Your website’s structure is built through a methodical and user-centric process. It is a strategic exercise that creates the definitive blueprint for your content.
Chaos Kills Good Content
Imagine entering a library containing all the greatest books ever written. Then you realise there is no catalogue system, no signs, nor any logical order. This library is rich in knowledge but inaccessible and practically useless. This is the risk of building a website without a well-planned Website Architecture.
Prior to designing the first pixel, a crucial question must be asked: how will your information be organised so search engines can find it easily? At Perth Website Studio, we design you a clearly structured website that has a logical skeleton. It is scalable and flexible for both user-friendliness and search engine effectiveness.
4 Reasons Why Good Architecture Matters
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When a Weak Structure Causes Your Website to Fail
Long-term success or failure of a website is often determined before the first design draft is created. A weak framework will result in the entire user experience falling apart. In turn, a strong framework will be the underlying information architecture that holds everything together.
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Poor User-Experience Results in Quick Exits
It goes without saying that users will only stay on your site if they can find information easily. If they struggle to do so, they will leave, fast. This isn’t the failings of visual design; but of logic. A clear architecture guides users to their destination effortlessly, while lowering bounce rates that signal a poor experience to search engines.
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Cannibalised SEO Efforts
In the absence of a planned hierarchy, there is a risk of “keyword cannibalisation.” This means there is a high chance of creating conflicting pages with the same keywords.
The outcome of this results in confusing search engines, diluting your authority and sabotaging your SEO investment. Proper architecture assigns a clear purpose and priority to every page, sharpening your SEO focus.
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Future Proof Limitations
Your website must evolve with your growing business. It is imperative that it retains the structural integrity of the site when you update it with new services, products or just updating any information.
A poorly planned site has the potential of turning these simple tasks into complex and chaotic endeavours with the potential breaking navigation and creating dead ends. We create scalable architecture and make future expansion seamless for growth anticipation.
Designing Your Information Blueprint
Content Audit & Objective Analysis
We catalogue your existing content, identify what’s working, what’s missing and what’s redundant. To ensure every piece of information is clear and meaningful, we align the content with your key business objectives.
Audience-Centric Taxonomy Development
We strive to gain insight of your users’ behaviours by using proven research methodology, while grouping content into intuitive categories. This is a user-first approach which is the key to creating navigation that makes sense.
Sitemap & Hierarchy Construction
Constructing the definitive sitemap is done using our research methodology. More than a page list, it is a detailed hierarchical diagram showing the structure of your entire website, and the relationships between every section. This is to be the master plan for your digital presence.
URL Structure & Content Planning
With the hierarchy set, we design a clean, descriptive URL structure that’s optimal for good user-experience and discovery by search engines. We then map out the core content elements and calls-to-action, with persuasive flow across the entire site.
Our Website Architecture Package, For You
We deliver a complete set of architectural documents to inform content creation, design and web development.
- Comprehensive Content Audit & Gap Analysis Report
- Defined Content Tags, Categories and Taxonomy System
- Detailed, Hierarchical Visual Sitemap
- Critical User-Flow Diagrams for Key Conversion Paths
- SEO Optimised URL Structure Plan
- Content Matrix Planning Key Page Elements & CTAs
- Internal Linking Guidelines to Boost SEO
- Scalability Report to Support Future Content Growth
Website Architecture:
Your Questions Answered
Isn’t this just part of web design or UX?
No, it’s the critical strategic layer that comes before detailed UX wireframing and UI design. Architecture is both structuring and organising of information. UX/UI is about the user’s interaction with and visual presentation of that information. A well-defined architecture provides a basis for effective design and development stages.
How does Website Architecture impact SEO?
It impacts significantly, particularly for technical SEO. A defined website architecture plus a site structure with logic not only helps Google crawl your site efficiently, but also to understand the relationship and content hierarchy while distributing page authority, or link equity, correctly. This ultimately leads to improved indexing and higher rankings for your important pages.
We’re only launching a small website. Do we still need this?
Absolutely. When starting out, a strong foundation is imperative. Establishing a logical architecture, even for a small site, ensures that the site remains organised and scalable as your Perth business grows, with more content, products or services added over time. It prevents the need for a costly and complex “re-architecting” exercise down the road.
What is the difference between a sitemap and website architecture?
A sitemap is a key deliverable of the architecture process. The Website Architecture is the entire strategic discipline of researching, planning and organising your site’s content, which includes creating taxonomies, defining user-flows and planning URL structures. The structure is visually represented as a final diagram by the sitemap.
Build Your Website on Solid Ground, Not Sand
A website with a flawed structure, no matter how stunning the design, will ultimately fail in terms of user-experience and cost the business. Flawless logic is the foundation that most successful, scalable and high-performing digital platforms are built on. In short, content and clarity to your user-journey create order.
Here’s to your digital success. Invest in the right framework.