{"id":95,"date":"2022-01-14T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/authorityhacker.com\/?p=95"},"modified":"2023-10-11T12:55:58","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T12:55:58","slug":"site-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/site-architecture\/","title":{"rendered":"\ud83c\udfd7\ufe0f Site Architecture: How to Beat High-Authority Sites with Fewer Links Using proper SEO Silo Structure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Poor website architecture is like a messy Desktop.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unbearable.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Messy<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

But you shouldn\u2019t try to organize your site and build tidy SEO silos just for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You should do it for your rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Site
Growth of securitynerd.com, a well-structured, low DR site in a competitive niche.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Good site architecture will push your rankings up and allow you to compete with much stronger \u2014 but less organized \u2014 domains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if you want to learn how to organize your site, make it rank higher, and make your visitors (including me) happier, keep reading!<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\n

What is Website Architecture?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Website architecture or site architecture is the structure you use to organize your website. The structure refers to the website hierarchy of pages, categories, and sections and how the users and search crawlers navigate between your pages.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

\ud83e\udd28 Why website architecture is important<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

1. Rank Higher on Google<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The main reason why you should care about website architecture is to improve your rankings on Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s true \u2014 great site architecture will make sure your pages rank better for your target keywords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even Google\u2019s John Muller recommends people structure their website properly<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how exactly does good website structure achieve higher rankings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, good site structure and internal linking help search engine crawlers find and index your pages more efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Spiders
Good website architecture helps crawlers find your pages<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

If your pages are not well-linked, it will be harder for the crawlers to find them and give you more organic traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlinked pages are harder to crawl, index and rank.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Crawling
Unlinked pages are harder to crawl, index and rank<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

But good website structure isn’t just about indexability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, your XML sitemap could fill the gap here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good website architecture gives context to search engines so they understand what your page is about in the grand scheme of your whole website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s imagine that you have a generalist sports site, and one of your pages is about the best tennis rackets for left-handed players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could just link to all your pages from your home page, but, given that the scope of your site is quite large, it would probably be a mess and you may end up with thousands of links on your homepage \u2014 something which is going to be confusing both for search engines and users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, the best way to approach this is to break down your top-level topic by sports.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Site<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Following each sport, you may have another level of category pages that breaks the topic down by items used in this sport.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Site<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

And then, below the racket level is where our \u201cbest tennis rackets for left-handed players\u201d page would fit.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Site<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Google then understands EXACTLY how your web pages fit into the topic by looking into what the parent category pages are about.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Parent<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

2. Improve Authority Flow and Indexing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Another benefit of adopting a well-organized website architecture is that page rank flows better throughout your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that by the sheer fact that a page gains internal links logically and contextually, the PageRank coming from external links will flow to all the related pages and help them rank higher on Google.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Hub<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

An excellent example of great use of this principle would be the website Security.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On their homepage, they highlight the 3 main fields they specialize in:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Secrurity.org<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

As you click on home security systems, you land on an article targeting that keyword but with a top navigation to the lower level.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"In<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Then, that link sends you to \u201cbest home security cameras.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Best<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

As you scroll through this article, it has a classic comparison table that links you to individual reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Roundup<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

And when you click on one of these links, you land on a detailed review of the product.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Ring<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

This logical internal linking flow maximizes the external links they get on all the top pages, meaning that the authority flows all the way down to single review pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This may explain why this last single review page gets more than 3,000 organic traffic, according to Ahrefs<\/a> (that\u2019s a lot!), even though it only has 5 external referring domains.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Security.org<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

3. Better user experience<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Finally, last but not least, logical information architecture and website layout make your site easier to navigate for the user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes them more likely to explore it, convert, recommend, and all the other good things that come with a great user experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, if you are part of the group who believes Google uses these<\/a> metrics to rank pages, this may also increase your rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83e\udd47 Website architecture best practices<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Now that we understand why<\/em> website architecture is so important, let\u2019s look at the core principles you should follow to achieve<\/em> top SEO rankings through website architecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/em> Plan, Plan, Plan<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The worst thing you can do for your website architecture is to randomly create pages and posts without thinking about where they’ll fit in your site\u2019s overall structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

… And I know this because I\u2019ve done it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s how you can make sure you won\u2019t live with same regrets I do:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 . Do your keyword research and build an extensive list<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first step of the process is to do keyword research and build a big list of keywords you\u2019d like to rank for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t go into the details here, but we recently did a live stream that shows how you can find your keywords:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n \n \n\n <\/presto-player>\n<\/figure>