Optimized website structure and design determines the performance of your website. This is what makes it easy or difficult for users to navigate or search engines to find your content. Balance is important. You need to balance the design of your site between the needs of your users and the search engines. To be successful your site needs to provide both a great user experience and include excellent site structure for search engine optimization.
One of the first steps you can take to ensure that search engines can find your content is to submit a sitemap. The site map is simply an outline of your website. It shows the search engines the inner framework and organization of the site’s structure. A sitemap should include all of the sites navigation so that all your content gets indexed. Whenever you add new content, you should submit a new sitemap-at least every day.
Trust and credibility are equally important to both the visitors of your site as well as the search engines that spider it. Your site should have a privacy page and a company information page. The privacy page build trust by showing your site visitors that protecting their personal information is important to you. Keep it simple and make it easy to read and understand. It should be easy to find and generally a good place to put it is right next to your company info page link.
A company info page shows both your visitors and search engines what you are all about. This is where you can include company biographies, staff photos, and history-anything that would be good for your consumers to know. Taking these steps will show your visitors that you are a legitimate entity.
In the next article I’ll discuss more advanced website structure components. Thanks for taking the time to learn your craft. As always, please comment and REMEMBER: There are NO stupid questions!