What is website structure?
The website structure refers to how the website is set up, that is, how the individual sub pages are linked to one another and how the structure supports the websites ease of navigation for the user. Site structure deals with how your content is grouped, linked and presented to your users.
The structure is also the architecture of all of the components of your website and is extremely important in how you design your information for users to discover your company and to travel through the customer journey on your website to achieve your ultimate website conversion objectives.
The organisation of your website’s content should usually consist of various topics related to your company’s mission, vision, values, industry and so on and presented on posts and pages. If you structure your website well, your organic ranking will benefit from this as both users will find their way more easily through your website and Google can index your URLs quicker and more easily.
Why is the website structure important?
Is your website structure clear? Is it user-friendly? If you add tools like Hotjar or Mouse Flow to your website it can assist with best site architecture based on your traffic flow.
A great website structure means great user experience and therefore a higher conversion rate.
The human mind craves cognitive equilibrium — being able to put pieces logically together, finding things where they are expected, and locating what they are searching for. Meaning, a strong and logical site structure is easy for users to process and absorb what messages are trying to communicate and what you are wanting them to do on your website.
Website typography
Once you have designed an effective structure or architecture for your website you can then consider the other aspects that are important when building your website.
Typography is the use of ‘type’ in a design. Typography seeks to create a greater meaning by thoughtful and deliberate selection of your font, size, color, layout, alignment, and other factors that affect the design of type on a page.
Typography is a key contributing factor to your user experience and on your conversion rate optimization journey.
The right typography makes reading a website’s content effortless, while poor typography sends readers away. We all love a cool/different typography, however, we have learned that practical typography gets the message across. Users will skim through or ignore things that are hard to read on your website.
Website copy
Moving further into the content development for your website is considering your website copy. Taking a moment to reflect on these questions:
- When new customers visit your website, what is the first impression they get?
- Does your copy welcome them or push them away?
- Does it educate them?
- Is it concise and easy to read?
- Is it relatable and written specifically for them?
- It is aligned with your brand identity and tone of voice?
If the answer to any of these questions was a ‘no’, your website copy is not fulfilling its purpose.
Website copy must be written for users first, search engines second. The right keywords are still important, despite being second, as they are what get you discovered on search engines.
Tip: You can improve your website SEO by performing keyword research and rewriting copy as necessary. Start with underperforming pages in terms of visits/views.
Website footer
Although your website footer may seem like a low priority when it comes to the structure of your website, it is actually a very important piece of realestate. Think of your website footer as the information booth or concierge of a big hotel or shopping centre. When you need something specific or your get lost, they are always there to direct you to where you need to go – your website footer performs this same function.
A good footer will act as a safety net for your visitors and help increase your conversion rate by acting as a roadmap to the rest of your site.
Your website footer design should be optimized with the intention of helping visitors and meeting business goals and it should contain key pages of your website for easy access. Don’t forget to also optimize your footer for mobile!