A disorganized website can easily discourage potential customers from navigating. Improve your website architecture to optimize your website and boost user experience by .

Have you been to a department store sale? If you haven’t, then imagine this: a store filled with goods like clothes, shoes, and accessories. All the clothes piled up on their displays; everything is a mix of kids’ wear, women’s clothes, men’s clothes, undergarments, everything.

You need to dig up or dive into the pile to find what you’re looking for. Now, that does not sound convenient nor makes for a quick shopping experience.

That is how a disorganized website feels like. If your website is difficult to navigate, you’ll probably end up with a high bounce rate. It means your website visitors are leaving without taking action; your lead turns to nothing.

One thing to address this issue is to improve your web architecture. But before that, let’s get to know what it is and how it works.

What is Website Architecture and How Does It Work

Website architecture refers to the hierarchical structure of your web pages. Your website structure should help users navigate through your website where they can quickly get information. Furthermore, the architectural design helps search engine crawlers openly understand the connection between your website pages. 

The web design structure looks like a tree graph. Categories serve as the pages on the home page, and then they branch out accordingly.

Here is an example of a tree graph referring to the Full Scale website.

If your website is all messy and complex, the user experience will significantly drop. And search engines won’t notice your website. No matter how good your content is, it becomes useless if the structure is chaotic.

How to Improve Website Architecture

Now that you know what a website architecture is, you can evaluate if your website is structured correctly. If you think it isn’t, no need to panic. You can still patch things up and do strategic revamps to your website.

In order to improve your website, you need to practice better website structuring. Below are helpful tips that you can begin applying to your current website or new website.

Don’t proceed without a sitemap

You might think that a sitemap is not necessary. You can simply write what categories you need and content to place, then change anything along the way. That can work if you are building a small website with a single page.

But if you aim to advance and make a more extensive website, that mindset might bring you downhill. If your internal structure is not properly organized, Google will simply ignore some of your pages. Those pages become useless and occupy space. 

Aside from being an advantage for search engine crawlers and enhancing UX, sitemaps help developers improve the website. The sitemap is similar to a construction blueprint. If there are revamps for the website, you can simply revisit the sitemap. 

URL structure

You may have encountered this type of URL:

website.com/store/services/default.aspx?lang=en&category=98a20

Nobody would like to see this complex link. Other than it being unsightly, it is not user-friendly. Long and complex URLs are prone to errors or corrections (301 redirects). URLs should evidently show a connection to the page and H1 headers. Take this URL as an example:

example.com/topic/subtopic/page-title

This ensures consistency in branding. Moreover, this type of URL is easy to remember and navigate.

Competitive analysis

When we say market research, you need to observe both your audience and competitors keenly.

How do I improve my website usability for users? How did my competitors design their websites? What are our similarities and differences? What are our strengths and weaknesses?

These questions should linger when you do a competitive analysis. Find out the top players in your industry. Observe how they design their website and model your website architecture to theirs. 

If you are in the retail industry, observe how Amazon structures its website. The company has thousands of products available on its site. However, users can easily find what they want to buy and even add products they didn’t intend to purchase.

Consistency is the key

Be consistent in your navigation format, link displays, and design principles. Constantly changing formats and designs can potentially ruin your website.

Retain elements that will keep your visitors engaged and change the aspects that set you back. Don’t revamp the whole thing in a snap. Look at the bigger picture and reevaluate your website. What seems to be the problem? How can you fix it?

Keep clicks to a minimum

Don’t keep your visitors clicking through pages before they get the information they want. It does not matter if you have hundreds of pages. Make sure that users don’t go beyond four clicks from the homepage. A top-level navigation design can simply do the trick. 

Who is the Website Architect?

The website architect is not the information architect nor the website designer. The architect’s job goes beyond that. They need to have a complete understanding of usability and encompassing knowledge when it comes to web development tools.

Think of them as similar to a construction site architect. They need to have full knowledge of the site or environment, design principles, materials, and tools, as well as the whole building process.

A website architect encompasses extensive familiarity, if not expertise, in the user interface, user experience, and even information architecture of the website.

The web architect acts as the middleman between the project manager and the development team. More than anyone, the website architect knows every nook and corner of the whole website.

Improve Your Website Architecture!

Your digital platforms should grow along with you as you scale your business. If you are planning to expand your market beyond your local area, your website architecture should also adapt.

Retail, and even other businesses, require more complex website development, especially when catering to huge markets. You need a more organized site map and easy-to-navigate UI. But most importantly, you need your website to perform well.

If you need to improve and optimize your website, you will need a team of experienced developers. And these are the workforce that we have at Full Scale.

Our company houses web developers, software engineers, business analysts, data analysts, web designers, and content creators. You don’t need to go through the process of posting job ads, screening resumes, and contacting people. Tell us what type of development you need, and we will find the best team for you.

Contact us now and start improving your website.