Website Structure

You probably know them. Those websites on which you keep scrolling but you have no clue what you are looking at. Most likely you will move on to another website in the Google results.

To avoid this happening to your website, it is important to keep four principles in mind. These will give structure to your website and provide your visitors tools to understand what you are saying.

1.  Mental Map

It is important to set up your website in such a way that visitors can instantly see what to expect on your website. Once they do, they should be able to find quickly what they came for. Every visitor makes a mental map. If the structure is clear, visitors will be browsing happily as they can find what they are looking for.

2. Guidance

Of course you might also want to lead your visitors to information they were initially not looking for but which might be of interest to them. And you want to show them how satisfied former customers were with your work. Once you have gained the interest of a visitor this will be important to him as well.

Using the right set up you can guide your potential customers to this kind of information.

3. Set up for SEO

To be found in search engines the structure of a website is crucial. Actually search engines have the same preferences as visitors: a website should clearly reflect what it is about.

Search engines attach more value to certain parts of the website, such as titles and first paragraphs. If you include important keywords here, the chances are bigger to end up higher in ranking in the search results of your potential customers.

4. Overview

Also for yourself a good structure will give a better overview. This sound very logical but many entrepreneurs do not think the structure through before starting. It is wise to make an overview of what you want to tell before you start building the website. Describe per chapter the topic and what the chapter looks like. Is it a static or a dynamic page. Do you wish feedback of the visitors?

By making such an overview, you know for sure you have covered all items. Besides, it is easier later to put content in the right chapter, because you already know the topics per chapter and the format it needs. This is especially practical if someone else is uploading the content.

Make this overview before setting up the website. If you want to change the lay-out of a page or add a chapter later, it might be more difficult to change it.

With these you are already a long way but if you find it difficult to apply these to your website or if you are looking for a sparring partner, you are always welcome to contact me.