Ways To Avoid Major Mistakes in Website Structure
Website Structure Mistakes
There are a number of factors, elements, and design choices in web design that can make things harder for the user: harder to navigate, harder to connect with and harder to trust. Unless you’re trying to repel your target audience, read on to discover the biggest website design mistakes—and how to avoid them.
The Most Common Web Design Mistakes
1. Hiding your cornerstones
Your most important articles, which are your cornerstones, should not be hidden away. Cornerstone articles are the articles that you’re most proud of; that most clearly reflect the mission and topics of your website. But some people forget to link to these articles and that’s definitely a site structure mistake you don’t want to make. If an article receives no or only a few internal links, search engines will have a more difficult time finding it and valuing it (as search engines follow links). Therefore, Google will regard these articles as less important, and rank them accordingly.
2. Not using breadcrumbs
Although they’re important for user experience and SEO, some people don’t use breadcrumbs on their site. Which is another mistake when it comes to site structure. Because breadcrumbs show how a page fits into the structure of your site and allow users to easily navigate your site. Also, breadcrumbs help search engines determine your website structure..
Below are effective ways to avoid major mistakes in your website structure.
3. Huge categories
As a rule of thumb, your categories should be relatively similar in size. But, what tends to happen is that people write about one subject way more often than other subjects. Without noticing it. As a result, one category can slowly grow much larger than other categories. When this happens, your site becomes unbalanced. Plus, you’ll have a harder time ranking with blog posts when they’re part of a very large category containing lots of posts about this topic.
4. Using too many tags
Be mindful of the tags you create and make sure to tag your posts properly. Some people want to make tags very specific. But if every post receives one or multiple new unique tag(s), you’re overdoing it. You’re not adding structure, because posts don’t become grouped or linked. So, think about the tags you create in a broader sense and make sure more than one of your current (or future) posts will relate to this tag.
5. Not visualizing your site structure
A final site structure mistake people make is forgetting to visualize their site’s marketing structure. Visitors want to be able to find stuff on your website with ease. The main categories of your blog should all have a place in the menu on your homepage. But don’t create too many categories, or your menu will get cluttered. A menu should give a clear overview and reflect the structure of your site. Ideally, the menu helps visitors understand how your website is structured.
How to Avoid These Major Mistakes?
- Work with An Expert: It is understandable to consider that working with an expert can be expensive. However, it will be worth it at the end of the day. It will save you a lot of stress, and you are almost confident that you are getting the best. An expert developer will understand your needs and integrate them in the best way possible. Likewise, expert services will know the right features for your digital site, what and what not to add.
- Define Your Needs: You must be specific about your needs while working on a site structure. Understanding your needs will clearly define the goals of the website and the target audience. Therefore, it will be easier to add only ideal and essential features than overloading websites with unnecessary elements.
- Focus on Your Visitors: It is essential to realize that you are not creating a website for yourself. You are making it to suit your visitors and meet their needs. It is better to work on users’ experience and interface actively. Your website should have a layout that is easy to navigate, and you should avoid adding unnecessary content.