Much like architecture itself, website architecture is multi-faceted in that it involves technical and aesthetic elements. An architect must design a building that is structurally sound, aesthetically pleasing and welcoming to its human inhabitants. If you’re missing any one of these three critical elements, the design will be a flop.
The same is true of websites. It’s just as important to optimize your website for actual visitors as it is for the search engines. If you want to take a tiered approach to SEO, you have to consider people, search engines and design when implementing site architecture.
People. One of the pieces of SEO advice we give clients is to design their site as if search engines didn’t exist. While we don’t usually mean this literally, it is a good idea to keep in your back pocket. Search engines want to see content, keywords and backlinks that look natural. Any attempt to over-optimize or otherwise make your website look spammy won’t win you friends in the search-engine world or with potential customers.
Most of the pillars of SEO are great for people and search engines, such as creating value-added and optimized digital content on your pages. In the end, the goal of SEO is to drive traffic to your site, so you want to make sure that it’s designed with the human visitor in mind.
Search Engines. Search engine spiders read code so you’ll want to make sure your website is up to speed in the technical arena. This includes having optimized meta tags, a proper navigational structure such as bread crumb navigation, an optimized site map, a 301 redirect in place if necessary and much more.
Without the technical know-how, it can be very difficult to reach your SEO goals. This is why many website owners hire an SEO firm to help them achieve the results they want. Behind the scenes, analytics software such as Google Analytics will enable you and your SEO services provider to measure your campaign’s progress and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Design. The Internet world moves lightning fast and most websites only have a few seconds (if that) to make a good first impression. If your website design isn’t attractive or otherwise appropriate for your business, potential customers are going to move on. Your overall design, layout and logo say a lot about your business. In this case, a picture truly is worth a thousand words!
It should be noted that the search engines can’t read images, so be sure to include anything you want them to see (such as optimized page titles and body content) in a text format. Also make sure that your website isn’t all form and no function; an easy-to-use website is an online shopper’s best friend.
It’s time to break out the proverbial SEO site architecture map and get to work on your website!
Tags: site architecture
