How to Build a Crawl-Efficient Website Architecture

Why Website Architecture is Important

Website architecture is important to SEO and UX. When search engines crawl your website, they look for a logical and clear structure, understanding the important website pages. When your site is well-structured, you give search engines a helping hand in finding and ranking your pages. Search algorithms prioritise user experience, therefore they prefer sites that are easy to navigate with a clear structure.

How to Improve Your Website Architecture for Crawl Efficiency

There are a number of things you can do to improve the crawl efficiency of your website architecture. Here at Genie Crawl, we recommend the following:

Create a Logical URL Structure 

Let's start at the top, your URL structure. URLs should be descriptive, simple, and consistent, helping search engines understand what your web page is about and where it fits into your website. It also helps your website visitors navigate and share your content.

Your content should be organised into categories and subcategories, each page receiving its own unique and descriptive URL, reflecting its position within the hierarchy. An example would be https://www.geniecrawl.com/knowledge-centre/ to show the website visitor and search engine the location of our blog, or https://www.geniecrawl.com/seo-knowledge-centre/ showing users and search engines the location of our Decorrelated blogs. This simple structure makes it easier for users and search engines to understand the relationship between different areas of our website. 

Don't make the mistake of using long or overly complex URLs that contain random numbers or charges that confuse search engines and users. This can have a negative impact on your SEO efforts.

Improve Crawlability with Sitemaps

Sitemaps are important to improve how search engines crawl and index your website. This file lists the pages on your website, helping search engines understand the structure and importance of each web page. It is a map of your site, ensuring that search engines can find and index your important content. This also speeds up crawl efficiency, making the most of your crawl budget.

There are two types of site maps you need to know; XML sitemap and HTML sitemap:

• XML Sitemap – provides important meta data about your web pages, along with when they were last updated and how often it changes
• HTML Sitemap – provides website visitors with an easier way to navigate your website 

With a completed XML sitemap in hand, you should submit it to the search engine. For Google, this can be done through Google Search Console. It ensures the search engine is aware of your web pages, helping it crawl them efficiently.

Your HTML sitemap should be placed on your website, helping users find specific web pages. This is excellent for larger sites with numerous categories and subcategories. 

Use Internal Links to Improve Navigation

Internal links are important when it comes to website architecture, connecting related website pages, helping search engines and users navigate your content seamlessly. A strong internal linking strategy helps to distribute authority, helping search engines index your website.

Conclusion

A good website structure can boost crawl efficiency, while helping users navigate your website with ease, improving user experience. When your website is well-organised, search engines are able to understand the importance of your content, which can improve your rankings in search results. Genie Crawl specialises in helping businesses improve website architecture and SEO, using ethical techniques. Contact us now if you are ready to push your business forward to success.