Information Architecture for Search Engine Optimisation will help maximise your websites conversion rate. Without consideration, your website will always be weaker than the competition. I’ve put together this image to help guide you when arranging keywords and content on a website.

Information Architecture or IA, is the practice of arranging content on a website in a logical way. Arranging content properly is important and affects usability, Search Engine Optimisation, conversion and user engagement.

Information Architecture is critical to a websites success and should be considered while the site is being designed; otherwise you will spend time implementing fixes and workarounds throughout the lifecycle of the website which is not ideal. I use the following pointers to help map out a new website.

1. Content should be arranged in a way that a user can easily navigate and makes sense.

2. The hierarchy of the site should be as shallow as possible. This depends on the size of your site and the amount of content you have. Directory levels should be as concise as possible. Remove levels that are not unique and merge any that are the same or very similar. This keeps URLs smaller and prevents content overlap (keyword cannibalisation). Another benefit of a shallow hierarchy is that this shortens the “funnel” and means the point of purchase is less clicks away.

3. The user should know what information to expect prior to clicking a navigational element. Keep navigation links and contextual links meaningful and consistent throughout the site. Having one link “Enquiry form” and another ”Contact form” going to the same form is not consistent and could make the user *think* there are 2 different contact forms. Don’t make the user think! (See Steve Krug) Be clear and concise throughout!

4. Each page on the site should have content specific to that page. There should be no overlap in content from one page to another. Content overlap usually results in keyword cannibalisation.

5. The level of detail in the content should increase as the user clicks deeper into the hierarchy of the site. This supports the search funnel approach of the user. As the user gets closer to the point of purchase, they tend to be more specific with their searches and use “long tail keywords”. These pages with detailed content, will rank in the search engines for the long tail search terms.

6. Arranging keywords: Content should be fairly general and generic on the homepage and get more specific and detailed on the pages below.

The deepest level pages should have technical information like model numbers or product names (The most specific information on your product). See this image for an example of how to arrange content and keywords on a website.

• This has several great benefits for Search Engine Optimisation. General/generic search terms are higher up the hierarchy. These terms are usually competitive so they are closer to the homepage with the pagerank benefit that brings
• Very specific pages are deep in the hierarchy and these are your long tail keywords. As they are generally less competitive, they need less pagerank to compete
• This guide will help you formulate a site hierarchy that suits the content of the site. It will also help you cover all keywords, from generics to long tail while keeping you from overlapping content and creating keyword cannibalisation problems