Marketing gurus agree that a good site structure is important for reaching your full online potential. A well-structured website can help your visitors easily find the information they need. It can also help you rank higher in search results and organically generate more exposure for your content, effectively creating more opportunities for prospects to find out about your law firm – and convert into clients.
Let’s discuss 3 ways you can create a site structure that will make both your clients and search engines happy.
1. Organize your content into a logical hierarchy
When building a new website from scratch or reworking an existing one, it’s important to organize the information you intend to include on the site into a logical order.
First, define the main categories that will be accessible from your homepage. If you own a law firm, you might want to focus on the following categories: Services, Our Team, About Us, Contact Us.
Some categories will have subcategories, for example, areas of law you specialize in ( Family Law, Business Law, Injury Law) as subcategories of the Services section. These may then have their own subcategories – the subcategory Family Law could be further divided into Divorce, Separation, Child Custody, etc.
When organizing the content on your site into a logical hierarchy, try to keep it simple. The ultimate goal of categories and subcategories is to help users (and Google’s crawlers) easily navigate your page and quickly find what they’re looking for.
2. Base your URL structure on the hierarchy of your website
What’s another reason information architecture is so important? When mapped out at the beginning of the design (or redesign) process, a good content hierarchy will serve as the basis for the URL structure of your website.
When implemented correctly, a good URL structure gives every page on your website a URL address that includes relevant keywords and provides search engines with further information on what your site is about, helping you rank higher in search results.
In the example we used above, the page about child custody would have the following URL: www.lawfirmname.com/services/family-law/child-custody. This is great because a logical and descriptive URL tells Google that a user searching for topics related to family law or child custody might be interested in your page, so it should be included in search results.
3. The end goal is great user experience
There’s obviously more to a good website structure than URLs. When building a website, you should always make sure that everything about it is clear and user-friendly.
For example, a logical content hierarchy will do no good if you don’t provide users with handy navigation tools. Make sure that a navigational menu is accessible from every page on your website. Visitors confused about how to navigate your website are very likely to get frustrated, leave, and look for better luck on your competitor’s site.
The same goes for site speed – neither users nor search engines appreciate a page that takes forever to load. Don’t overpack your content management system with plugins and avoid large files that can hinder your site’s performance.
Need help with improving your website structure and SEO?
Good websites combine great information architecture with search engine optimization and smart web design. If you’re looking for an agency that can help set your website up for success by addressing all of these needs, look no further.
Our team of SEO and website design at Soulpepper Law Firm Marketing can help you build an optimized online presence that will turn your website into a well-oiled lead generation machine. We build websites, implement effective SEO strategies, provide blog post writing services, and do much more to help businesses of all sizes reach their full potential.
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