Website Structure Pitfalls: 9 Common Mistakes that Hurt SEO

Discover the top 9 website structure pitfalls that can damage your SEO efforts. Learn how to avoid common mistakes and improve your site's search engine ranking with our expert tips.

A straightforward website structure is an integral part of SEO, but users only notice its importance when they encounter a website with a poor design.

If you’re a website owner, you must ensure that your website does not suffer by checking out these standard website structure no-nos and avoiding them.

What is a good site structure, and why is it important?

A good website structure refers to how intuitive and straightforward it is for users to navigate your website. When you have a good website structure, your web pages connect sensibly, making it easy for users to find what they need on your website with minimal clicks and loading pages.

According to Sytian Productions, one of the most important reasons you should care about good site structure is the overall user experience. Think of it this way. If you hop onto a website and can’t find the things you’re looking for within a minute (or even less), you’d most likely leave the website immediately after. That’s the kind of instance you want to avoid by having a clear website structure.

As for the SEO part, paying attention to the importance of a good website structure can lead to poor visibility in search engine rankings and hinder your overall digital success. A clear and intuitive site structure helps users stay engaged and reduce bounce rates. When you have a low bounce rate, Google or other search engines are more likely to serve your website in their search engine results pages or SERPs.

#1. Not using breadcrumbs

If you don’t know what breadcrumbs are, they’re visual cues on a web page that indicate where you are on the website and what pages you’ve been to before. You can usually find them on the upper left corner of a web page, before the title or headline of the content you see and below the website’s navigation menu. It has that name because it shows a “trail” of web pages you’ve been on to get to where you are and know where to go back if needed.

Although it might not seem like that big of a deal, both literally and figuratively, since breadcrumbs should be small, that doesn’t mean the gains from having breadcrumbs are negligible. If someone, for example, isn’t satisfied with what they saw on the current webpage, they can go back with the help of the breadcrumbs and start their search all over again. This ability is beneficial for eCommerce stores with extensive websites with huge inventory.

#2. No mobile-friendly design

As you should discern by now, when you work on better UX design, it also has an effect on your SEO in a good way. For example, a mobile-friendly design is another way to manifest better SEO through better UX design.

If your website doesn’t adapt well, the screen size of the web visitor changes, then that website visitor will leave your website eventually or as soon as they get to your site. After all, the poor mobile-adaptiveness of a website manifests itself in insufficient loading time too. These poor experiences for mobile users can result in higher bounce rates and lower engagement metrics. As mentioned earlier, search engines pay attention to user experience and rank websites with better mobile compatibility higher in search results.

#3. Hide the main pages

When a website’s main pages are hidden or buried deep within the site structure, search engines may need help to crawl and index them appropriately. A well-structured website ensures critical pages are easily accessible and visible to users and search engine bots.

#4. A large number of unnecessary categories

When you have an excessive number of categories or category pages that are irrelevant or useful to users, it creates confusion and dilutes the overall structure of your website. When you have too many unnecessary categories or category pages, search engines may need help determining your site’s primary focus, resulting in lower rankings.

#5. Creating too many tags

While tags help with organizing and categorizing content, too many tags dilute their purpose. An excessive number of tags can lead to duplicate content issues.

#6. Not visualizing your site structure

If you plan on organizing your website structure, you should take the time to visualize it. That way, you know how each web page leads to which ones, and it’s much easier to see where things can feel tangled up between one another.

#7. No search or filter options

Another feature you should include in your website that helps with site structure is the search or filter options. If you’re a blog, a search feature will help users find what they need immediately without having to sift through pages and pages of your blog. For a store, a filter option will help narrow search results.

#8. No clear call to action

Not having a clear call to action (CTA) would hurt you more than harm other users. Ideally, each web page should only have one CTA so that it’s easier for a user to understand their next step as they’re on it.

#9. Deep or complex hierarchy

An overly complex set of category pages cluttering the navigation menu can lead to confusion. If you simplify your website hierarchy, search engines and human users can navigate easily.

Conclusion

These website structure mistakes are all solvable if you take the time to plan things out and map the structure of your website. By doing that step, you can easily avoid these common pitfalls and ensure that your website is discoverable and indexable by search engine bots.