Posted by: Jessica Shepherd, Project Manager

When building or redesigning a website no one on the team intentionally plans to build one that’s dysfunctional. However, somewhere along the way, the original concept and goals can get lost, timelines start to slip, and before you know it, your website content is in disarray and a well-defined user path is lost. To stop the downward spiral of out-of-control website creation, you must keep the overarching goals in mind. Why you are building the site in the first place? Are you following the original site blueprints for a solid structure?

Building an effective website isn’t just about having great content on every page. The content must be rich, but perhaps even more importantly, you must have a user-friendly and search engine-friendly site structure in place if you want to be found online immediately following launch and then sustain quality site traffic.

Follow these tips related to a site structure “blueprint” to get started:

• Organize your site content and offerings into well-defined categories based on your target audience and their searcher behavior online.
• Identify conversion goals that align with your business model, and consider site placement of these goals based on page content and the path you want users to take.
• Make sure to place the proper DOCTYPE on all pages of your site in order to display the site as intended regardless of user browser.
• Develop HTML and XML sitemaps so that users and search engines alike can easily find your pages.
• In addition to optimizing site content, make your page URLs and internal site links are keyword-rich (for search engine optimization, or SEO) yet concise and memorable at the same time.
• Remember to keep your overall site design clean with simple navigation for users to quickly find what they are looking for.
• Keep site content in HTML wherever possible to ensure it gets crawled by search engines.

There are many additional factors involved in a great site build, but the above site structure tips can be your starting point in successfully achieving your online marketing goals.