The Basis of a Selling Website: What is Information Architecture and How to Create It

At the beginning of October, Russia celebrates Architect’s Day. But we are sure that this is also a holiday for all webmasters, SEO specialists and designers who work together on the architecture of website houses . Yes, yes! High-quality website architecture helps to create a convenient user interface and improve ranking in search engines. And how to create it – read in the article.

Why do we ne information architecture?

All content on the site should be logically divid into sections and blocks so that the desir product/article can be found intuitively. Like in a library – it would be impossible to find a book without a well-thought-out navigation system. Therefore, architecture is necessary for:

improving user experience – it will be easier for customers to search for information on the site, navigate through pages comfortably and find the answer to their question in 1-2 minutes;

increasing the site’s ranking in search engines – the level of page nesting and URL structure are important for search engines, so a site with a clear and well-thought-out architecture is better index and receives more traffic.

Components of information architecture

Website architecture is the structure of pages and their relationships that help users navigate the page. The term applies not only to websites, but also to applications. Architecture includes:

navigation,
URLs,
interlinking,
section and category pages,
bread crumbs,
Sitemap file.
The authors of the book “Information Architecture” Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville defin three circles of IA:

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1) context – these are business goals, resources and constraints;
2) content – types of documents, volume, existing structure;
3) users – the audience, its tasks and nes, actions when searching for information.

Three Circles of Information Architecture

The idea is that users who come to the site have a lot of questions. They may not think about it, but subconsciously they are looking for answers to each of them. Questions can be:

Where am I? What is on this site?
I know what I ne, but how do I find it? Is it here?
How professional is the website?
Here is what I ne. But is there something else that might be useful to me?
The purpose of the site is to answer all these questions, provide what you are looking for and the opportunity to find something else (for example, similar products).

phone number data

How to make a website structure

It is better to develop the site architecture at the design level. When the site is ready, changing the structure is quite difficult and labor-intensive, but in the long term this will help make the resource more convenient. The process itself resembles the beginning of building a house – at this stage, it is not the details that are important, but the general understanding: how many rooms there will be, how they will be locat.

Here are 3 steps to help you put together the right structure for any project.

Step 1. Form a semantic core
The semantic core is a set of key queries by which your site will be shown to users in a search engine.

Semantic core of the online store of knitt items

The semantic core of an online store of knitt items may contain similar keywords
You ne to find target queries for which the site will be promot. This can be done in different ways:

independently come up with user queries that the site would be useful for – think about how you would search for the products present;
select queries using keyword selection services ;
analyze the semantics of competitors, for example, using the SpyWords or PR-CY services.
The blog contains step-by-step instructions on how to collect semantics and write SEO texts for a website.

If you are planning a multi-page site, keep phone number list in mind that each page should have its own keywords. If target queries are duplicat, keyword cannibalization may occur – pages will start competing with each other for the same phrases.

Step 2: Think about the structure of the site

Rosenfeld and Morville identifi 3 site structures:

Hierarchical system

It allows you to highlight important parts and divide all the content into narrower categories. As you move deeper, the user will immerse themselves in the topic. If you ne a business card site or a portfolio with a small number of pages, such a system will do. This system is also often implement in applications, for example, for ordering food. For large projects, it will be more effective to choose one of the following options.

Hierarchical website architecture

Sequential system

This structure best tracks user scenarios – it allows you to phone number materials avoid a large number of choices, so as not to overload potential customers. At the same time, all content is logically divid into semantic blocks.

Consistent website architecture

Matrix system

This system, through a well-thought-out link structure, allows the user to move around chaotically – that is, he himself chooses the preferr path.

Matrix site architecture
Later Bruce Clay singl out another system – Silo. It resembles the sequential one, but is supplement with some rules.

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