The site structure should be optimal if its owner wants to ensure that the attendance of the resource is high and the latter occupies one of the leading places in search engines. This article will address issues of the optimal structure, requirements for it, how to post various information on the site, and some other issues.
Site structure requirements
They are as follows:
- Logicality. It should not be such for the developer, but for visitors to this site. He should find the information that a specific user needs, without unnecessary gestures.
- Flexibility. When constructing it, it is necessary to take into account the possibility of further changes to some of its elements by adding or removing.
- Scalability. Growth dynamics should not lead to significant changes in the structure of the site.
- Habit Most users are conservatives, so you should use those solutions that are generally accepted for the industry.
- Rule 3 clicks. The basic information of interest to the vast majority of users should be posted on the site so that the logged in user can go to it from the main page of the site, making no more than 3 clicks. This is especially important for search engines, since spider robots are limited by the nesting of pages and adding them to the indexed search.
- The pages that use the most requests should have more hyperlinks from other pages of the same site.
- The structure must include all required pages.
Site classification
Consider the main types of sites and their purpose:
- Business card site. It is a platform on which several pages are placed, which are functionally very simple and are performed, as a rule, in some unique or corporate style. Purpose: providing various business entities with information about themselves and products.
- Information site. It includes many pages that are placed in thematic categories, which facilitates access to the necessary information. As a rule, access to them is carried out from the main page of the site. Purpose: providing visitors with information on areas of interest to them.
- Image and corporate sites. The first is created to attract new ones, and the second - for existing customers. Both of them are filled with the content of the economic entity, its breakthrough moments and achievements. Corporate can be used for the implementation of intercompany workflow, and image can be filled with price lists, catalogs.
- Online store. It is an online catalog of products that can be ordered directly on the site or by phone.
- Portal. It is a powerful project that hosts various media content. Initially, as a rule, it begins to function as a non-profit, subsequently, with the involvement of a large audience, advertisements begin to be placed on it. It requires a large amount of resources, a wide bandwidth and a server with a large disk capacity and a powerful processor.
- Promo site (one page). Information is posted on the site on one page in order to promote the official site of a legal entity or individual entrepreneur, as well as to advertise goods sold by them.
- Forum. It is created on the basis of the main site for the exchange of opinions of customers or casual visitors.
- The blog. It is an online diary, in most cases allowing users to leave comments on those entries that were left by the author. With good attendance, it makes it possible to make money on advertising.
Pages in the structure of the Internet site
For some sites, the pages that should be present on them are defined at the legislative level. In most cases, the correct site structure is determined by good practice.
Consider what should be the pages on the main types of sites.
Corporate sites
- About an economic entity (enterprise, organization, firm, company, individual entrepreneur).
- Licenses (if necessary licensing of activities), documents confirming the conformity of products.
- "Services and products."
- “Feedback” or “Partners”.
- “Warranties” (in the case of the provision of such).
- "Price List" (if prices are not listed on other pages).
- "Contacts" (preferably with a painted driving directions).
Business Card Site
Must contain the following sections:
- "About me".
- Enumeration of products and services.
- "Prices".
- "Reviews."
- Portfolio
- "Contacts".
Information Sites
- "About the site".
- Information materials.
- Terms of use.
- “Help” - a section that describes the functionality of the site.
- “Support” - a page created in case of any shortcomings that are revealed on the side of the user for his contacting technical support.
- Details of the business entity.
Online stores
They have the following structure:
- "Catalog" of products sold.
- "About Shop".
- "Payment Options."
- "Delivery Terms."
- "Return Policy."
- "Support".
- Details of the business entity.
Main types
The structure of the site in the form of a diagram clearly shows the sequence of placement of pages on it and the form of their display.
The main types of structures include:
- Linear The simplest of the existing ones. When using this site structure, a redirect from one page to the next occurs. They are limited in use and are used on business card sites or simple online books. At the same time, each page is named with corresponding links to the previous and subsequent pages.
- Tree (hierarchical) structure. From the main page there are links to the relevant sections, from them to subsections, etc. This type of structure is currently the most common. This is due to the fact that the site is easy to use and functional. Using this type, you can create virtually any site. The structure of the site in the form of a diagram on the example of a tree structure is shown in the figure.
- Lattice is an advanced tree-like. Here the pages are arranged according to the hierarchy principle, but, in addition, there is the possibility of moving between pages without returning to the previous level. For sites with a large number of pages is irrational, mainly used for online stores.
- Combined structure. It can start tree-like, then go linear, etc. This can confuse the user, so this type of structure is quite risky.
Optimization Secrets
The more complicated the site structure, the more problems it causes the developer. Therefore, it needs optimization.
It is carried out as follows:
- you need to select those pages that receive the most traffic from search engines; Do not delete and change these pages unless absolutely necessary.
- when changing the page address, you need to configure a redirect;
- if it is necessary to make changes, they should be carried out in an evolutionary way, breaks between dynamics should be from 2 to 4 weeks in order to assess the effectiveness of the changes made and decide on the need for further optimization;
- large sections are better divided into smaller ones, which will attract more visitors to the site;
- if new functionality is being introduced, you need to close the service pages and search results from indexing; the index should not contain duplicates;
- with a large number of pages on the site, some of the secondary ones need to be closed from indexing, which will add the most valuable ones to it;
- in case of problems in most cases, they can be solved with a little refinement, for example, creating additional menus.
Finally
The structure of the site is a system of page layout according to a pre-determined scheme. The better it is formed, the more comfortable visitors will feel and the more popular it will have. When creating the structure, you need URLs that are understandable to the user so that he can determine what to look for on this site.