are in a better position to improve on your site structure for SEO. There is a lot more to say about the subject, but it can be summed up by saying that consistency in terms of featuring keywords and exploiting user friendliness for navigation make for a good site. Good site structure can clearly help you get to where you want to be, which might be near the top on results pages, but it’s ultimately on a user’s desktop.

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