A website must be structured systematically to be easily navigable for users as well as search engines. Thoughtless web architecture creates problems for users to access relevant information or purchase your goods and services. eCommerce websites have tons of products to manage, which makes structuring difficult.
However, website structure is essential for users to navigate your website quickly and search engines to crawl and index pages. ECommerce websites are usually more complex and bigger, even though the structure is vital for all websites.
4 Key Steps to Structure an eCommerce Website for SEO
- Website Hierarchy
The first thing you need to do is categorize and sub-categorize all your products into relevant groups. This will help you create a page hierarchy. As per the best eCommerce website design company, a website may be structured with three layers or less, excluding the homepage.
With each level, the authority of the pages reduces as well as link equity. Therefore, ensure enough credit to each page by creating a hierarchy of no more than 2-3 layers.
Logically, the homepage should be linked to the main categories of your products. These broadest categories of product types can then be linked to sub-category pages.
The final layer should be product pages, making your eCommerce services’ buying experience simple without compromising on link equity.
- URL structure
The URL structure of your website should match the navigation once the website hierarchy is arranged. The URLs should include primary keywords while also being descriptive.
The primary keywords should also be a part of the title of the pages. A URL structure that consists of a combination of your products and primary keywords sits well with search engines. Ensure consistency in the URL format throughout the website. Avoid using random numbers or codes that have no SEO value.
Use HTTPS (secure encryption) for all the URLs because it provides a layer of security and helps with ranking. This is especially important for eCommerce services because it attracts payments.
- Web Code Structure
eCommerce websites are a little more complicated than regular websites when it comes to code. If your code is complex, you might face issues with SEO and users with usability. Messy code will manifest slow loading times, which means low rankings and conversion rates.
Since eCommerce pages are replete with images, they are harder for ISPs, servers, and browsers to load. Therefore, you cannot have code slowing down the process further.
Use HTML and CSS as much as possible and avoid JavaScript wherever you can. The latter can cause problems with the browser if there’s too much of it. To say nothing if it’s not clean. If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, you ought to know that it is not efficient when it comes to coding.
Don’t go overboard with themes – keep it simple. Stay away from unnecessary plugins. Ask your eCommerce seo company to take page speed seriously if you have outsourced your website’s development and maintenance.
- Navigation System
Users come back to websites with intuitive navigation systems, including the main menu, filters, search, breadcrumbs, footer, and internal links.
The main navigation menu must list all significant pages with clickable links and keywords as anchor text. Allow your visitors to skip layers of pages by including a drop-down menu. However, remember that they can be a problem on mobile devices if it’s too detailed or the phone’s display is modest.
Instead, you can guide users by including secondary side menus and on-page internal links. Of course, some users will want to search for stuff and don’t want to browse. Once they reach the product category pages, give them filters to find what they want.
Creating seamless navigation for mobile devices is more challenging than for desktop computers. As the number of products increases, you’ll have to incorporate an increasing number of touch elements with increasing categories and filters. In addition, nested menus work the more layers can be challenging to navigate. When it comes to mobile devices, you will have to implement and determine what works and what does not.
Description
Figure out how you can create a well-structured website for eCommerce services. Then, go through 4 key steps to properly format an eCommerce website.
