Webmasters often forget just how important structure is in a website. And it can be an easy mistake to make. You likely add hundreds of pages of content after a site’s initial launch, based on new keyword data or to just get some fresh content up for SEO purposes. But you can easily betray your original site plan, and make your site difficult to navigate. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the human visitors are the only ones that will have difficulty navigating your site. If your URL structure is off, or you have pages that are more than a few clicks from the homepage, Google may take notice as well — which will likely translate into lost rankings.

Why Website Structure Matters

One question that new web developers always seem to get wrong is “what do searchers usually click on first in search results?” The tendency is to repeat the mantra of “the first result.” But this is actually seldom true. Humans aren’t algorithmic robots. If the second result appears more relevant than the first, searchers will almost always click on it before blindly visiting the first result. In a perfect world, the first website on a SERP will be the most relevant page to a search query. This doesn’t always happen, however.

The same concept translates to your website. Every single portion of your site navigation needs to point visitors in the right direction, from the URL structure on down to your individual pages of content. If a site or page appears to lack relevancy in its structure, your bounce rate will soar. If you have a large site, think about how much content you could add before needing to change the navigation – 20%, 25%, 30%? A good rule to follow is that your site navigation is well implemented when you can add 30% more content without a navigation update.

Structuring Your URLs

Navigation is fairly simple to understand if you think about URL structure. Let’s say you have a wireless Internet service lead generation website, mywirelesssite.com, and a piece of content titled Compare T-Mobile 4G internet and CLEAR. As you can see from the page linked to that title, the URL structure is not what you might normally expect, or http://www.mywirelesssite.com/compare-T-Mobile-4G-Internet-and-CLEAR.html. Instead, the web developer shortens the URL to simply include /tmobile-vs-clear. This will ultimately allow for further subpages without the URL getting out of control. For example, the web developer might eventually want to add pages for each state – /tmobile-vs-clear/alaska or even city with /tmobile-vs-clear/alaska/anchorage.

With the original URL structure, the URL for the page could quickly get out of control. Use your URLs to quickly structure your website, not fit keywords into the address — this does nothing but overcomplicate things. With long URLS and poor site structure, your site will be difficult to index, and deep pages may likely not see a SERP for months.

To properly structure your URLs, create a simple spreadsheet that begins with your homepage in column A, mysite.com, for example. Next, think of all the primary navigation pages that you might have. On a business site, these might include services, locations, about us, contact us, and testimonials. These become your first extended URLs as:

• http://mysite.com/services
• http://mysite.com/locations
• http://mysite.com/about-us
• http://mysite.com/contact-us
• http://mysite.com/testimonials

If you were to flesh out one of those sections (we’ll use services as an example), your URL structure might begin to look something like:

• http://mysite.com/services/roofing
• http://mysite.com/services/painting
• http://mysite.com/services/scaffolding
• http://mysite.com/services/paving
• http://mysite.com/services/refinishing

Everything looks clean and simple, and it’s clear what each page’s relevance to your overall site is simply by looking at the URL. You could have done it the hard way with something like http://mysite.com.com/roofing-services. But, to a search engine, this looks like a whole new category in itself, and can get messy when it’s time to update content, update your navigation, or even switch up your design/coding.

Google offers some additional tips on URL structure, including warning site owners to not create URLs that are long ID numbers rather than easy to read words.

Addressing Physical Site Navigation

Take a look at the irs.gov site map. You’ll notice some fairly broad categories like “Individuals,” “Businesses,” and “Retirement Plans Community.” Not only are these clear in the site map, but you can locate each category in the top navigation of the site. While the site could still use some work on structure, and the site map is a bit out of date, you can see the main idea – just about every page on the site is two or three clicks from the homepage, even though the site is quite large.

With the Panda update, Google has placed emphasis on two major things – high quality content and intelligent site structure. The main reason why many theorists believe content mills are tanking in the SERPs is because they can’t possibly organize millions of pages to be only a few clicks from the home page because they were never really meant to be organized that way.

Structuring Content

The majority of Internet readers tend to scan content, not read it in its entirety. A study as early as October 1997 found that 16% of web readers read content word-by-word. Do you really think that’s changed in a social media era dominated by the likes of “teaspoon content” sites like Twitter and Facebook? This scanning makes it necessary to properly structure content to get the most important ideas to your readers as quickly as possible. Beyond using bulleted lists, lower word counts, specific (not clever) subheads, and highlighted keywords, you have to pay close attention to your page’s HTML structure.

It should go without saying that you should have an “H1″ or title tag for every page – this is important for structure and SEO. But you should also include 2-3 H2 subheads, and even an H3 for a sub-subhead. Just like the larger text helps break up content for readers, the subhead tags help search engines scan your pages faster, and determine relevancy more accurately.

Site structure really comes from careful planning, intelligent design, and a commitment to providing high quality, relevant content. Beyond some of the more technical aspects like using proper code and paying attention to URL structure, most aspects of a site’s structure should fall into place naturally. Remember that organization is paramount, and your site should be fine.

Building a website is the art and science of persuasion, in which a site visitor is convinced to take a form of action that benefits the website owner, by making a purchase, offering a donation, or committing to a future action.

By planning, designing, and optimizing our websites to persuade, we build an effect sales tool.

A conversion-optimized website is like a successful non-commission and salary-free digital salesperson who works for us 24/7, 365 days a year, qualifying leads, building reports, and even closing sales.

A conversion optimized website as well as a high-performing, high traffic website is essential for online success.

Knowing things like a blue “Buy Now Button” converts better then a red “Buy Now Button” can be the difference between loosing and making money online.

A good web design is one that uses proven persuasive techniques to encourage site visitors to act now. They use things like, polished site designs, compelling copy, unique selling proposition (USP), and irresistible calls to action that make a big difference at the end of the day.

With increased sales, more leads, and higher engagement, we have more money to put towards driving more traffic to our site.

The Most Important Marketing Tool You Have

I find it sad the number of business that either do not have or do not have a clue how to use, their website. And what makes it worse is that a number of these businesses are actually web design companies.

I read an article today where an article writer for Small Business Newz Chris Crum wrote an article about what’s important when it comes to your website.

He listed 15 items and out of the 15 only about 5 really mattered and he left out the most important, which would be conversion. We’ve reached a point where a lot of people just want to say something, it doesn’t matter rather its correct or not.

SEO and Conversion

Under normal circumstances, I’d do my best to stay out of debates like the one currently going on over at WWS.

It’s not news that SEO’s have problems rankings sites nor that clients get upset and want their money back.

SEO’s spend years honing their skills, planting links and trying to run the perfect SEO campaign.

But what happens when all they’ve learned isn’t enough?

Should the client take the full hit due to the SEO’s inability to rank their site?

SEO is an industry that must adapt to new challenges faced each day.

As the internet grows the search engines are forced to update and change the way they rank sites. And the SEO has to tweak and make the changes they think will be the most beneficial to the end user and client.

Likewise they should target keywords that are going to convert, it’s all about usability and conversion.

There are no guarantees when it comes to SEO and I guess I can live with that but what really bothered me was this;

SEO is no different than any other type of advertising.. You pay for advertising.. If it converts to sales or not is totally irrelevant to the issue..

I guess I have a problem with that.

Many SEOs feel like their job is nothing more than position.

Conversion is a lot harder to achieve, because the conversion is a function of position, title tag, description, design, text and call to action. Position alone is only one part of a much bigger picture.

If the SEO is not responsible for the conversion of the site then he also has no obligation to target keywords that he feels are going to convert.
However, the problem comes in at the end of the day when the client wants his money back because he did not get the desired affect he was looking for.

Website Conversion

There are two things I can think offhand that get me excited about what I do.

1. The opportunity to make more money.

2. The opportunity to help someone that I love and respect.

I want be making any money off these next couple post however I will get the opportunity to help someone I have a lot of respect for and that just might be better than making money.

I was asked by someone to help them out with a site that belongs to the company they work for.

I believe the question went something like this.

I wanted to get some advice on how to get better search results for our company’s web site?

Anyone that knows me knows that I believe in having a site that will convert the traffic that comes from those rankings, before getting the rankings.

Improving website conversion rates is both an art and a science.

We’ve got 3 seconds to get the attention and keep the attention of an online visitor when they land on our site. Last year we changed the color of one button and saw online sales increase on that site.

Increasing conversion is a constantly changing game that never ends. I’m not going to post the site address here however; I’m going to do a website review for the website that was used in his email address.

If it’s not the correct site please email me the correct site.

Here We Go

When the site loads it’s not even centered in my browser, it lands in the top left hand corner of the page.

I’ve been looking at the site for a couple minutes; I’ve read the text on the home page and still have no idea what it is you do.

A website has to create a desire; it has to make me want what it is you’re selling. This site only makes me want to leave. I don’t mean to be negative but the site lacks passion. I don’t care what you do, I don’t care how long you’ve been in business, I only care what it is you can do for me.

This site has boring written all over it.

Trying to figure out what it is you do I checked out your title tag and get nothing but the website address. That is the most important onsite tag and you’ve put your website address there.

You’ve managed to blend the phone number into the site as well. Guess that cuts back on answering the phone.

The website really isn’t up to par; I’m going to design another site for you tomorrow so I’ll end the website review here.

I’ll also be writing some other stuff for you to start doing in getting ready for the next steps.