A Step-by-Step Approach to Optimizing Site Architecture for Enterprise SEO

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Your physical store or business often grows as
your business expands, and the same is true for
your website. You might create new pages as you
add products and services or target new locales
and customers. Before you know it, you'll have a
sprawling website with hundreds of pages and a
complex structure. By this point, traditional
search engine optimization (SEO) is no longer
enough to manage your website's visibility.
You'll need enterprise SEOa more specialized SEO
for large businessesthat optimizes websites with
many pages and complex structures for multiple
markets, locations, and languages. This post is
a guide for optimizing your large website's
structure for SEO, which you can follow even if
you're new to digital marketing. Site structure
matters for SEO Imagine walking into a library
where the books are randomly placed on
bookshelves without any system. Finding a book
you need would take hours instead of just a few
minutes. You may even leave the building all
frustrated and not accomplishing your original
purpose.
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The same thing can happen to visitors if your
website's structure is a mess. A well-organized
website is easy for visitors to navigate and
helps search engines understand how its pages
relate to one another. It provides a positive
overall user experience and is primed for better
search rankings, ultimately driving more traffic
and conversions. Site structure optimization is
critical for any website, regardless of size, but
even more so for larger ones. Adding more content
while your site structure remains poor can lead
to issues like orphaned pages and duplicate
content, resulting in lower search rankings. As
your search rank dips, it becomes harder for
potential customers to discover your products and
services online. Optimize site structure in
seven steps Before changing anything on your
site, it's best to understand where you stand.
Conduct a thorough audit of your website's
existing structure using tools like Screaming
Frog, Ahrefs, and SEMrush. These crawl your site
and map out all pages, clearly showing how your
content is currently organized.
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• In particular, you should pay attention to the
  following
• Broken links
• Duplicate content
• Pages with poor or no internal linking
• Deep pages or those that take four or more clicks
  to reach
• Once you have a clear map of your site, you can
  identify areas where you can streamline
  navigation. You can then start with the following
  steps
• Plan a logical hierarchy
• Your website should be structured like a
  pyramidthe homepage should be at the top,
  followed by category pages, subcategory pages,
  and individual product and content pages. This
  logical arrangement helps users navigate your
  site easily, encouraging them to stay longer and
  interact with your other web pages.

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Keep your site structure simple. If you can,
ensure content pages are four clicks away from
the homepage at maximum. Group related content
with each other by organizing them into logical
categories. For example, if you're a business
selling plumbing supplies, you can group products
by function or type (e.g., "bathroom fixtures" or
"pipe fittings") instead of just listing them all
on one page. Finally, make sure your pages' URLs
are descriptive and reflect how they are
organized. Using the above plumbing business
example, for instance, a product page for a
showerhead should have a URL like
"www.yourstore.com/bathroom-fixtures/showerheads."
Optimize internal linking Internal links
connect pages within your site. Think of them as
pathways guiding visitors and search engines
through your website and helping the latter
understand the importance of your pages relative
to one another.
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One way to optimize internal linking is to take
advantage of high-traffic areas of your site. You
can link these areas to valuable pages, such as
product and service pages, to help boost their
SEO and visibility. Additionally, you can create
hub pages on broad subjects and link them to
multiple related pages covering more specific
topics. The anchor text in your internal links
also matters. Instead of anchoring links to
generic terms like "click here," use
keyword-laden phrases like "learn more about
bathroom fixtures." This helps with SEO and
informs users about what to expect when they
click the link. Eliminate duplicate
content Duplicate content confuses search
engines and can dilute your rankings. In bad
cases, it can result in penalties that may
significantly affect your site traffic and
conversion rates. It can be a persistent issue in
enterprise SEO, as large-scale websites often
have multiple versions of the same product or
service page for different locations or
languages.
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There are several ways to address or avoid the
issue. The first is using canonical tags, which
tell search engines which version of a page is
the original, even if duplicates exist. You can
also use 301 redirects, diverting duplicate pages
to the original. If you have pages in multiple
languages, use the hreflang tag to tell search
engines which version of a page is intended for
which language or region. Finally, you could
simply create unique content for your product
pages instead of copying manufacturer text. This
not only avoids duplicate content issues but also
helps differentiate your site from competitors
and provides exceptional value to
visitors. Implement a scalable URL
structure Enterprise SEO considers your
business's potential to keep growing, so using a
scalable site structure is a best practice. As
you add more products, services, and content to
your website, it's essential to have a URL
structure that can accommodate these
additions. Follow a consistent pattern when
naming your pages. This can be as simple as using
product names or categories in your URLs. Also,
avoid dynamic parameters in your URLs, such as
"www.yourstore.com/?productID123" and opt for a
more readable and easier-to-remember version like
"www.yourstore.com/products/showerheads."
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Optimize for mobile and speed A key part of SEO
for large businesses is ensuring your site
performs well on any device. This is especially
crucial considering the increasing use of mobile
devices for accessing the Internet. Google also
utilizes mobile-first indexing, which means that
your mobile site is the primary version used for
ranking and indexing. Aside from using a
mobile-responsive design, which enables your site
to adjust to different screen sizes, you should
also ensure your pages load as quickly as
possible. Compress images, enable caching, and
minimize code where necessary. Create an XML
sitemap and robots.txt file These technical
elements guide search engines as they crawl your
site. Without them, search engines may miss pages
or have trouble understanding your site
structure, preventing them from properly ranking
your website. Think of an XML sitemap as a
roadmap for search engines, showing them all the
relevant pages on your site and how they are
organized. A robots.txt file, on the other hand,
tells search engines which pages to crawland not
crawland any specific instructions you have for
indexing your content.
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Monitor and adjust your strategy So you've
finished organizing your site structure. That
doesn't mean you're done! Regularly monitor your
site's performance and look for pages with high
bounce rates or low traffic. These issues can
indicate navigation problems that can hinder your
SEO efforts. Optimizing your site architecture
is crucial in improving your search visibility
and user experience. It will help you create a
website that's easier to navigate and more
attractive to search engines, ensuring it ranks
well and is discoverable by potential
customers. However, if you don't have the time
or manpower to implement the above steps,
consider hiring a professional enterprise SEO
agency instead. This option gives you access to
complete SEO services, including content creation
and site architecture optimization, allowing you
to focus on other aspects of your
business. Another benefit of professional SEO
services is the ability to track and adjust your
strategy as needed. The agency's team of experts
can monitor your site's performance and make
necessary changes to ensure your website remains
optimized for search engines no matter how
complex it gets. Maximize your business's online
visibility by partnering with an enterprise SEO
agency today!
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