SEO & IA: The Key to Success
An information architecture (IA) refers to how people organize their web pages by links and titles so users can easily understand the structure of a website. It is the way you organize your website to make it easy for people to find what they are looking for. Google and other search engines make use of the way your valuable information is organized as a sign of how people will find content on it. Not only will people be able to find content more easily on your website, but Google will reward you with better placement and higher ranks in search results. The key to having good information architecture is making it obvious for users how they can get around your website and find what they're looking for.
Learn more about the basic best practices you can apply to your site's information architecture to optimize for both humans and search engines.
Be Consistent
If you are using a certain naming structure for your pages, don't use another one. Keep it simple and make sure all of your titles are the same. For example if every page on the site has “(page-name)” in its title then do that everywhere. The more consistent your site is, the easier it will be for both you and your visitors.
Use Short Titles
It's important to use short titles so that web crawlers can actually read them and understand what they are linking to. The title of a page should not be longer than 70 or 80 characters (including spaces). Google displays only this much in its search results.
Long Titles are Hard to Read
Long titles can be hard for humans to read as well. If the title is too long, try shortening it or combining separate keywords into one word. For example instead of “Grandma's Homemade Jams and Preserves Recipe” you might go with “Homemade Jams and Preserves”.
Put the Most Important Keyword First
This is one of Google's newest search engine ranking factors. It states that if your page contains only keywords without any context, you are less likely to be ranked highly for those keywords. Put your most important keyword first and use it in sentences rather than as a string of words separated by commas.
Secure Your Pages
Google will not crawl or index your site if you have security enabled on your web server. Ensure that everything is working properly by putting up a temporary “Under Construction” page so you can see if Googlebot visits your site at all. If it doesn't, you are probably experiencing some sort of security issue.
Keep Your Content Unique
Make sure that the content on your site is unique and not duplicated anywhere else. Google understands when you are using information from another source but it doesn't want to see it more than once or twice on your website. This will make a huge difference in how well your pages rank.
Learn The Latest Best Practices For Information Architecture
If you’re not sure how to structure your content for an SEO-friendly website or what the best practices are when it comes to information architecture, we can help! Sharp Tack Media offers free consultations that will give you a thorough understanding of our process and show you how simple it is. So if you want more traffic coming in from search engines, don't wait another minute before contacting us. You won't regret it!
