Web Site Architecture and Search Engines Part 1

Reader question: I hear search engine marketers talk about site architecture all of the time and how important it is for search engine optimization. What exactly is site architecture and how should I be implementing it on my Web site? Answer: Web site architecture is something I feel has been poorly addressed by search engine marketers. Reason? Many search engine marketers ONLY specialize in search engine advertising, or they ONLY specialize in search engine optimization. They do not create user-friendly Web sites for a living. They do not perform usability tests on page layout, site designs, and navigation schemes. Many search engine marketers merely repeat statements from other designers or usability professionals. They often select statements that will support their form of search marketing. In fact, some popular conference speakers with little or no HTML experience commonly make authoritative statements about Web site architecture. How can a person dispense advice about HTML without that person cannot even code himself? It is almost mind boggling. Since effective Web site development and usability testing are two services I've offered (and measured) since 1995, I wrote this three-part article to explain the building blocks of site architecture. How directories are set up on your server Site navigation scheme URL structure Type of Web page Page layout and structure Cross-linking How directories are set up on your server As a general rule, pages closest to the root directory are considered the most important pages on your Web site. The two most important documents that belong in the root directory are your home page, commonly named index.html, and the Robots Exclusion Protocol, commonly named robots.txt. Generally, a standard, 100-page Web site should have the following subdirectory structure: /cgi-bin /css /images index.html /logos /pdf robots.txt /scripts With this directory structure, the URL for your home page will look like the following: http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html Try and put the most important pages of your Web site at the root level. By using this strategy, you are communicating to both the search engines and site visitors that the most important pages on your site ARE important. If you have a B2B Web site, the URL of the root level services page will look like the following: http://www.yourdomain.com/services.html As a general rule, I try to keep the first 200 pages at the root directory. That number is my personal preference. Other search engine marketers, Web developers, and usability experts might recommend different numbers. Ultimately, the Web site owner will determine what number is the most manageable for his company. Site navigation scheme Some site navigation schemes are more spider-friendly than others. For example, a set of navigation buttons is often more spider-friendly than a DHTML pull-down menu. And a set of hypertext links is often more spider-friendly than a set of navigation buttons. Does this mean that I recommend only using hypertext links for a Web site design? Absolutely not. When developers and usability professionals create navigation schemes, they create them for use by site visitors. Visitors are the ones who will be spending thousands or millions of dollars on your products and services, not search engine spiders. Through focus groups and usability testing, developers can easily determine what types of navigation schemes visitors prefer - a text-based or graphics-based one. Quite often, visitors will not prefer one type of navigation scheme over the other. However, in some industries, visitors show a marked preference for multimedia effects and pull-down menus. I find that visitors in the computer/software industries actually use pull-down menus, even though usability experts (such as Jared Spool and Jakob Nielsen) might not recommend them. In addition, as much as I love the power of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), they are often no substitute for graphic images. In order for visitors to view the same font (an unique set of type characters) designers use, visitors must also have the same font installed on their own individual computers. Otherwise, their browser will instead show a substitute font, which designers have no control over. Focus groups might determine that the target audience likes a particular font/typeface, one that is not commonly used. In this instance, I tend to create a set of (graphical) navigation buttons. Conclusion Be careful when taking advice from search engine marketers on this topic. They are often more concerned with spider-friendliness than user-friendliness. In order for a Web site to be successful, first and foremost, it needs to satisfy your target audience. Part 2 of this article series will address URL structure, file names, and hyphenation. Related articles Understanding Search Engine Result Pages Shari Thurow Answers SEO Questions: Click Here For Free Answers