The homepage is often considered the most important page on a website, but it's important to remember that users may enter your website through other pages as well. SEO’s intent is to get as many pages as possible to rank highly for specific users' searches. Therefore, it's important to ensure that every page on your website is designed to meet user needs and aligns with their search intent. The home page should focus on providing an overview of your website's content, with clear navigation to help users find what they're looking for. If a page is cluttered or confusing, users will hit the back button and choose the next website.
User intent is the foundation of successful search engine optimization. It involves understanding the reason behind a user's search query and providing them with the most relevant information. For instance, if a user searches for "best coffee shops in downtown," they are likely in the consideration stage of their search and looking for general information about coffee shops in the area. A website that provides local coffee shop listings in downtown and reviews can cater to the user's search intent. On the other hand, if a user searches for "buy espresso machine," they are likely in the commercial stage and looking for specific products to purchase. A website that sells espresso machines should provide comprehensive product descriptions, pricing, and easy checkout options to fulfill the user's search intent.
Some website owners make the mistake of combining multiple products or subjects on a single page, resulting in unrelated keywords for the same page. This can make it difficult for search engines to determine the page's main topic and can lead to lower search engine rankings. For example, a website selling spa services may create a single page for all of their products. The challenge this presents is that you need to optimize the webpage for multiple groups of keywords.
Having separate and more detailed web pages for each unique product or service can significantly improve communication with potential customers and search engine crawlers, offering two key advantages. Firstly, this approach allows you to provide in-depth explanations of each offer, incorporating specific and unique keywords to optimize your page. Secondly, by creating a higher level page, you can target broader informational search terms your customers will be using, as well as the transactional product-specific type of keywords, thereby expanding your reach and improving the overall effectiveness of your websites SEO.
Imagine a website that sells women's running shoes. The site has three pages dedicated to this product:
1) "Best Women's Running Shoes"
Title: Best Women's Running Shoes
URL: example.com/best-womens-running-shoes
Keywords: women's running shoes, best running shoes, women's athletic shoes
2) "Affordable Women's Running Shoes"
Title: Affordable Women's Running Shoes
URL: example.com/affordable-womens-running-shoes
Keywords: women's running shoes, affordable running shoes, women's sneakers
3) "Women's Running Shoes for High Arches"
Title: Women's Running Shoes for High Arches
URL: example.com/womens-running-shoes-for-high-arches
Keywords: women's running shoes, running shoes for high arches, athletic shoes for women
While each of these pages may contain unique content, they all share the same broad keyword of "women's running shoes," which can lead to keyword cannibalization.
To avoid this issue, it's recommended to create a top-level page dedicated to "women's running shoes" that provides general information about the product and links to more specific pages, such as "Best Women's Running Shoes", "Affordable Women's Running Shoes", and "Women's Running Shoes for High Arches". The top-level page can target broad keywords like "women's athletic shoes", "women's running shoes", "women's sneakers", and "athletic shoes for women". These keywords should not be reused on the specific product pages. This approach not only helps prevent keyword cannibalization but also makes it easier to add new categories as needed. A professional editor can help ensure that the content is clear, concise, and free from errors.
1) New Higher Level Page: “Women’s Running Shoes”
Title: Womones Running Shoes
URL: example.com/womens-running-shoes
Keywords: women's running shoes, women's athletic shoes, Running sneakers for women, Women's performance shoes, Women's training shoes
NOTE: this page would link to the following three subcategories below
2) "Best Women's Running Shoes"
Title: Best Women's Running Shoes
URL: example.com/best-womens-running-shoes
Keywords: best running shoes for women,top-rated running shoes, premium women's running shoes, top-performing running shoes for women, award-winning women's running shoes
3) "Affordable Women's Running Shoes"
Title: Affordable Women's Running Shoes
URL: example.com/affordable-womens-running-shoes
Keywords: affordable running shoes for women, budget-friendly athletic shoes, cheap women's running shoes, Inexpensive athletic shoes for women, Affordable workout shoes for women
4) "Women's Running Shoes for High Arches"
Title: Women's Running Shoes for High Arches
URL: example.com/womens-running-shoes-for-high-arches
Keywords: running shoes for women with high arches, arch support running shoes for women, Cushioned running shoes for women with high arches, Stability running shoes for women with arch support, neutral running shoes for women with high arches and supination
Combining different products or subjects on a single webpage, or creating too similar pages with overlapping keywords can lead to suboptimal results for your website in search engine rankings and for your customers. The solution is to establish a clear structure and hierarchy of information, along with easy-to-use navigation. This approach enables you to address broader search terms, product-specific search terms, have your pages rank higher for a much greater number of keywords, and create a scalable website that can grow with your business.
Finally, website owners may create a website structure that is too complex or difficult for users to navigate. This can include having too many pages, a confusing navigation menu, poor internal linking, or too many clicks to get to the information. A complex website structure can make it difficult for users to find the information they need, leading to a poor user experience and lower search engine rankings.
Hubsport created a great blog post walking through 19 examples of poor website design.
To avoid this mistake, website owners should keep the website structure simple, easy to navigate, and aligned with user intent. This can be achieved by using a clear and intuitive navigation menu, providing internal links to related content, and ensuring that each page on the website meets the user's needs at each stage of their search.
Conclusion
Website structure plays a crucial role in creating a user-friendly website that meets the needs of your users and aligns with their search intent. Avoiding these 5 common mistakes of focusing too much on the homepage, ignoring user intent, combining different products or subjects on a single page, creating multiple pages that have similar search intent, and creating a complex website structure can greatly improve your website's ranking on search engines and create a positive user experience. By creating a clear and hierarchical structure with easy-to-use navigation, website owners can address broader and product-specific search terms, expand their reach, and create a scalable website that can grow with their business. Always ensure that each page on the website meets the user's needs at each stage of their search and use internal links to related content to provide a comprehensive user experience. Overall, it is essential to prioritize user experience and search intent to achieve successful search engine optimization and drive traffic to your website.
Once you have a clear webstructure your next step is to conduct a keyword analysis as part of creating your semantic core
