eCommerce website architecture is the process of organizing and structuring your website in a way that is both user-friendly and search-engine-friendly. A well-organized website will not only be easy for your customers to navigate, but it will also be easier for search engines to crawl and index, which can help improve your overall search ranking.
One of the most common mistakes made by eCommerce businesses is failing to plan and execute their website architecture adequately. Failing to take into account the user experience or the search engine optimization (SEO) of your site can lead to a host of problems, including decreased traffic and conversion rates.
It Makes Your Website Easier to Index and Rank
Search engines depend on a clear structure to discover all the pages on your website. Without structure, there is always a risk of leaving some pages unindexed. This is the reason why submitting a sitemap is very important, especially if you have a big eCommerce website. But more than the sitemap, the structure of your website should be easy to understand for better indexing and rankings.
It Makes Your Site Easier to Navigate
A good structure is not only good for search engines. It is also good for your customers. Nothing is as frustrating to a person willing to spend their money with you as not finding what they are looking for. And if you don’t give them what they want at the moment that they need it, they will click ‘back’ and look somewhere else. Therefore, it is your responsibility to have a website with a good structure. With a good structure, your customers can easily click through categories or navigation links to go where they want to go.
Google Featured Snippets
There has been much talk about Google Featured Snippets. These are the bits of information that you immediately see at the top of the page when you search for something. For example, if you search for ‘Angelina Jolie Birthday’, you will not be directed to a list of sites. The search engines will ‘answer’ your question with a set of snippets.
This list isn’t exhaustive, but it will give you a good overview of the decisions you need to make when setting up or reconfiguring your site architecture, along with tips and best practices.
This is one of the most important aspects you’ll have to decide when it comes to building out your site architecture. Generally speaking, you’ll have to group your products within some or all of the following:
Categories: The top-level pages that your products will be grouped under. For example, beauty brands may have the following categories: makeup, skincare, haircare, tools, and accessories.
Sub-categories: The next level down. In the beauty brand example, under makeup, you may have these sub-categories: foundation, primer, eyeshadow, eyeliner, and blush.
Collections: These may span across product categories, like if you’re grouping products by brands, seasons, or items on sale.
Once your categories are assigned, you’ll have to figure out how shoppers will navigate them. There are a few different places where you can put site navigation:
Menus: These are generally at the top of all of the site’s pages, and drop down to the different categories, sub-categories, and pages.
Footer links: These are generally text links to category pages, as well as “about,” “contact,” “shipping information,” and other standalone pages.
Breadcrumbs: These should go on all your product pages, as an easy way to get back to the main category, sub-category, and collection pages.
Search: It’s important to have a prominent search bar, and to ensure it works well, so customers who already know what they want can easily get to product pages.
Filters: Having filters on your product categories means that customers can easily drill down to the products that meet their requirements for factors like size (for clothing), dietary restrictions (for food and beverage), and many others depending on the product category.
A website is ultimately a structure of pages. Like a book, you should know which should go first and which should go last. But a website is more than a chronological arrangement of pages. It can be quite dynamic. And you must ensure that the structure and links are intact so that your customers and search engine robots can easily navigate your site. Hopefully, this guide has given you some insights into why eCommerce website architecture matters and what you can do to improve yours.