Site Architecture

Site architecture refers to the way a website's pages are structured, organized, and interlinked. A well-planned site architecture serves two audiences: users who need to find information quickly and easily, and search engine crawlers that need to discover, understand, and index all important pages. Good architecture is often described as a pyramid or silo structure, with the homepage at the top, category pages in the middle, and individual content pages at the base.

From an SEO perspective, site architecture directly impacts several ranking factors. It determines how link equity flows from high-authority pages (like the homepage) to deeper pages through internal links. It affects crawl efficiency -- pages that are many clicks away from the homepage may be crawled less frequently or not at all. It signals topical relevance through content grouping, showing search engines that your site has depth and authority on specific topics. And it influences user experience metrics like bounce rate, time on site, and pages per session.

Best practices for SEO-friendly site architecture include keeping important pages within three clicks of the homepage, using a logical URL hierarchy that reflects content categories, implementing breadcrumb navigation, creating hub-and-spoke content structures around key topics, using a flat architecture that avoids deeply nested pages, maintaining a comprehensive internal linking strategy, and ensuring your navigation menus provide access to all major sections of the site.