Website Structure for SEO: Designing Your Site to Rank

Have you ever had a dream where you’re lost inside a building and can’t find the exit?

Besides feeling like you’re trapped inside an MC Escher painting, it’s also similar to navigating a poorly designed website.

Bad website structure frustrates users and can cause them to distance themselves from your brand. 

Consider that 94% of first impressions are design-related and that 88% of users are less likely to return to a site after a poor user experience (UX). 

Yet, the importance of site structure stretches beyond your UX. 

Website structure also heavily affects your performance on search engines. 

This means you need to master the fundamentals of website structure for SEO to rank better AND enjoy a top-tier user experience. 

In this article, we’ll teach you:

1. The basic principles of SEO-friendly website design 
2. The most common types of website structures 
3. How to select an appropriate site structure for your needs 
4. Best practices for structuring your website from the ground up 

Stick around to learn how to master website design for SEO! 

What is Website Structure All About?

Website structure simply refers to how a site’s web pages are organized. 

Since users will need ways to navigate from one web page to another, establishing a structure is a necessity when building a website (unless you want to create total madness). 

To ensure a solid user experience, a website’s structure needs to be:

• Practical 
• Accessible 
• Effortless to understand 
• Predictable 

At any given point on your website, your users should know exactly where they are and how to get back to your homepage. 

In a website’s structure, each page links to another via internal links. 

These are links that point to other pages on your website, and every page on your website needs one. 

Pages without internal links are called orphan pages because they’re disconnected from the rest of the site. As such, these web pages are practically impossible for users and search engine crawlers to find. 

It’s also possible to complicate website structure by including too many inner pages that don’t have a logical flow. 

Before you know it, you’ve got a website that resembles the MC Escher painting from the intro. 

Website structure also impacts your technical SEO in a big way. 

Search engines use bots to crawl and index websites and poor site structure can cause errors in this process. 

If your content doesn’t appear in Google’s index first, it won’t appear in the search results. 

This means neglecting your site architecture has the potential to cause crucial SEO content to disappear from the SERPs (search engine results pages). 

Next, let’s learn more about each component of a website’s structure.

Website hierarchy 

A website’s hierarchy refers to the hierarchical structure of its web pages. 

While some website structures don’t feature a hierarchy, like one-page websites (where the entire site’s content is on a single page), most do. 

For instance, a website’s homepage typically rests at the top of the hierarchy. That’s because all the other pages on the website, like the Services or About Us page, are linked out from the homepage. 

In a website’s hierarchy, parent pages (also called top pages) contain child pages that they link to internally. 

Here’s a visual example:

Why does this matter for SEO?

It does because search engine bots use internal links to crawl and index your website. 

Crawlers like Googlebot simulate users on PCs and mobile devices. Therefore, they literally ‘read’ your website like a user would, and they follow internal links to discover all your content. 

So, if your website’s page hierarchy is extremely deep and cluttered (i.e., tons of categories within categories that are miles away from the home page), it can confuse search engine bots (or cause them to exceed your site’s crawl budget). 

For this reason, it’s best to use ‘flat’ hierarchies where each web page is only a click or two away from the homepage. In other words, keep excessive subcategories to a minimum! 

Navigation menus 

A website’s navigation menu is typically a horizontal (although it can also be vertical) bar that contains internal links meant to help users get around the site. 

The classic navigation menu most websites use contains links to:

• Services
• About Us 
• Contact 

Of course, this is only a surface-level navigation menu. It’s normal for each category to contain several sub-menus of its own, such as a list of more specific services that the website offers. 

Here’s what our navigation menu looks like:

As you can see, it’s super simple and only contains three menu buttons. 

However, whenever a user clicks on one of them, a list of sub-menus pops up. Here’s what happens when you click on Products:

Now users have the chance to navigate directly to the product they want to learn more about, and we’ve grouped related products into relevant categories. 

We’ve also included links to our client case studies and to contact sales just in case they’re interested in consulting with us. 

Concise navigation menus will:

1. Improve user experience
2. Make it easier for search engine bots to crawl your site 

URLs and URL structure 

Next, your URLs play a huge role in the overall structure of your website. 

In particular, you should use a clear and consistent naming structure for your URLs. 

Once again, it comes back to making your website as easy to crawl as possible for search engine bots. 

If you use lengthy, complicated URL names, you’ll confuse both bots and users. 

We recently published an in-depth guide on URL structure for SEO, so check it out to learn more. 

Internal linking structure

Internal links are links that direct to other pages on your website. 

A healthy internal linking structure is a best practice for both SEO and your user experience. 

Remember, search bots use your internal links to navigate your websites and find content to index. So, you’ll need internal links pointing at every page on your website. Otherwise, you’ll create orphan pages, dooming your content to a digital no man’s land. 

The last thing you want is for a crucial landing page or blog post to wind up as an orphan page. As a result, none of your users will be able to find it, and it won’t appear in Google’s search results since crawlers won’t be able to index it. 

Also, you should make a habit of including relevant internal links in your content. 

Whenever you mention a topic that you’ve covered before, provide a link to the original content as a resource for users (we’ve done it several times in this article so far). 

Breadcrumb menus 

Remember the classic fairy tale Hansel and Gretel where Hansel leaves a trail of breadcrumbs so they can find their way back out of the woods?

Well, clever web designers brought this philosophy into the digital space with breadcrumb menus. 

These are special navigation menus that remind users where they are within a website’s hierarchy. 

While not every website uses breadcrumbs, they do come in handy for sites with deeper hierarchies, such as online stores. 

You’ve likely seen a breadcrumb menu before if you’ve ever done any shopping on a clothing website like Macy’s. 

For example, if you were to navigate to Men’s Jeans on Macy’s website, you’ll see this breadcrumb menu at the top:

As you can see, it provides a breadcrumb trail consisting of every category we’ve selected up to this point.

They’re also hyperlinked so you can easily navigate to a previous category if need be. 

Breadcrumbs make navigation easier for users, and the internal links aid with the crawling process. 

Sitemaps 

The last major component of a website’s structure is its sitemap. 

What’s that?

A sitemap is a file containing a complete list of every page on your website, including some additional information (like how often you update each page). 

There are HTML sitemaps and XML sitemaps, but XML sitemaps are most important for SEO. This is because search engine crawlers use sitemaps as a roadmap for navigating your website. 

This means sitemaps make the crawling and indexing process quicker and easier. 

It’s also why uploading your sitemap to Google Search Console has become a classic SEO best practice. 

XML sitemaps contain special information that lets crawlers know whether a web page is worth indexing or not. 

This includes:

1. Change frequency, which refers to how often you update a web page. 
2. Last modification, which was the last time you updated the page. 
3. The priority level of the content (how important the content is to the rest of your site based on a score of 0.0 to 1.0). 

Coding this information into your XML sitemap will GREATLY improve the crawling and indexing process, as Googlebot will only index high-priority pages that are frequently updated. 

The 4 Types of Website Structures 

Now that you’re familiar with the components of site architecture, let’s look at some ways that you can structure your website. 

In particular, there are 4 widely adopted website structure types, which are:

1. Sequential structure
2. Network structure
3. Hierarchical structure
4. Matrix structure 

Here’s a more in-depth look at each one. 

Type #1: Sequential structure 

If your site only has minimal content (i.e., you only provide a single product or service), a sequential structure can really make it shine. 

It’s where all the web pages on your site are arranged in a linear, step-by-step format. 

Here’s a visual representation of what that looks like:

Home > Service page > Pricing > Product landing page 

In this model, users are directed through a series of web pages (typically a sales funnel, but that’s not always the case). 

If they don’t click on the first link to start the sequence, they’ll never see the other pages on your website. That’s why this model isn’t a good idea for larger sites that offer lots of products, services, and content. 

If, however, you only offer one flagship product or service, this model is perfect. 

This is because:

• You can develop engaging stories that entice readers to complete the sequence (i.e., ending every page on a cliffhanger). 
• It creates a clear progression and flow between pages. 
• You can develop an extremely focused (and precise) user journey through your sales funnel (A/B testing will help you land on the perfect formula). 

Type #2: Network structure 

Next, there’s the network structure, also called the webbed model. 

Here, an ever-present navigation bar allows users to navigate to any page on the site from any other page. 

Visually, it looks something like this:

As you can see, every inner page features an internal link on the homepage, which is similar to other models. 

The difference is these links aren’t nested on the homepage, they’re available at all times. 

This means that you can access the Products page from the About page, and vice versa. A network structure works best for smaller websites that don’t contain too many inner pages. That’s because all you need is a navigation bar that appears on every page to make this model a reality. 

Type #3: Hierarchical structure 

A hierarchical website takes a top-down approach where every experience starts on the homepage and branches out from there. 

It’s a tree-like structure that works great for content-heavy websites, which is why it’s one of the most prevalent website structures online. 

Here’s what it looks like:

In this model, inner pages and subcategories open up as you venture further away from the homepage. 

It’s important to note that this model can quickly become convoluted unless you implement a ‘flat’ design style (like we mentioned earlier). 

Keeping your inner pages only a click or two away from the homepage will make your website far easier to navigate and crawl. 

Type #4: Matrix structure 

Lastly, matrix structure is a hybrid model that combines features from sequential, hierarchical, and network structures. 

It enables users to follow different paths based on their unique needs. 

You can think of it as the ‘anywhere, anytime’ model. 

In other words, while the information is still presented in categories, subcategories, and web pages, there are internal links to every page on every page. 

This empowers users to freely explore your site as they see fit, which is why the matrix model is probably the most popular type of website structure. It can work on big sites, small sites, online stores, and everything in between. 

How to Structure Your Website for Better SEO and UX 

By now, you’re familiar with the components of website structure for SEO, and you should have a specific structure in mind for your site. 

Next, it’s time to put your newfound knowledge to use by structuring your website to be SEO-friendly and provide a fantastic user experience. 

Step #1: Map out your user experience   

First, put yourself in the shoes of one of your users. 

What type of experience do you want users to have on a website like yours?

Asking yourself this question will help you make key design decisions. 

For instance, if you want your users to go down your sales funnel and do nothing else, you should design a concise sequence of pages that appear one after the other. 

If, instead, you want your users to engage with your content for as long as possible, opting for a matrix structure with lots of internal links is the way to go. 

It also helps to understand your target audience. 

Do they have a lot of patience or are they eager to get what they need and take off?

Whatever the answer may be, your design choices should directly reflect the needs and habits of your audience. 

Step #2: Create categories and subcategories 

Next, you should break up your content into clearly defined categories and subcategories. 

This will make implementing the actual architecture of your website far easier, so it’s worth taking the time to do this beforehand. 

A simple way to do this is to create pillars and clusters for your content. A content pillar is a broad category that you cover, and clusters are subtopics that support it. 

An example would be our Learn SEO page from our Learning Hub. 

It’s a pillar page because it deals with SEO, a major topic that we discuss and educate users on. 

Within this page, there are clusters that deal with the various aspects of SEO, such as keyword research, link-building, and on-page optimization. 

Step #3: Create a navigation menu 

In terms of site navigation, you need to decide how you want your central navigation menu to look. 

Besides its design, you should also decide whether it will only appear on the homepage (hierarchical) or if it will follow users from page to page (matrix design). 

There are several ways you can design a navigation menu, with horizontal design being the most popular by far. 

Vertical menus that appear on the left-hand side are also popular, and they’re common for mobile websites. 

Drop-down menus are also an option, which appears whenever users click on a main category on your navigation menu. 

Our website features a combination of a horizontal menu and a drop-down menu, which is common for websites with lots of content and services (like ours). 

Step #4: Strategically use internal linking 

As stated before, every web page on your site needs an internal link to avoid orphan pages. 

Internal links are also how crawlers navigate your website, so they’re very important. 

However, there’s one aspect of internal linking that we haven’t mentioned yet, and that’s passing link equity. 

-Jot down every web page that has high-authority backlinks, and link out to them as often as you can in your content.

Doing so will spread the link equity, thus increasing the authority on each page linking to it. 

Step #5: Optimize your URLs for SEO 

Don’t forget to include a unanimous naming structure for all your URLs when structuring your website. 

In particular, you should:

1. Include target keywords in your URLs 
2. Separate words with dashes instead of underscores 
3. Always use lowercase letters
4. Keep each URL short and sweet 

Also, if you wind up editing or changing any of your old URLs, DO NOT forget to include a 301 redirect to the new URL, or you’ll have a broken link on your hands. 

Step #6: Create and submit an XML sitemap 

The last step is to create an XML sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console. 

As we said before, it’s simply a complete list of all your URLs in XML format. 

It’s a roadmap for search engine crawlers, and it will help ensure all your most important pages get indexed. 

So, besides including each URL in your sitemap, you should also code in their priority levels and how frequently they get updated. 

Once your sitemap is ready, you should log in to Google Search Console and submit it via the Sitemaps section on the left-hand sidebar. 

Refer to our article on creating a sitemap to learn more! 

Structure Your Website for Higher Rankings and More Traffic 

There’s been a lot to remember so far, so here’s a quick recap:

1. Your website’s structure directly affects your technical SEO 
2. A concise structure for your web pages and URLs leads to better crawling and indexing 
3. The most common website structures are sequential, network-style, hierarchical, and matrix design
4. Internal linking spreads link equity from high-authority backlinks 
5. XML sitemaps help crawler bots understand which pages you want to be indexed 

Are you having trouble with your website’s technical SEO?

One of our Technical SEO Audits is just what the doctor ordered, then! We’ll provide you with a comprehensive report containing every technical issue we found during the audit. 

From there, you can either A) handle the fixes yourself or B) hire our expert team to knock everything out for you. Also, reach out to us for a completely free SEO consultation to discuss your specific needs!