Site Mapping and Site Organization
Websites should be built with call-to-actions but also so users and search engines know exactly what you are about. Ideal site organization requires a well-thought out plan from the beginning. You want your site to have a clear direction, navigation links at the top of the pages and text links within the content that aid consumers to explore your site. All links should be placed logically, with text that is clear to the user. Links typically contain keywords that match the destination of the link, which helps your SEO efforts. One helpful guideline is to imagine a webpage with all the content removed, except for the links. Without the benefit of context, will users know where each link will send them?
Your URLs should be similarly buttoned up. Most websites use categories in their URL structure, like this:
www.yourcompany.com/
www.yourcompany.com/name-of-category/
www.yourcompany.com/name-of-category/topic-of-page/
Determine the main categories of the information or products you offer. Use a URL structure that is reflective of the search intent, user experience, and keyword strategy. Once you know your intent you can build out a quality site map that will help you visually plan the movement of consumers on your site and lead them to your biggest value items.
What is Site Mapping?
Site Mapping is the process of building your site's family tree. It lets your users and SERPs know the flow of your website and what your product offerings or services are. There are two types of sitemaps, XML and HTML.
An XML sitemap is a list of URLs in your website for a search engine crawler to index. It’s a code format that is normally found in a file called sitemap.xml in the root directory of your website. This directory provides SERPs with additional information such as, when it was updated, how often your pages are updated, and the importance of your internal website pages.
An HTML sitemap is a page that shows that all of your website content is organized and has an intent. HTML Mapping is the key ingredient to making your website simple and easy to navigate for your consumers.
Here is an example of a quality sitemap:
