BACK TO BASICS: Successful Site Architecture & Design: Part 1

by Danielle Sahiner, March 31, 2008

This two-part series will discuss how to design and construct a site for optimal rankings. The first part will cover the importance of planning your site's architecture and the way that this process is similar to building yourself a new house. In the second part we will cover how to plan the content and linking structure of your site - like the furniture and walkways - along with maintaining and securing your site - or the upkeep and security system.

Successful site architecture leads to successful site design which leads to successful search engine optimisation and, hopefully, higher rankings. Consider this: when you are getting ready to build a house, do you just go out and buy the wood, nails and other tools and begin building on your land? Or, do you sit down with an architect and plan out the design? If you don't have a plan, your house will probably not be very well-built or nice looking. In order to have a successful building project turn into a house that is livable and aesthetically pleasing, you need to sit down and draw out some plans. The same thing should happen when you are building or even re-building a Web site.

The first step in planning your Web site design should be to gather together all the important players in the project; this includes the IT department, the graphic designer(s), the content writer(s), the web developer(s), the marketing people, the sales people, and, more than likely, the person who signs the checks or whose name is on the letterhead. This group must decide what the Web site should do. In doing this you will be planning your site's architecture.

Are you going to be selling products or services or ideas? Will you be selling a combination of these, or not selling anything at all? What is the goal or objective of your Web site? What do you want people to find when they land on your home page? And once they are there, where do you want them to go? Nailing down all these questions and coming up with answers are good first steps in laying out the foundation of your site. Taking the time to write all this down and then sketching out how you want to lead people through your site is going to make your site more successful at achieving the goals you have for it.

At an SES session in Chicago 2006, Matt Bailey had a great list of architectural tips:

• Create a site with a clear hierarchy and text links.
• Offer a site map.
• Create and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
• Think about the words users would type to find your site.
• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content and links.
• Make sure your Title tags and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
• Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element.
• Avoid cluttered URLs by rewriting or redirecting them. Redirect links to the new URL.

Bailey explained that successful site architecture is the process of systematically satisfying the needs of search engines and the needs of your users. Learning to successfully architect your site for search engines and understanding how specific page elements and design technologies impact your ability to gain good organic listings will help your site rank well and stand out from your competition.

If you want your site to stand firm in the midst of all your competition, you also have to design with the search engines in mind. If you want your site to rise above your competition you need to optimise while you're building the pages, not after. With that in mind, five must-have elements of an optimised site are:

• Title: Make it unique.
• Description: Make it interesting and noticeable.
• Keywords or key phrases: Include these throughout the text content and Meta Data.
• Copy: Consider the length and keyword density.
• Links: This includes internal as well as external linking.

Making your Description interesting and worth reading is very important. People are going to skim through the descriptions on the SERP first to see if anything jumps out at them and then see if it matches what they were searching for. If your Description is boring and doesn't stand out from the crowd, searchers may skip right over it, even if your site appears in the top four or five results. Generally, searchers are skimming, looking for something specific and have short attention spans. You need to get your page to stand out by meeting the specific need they have and then to keep their attention long enough for them to click on that link. Once they've clicked on your link and landed on your page, you need to have enough information on your site to keep them there. This is where great content comes in.

Don't be afraid to get creative with your site. Hire a good writer, an interesting writer, someone who can engage your readers/visitors. It doesn't matter if your site is selling a product or is an information-only site. Having interesting-to-read content on your site will make your visitors want to stay and stay longer. They may even recommend it to their friends. Lisa Barone, on the Bruce Clay blog, said it most eloquently:

When you're crafting your Title or Description, don't plug in boring, keyword-rich text. Sex it up and entice users to click. Just because you own a Web site doesn't mean you have to act like the nerd you are on the inside. Summon your inner sexpot and get your customers to do exactly what you want them to do. Use words that your customers will read and not just glance over. Make it impossible for visitors to ignore what you're saying. And then put in the keywords to make it rank. (...) When you write to engage it changes the entire feel of your Web site and makes people want to associate themselves with you. It builds that relationship that your audience is looking for.

Along with this great advice, you have to remember that you are not only designing your site for human visitors, you are also designing it for the blind, deaf and dumb search engine robots. You have to make sure your content, your Meta tags and your links are understandable from the robot's point of view. If not, you won't show up in the SERPs and your site will get buried. So, while your design is aesthetically important it's not the only thing that will get your site noticed by both human and robot visitors. You need to remember to design for both.

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