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Website structure
When creating a site for the first time, businesses often concentrate on how it looks. This is perfectly understandable – your website is a shop window for your business, and making a good first impression is very important.
But what's occasionally neglected is the structure of the site, and this is a big mistake because the structure – often referred to as a taxonomy – is one of the most important parts of the development. At the end of the day, the structure determines how easy (or not) it is for customers to find what they are looking for.
The taxonomy of a website is its basic structure, representing how the information is organised into various categories or sections. Most often this is visually represented by a set of menus across the top or down the left hand side of the page.
The trade-off on structure is normally a ‘breadth’ versus ‘depth’ issue. Broad websites will have many high level category or topic areas, therefore the bulk of the information is only a click or two away. The downside is a very complicated and busy top level page (normally the homepage) with lots of categories to click on.
Deep websites have very few top level categories and require you to drill down to the relevant area, normally requiring more clicks than a broad website. The top level page (or homepage) is usually very clean and simple looking – inviting the user to delve further. Navigation back up or across deep sites is typically more difficult.
What structure suits your site will depend on what your main use of it is. If it's designed to be a site that customers can explore at their leisure, a deep structure might fit the bill best. If, on the other hand, you have a hand full of key products and want to ensure that every one of them gets the maximum exposure, a broad structure will work better.
But which ever one you choose, keep the taxonomy in mind from the start. Group things as logically as possible – but don't make the mistake of thinking that how you group your products internally makes sense to customers. Try and look at it with fresh eyes, right from the start.
For a free, no-obligation consultation on how to create the right website for you, talk to the team at BT Web Consult and Build.
But what's occasionally neglected is the structure of the site, and this is a big mistake because the structure – often referred to as a taxonomy – is one of the most important parts of the development. At the end of the day, the structure determines how easy (or not) it is for customers to find what they are looking for.
The taxonomy of a website is its basic structure, representing how the information is organised into various categories or sections. Most often this is visually represented by a set of menus across the top or down the left hand side of the page.
The trade-off on structure is normally a ‘breadth’ versus ‘depth’ issue. Broad websites will have many high level category or topic areas, therefore the bulk of the information is only a click or two away. The downside is a very complicated and busy top level page (normally the homepage) with lots of categories to click on.
Deep websites have very few top level categories and require you to drill down to the relevant area, normally requiring more clicks than a broad website. The top level page (or homepage) is usually very clean and simple looking – inviting the user to delve further. Navigation back up or across deep sites is typically more difficult.
What structure suits your site will depend on what your main use of it is. If it's designed to be a site that customers can explore at their leisure, a deep structure might fit the bill best. If, on the other hand, you have a hand full of key products and want to ensure that every one of them gets the maximum exposure, a broad structure will work better.
But which ever one you choose, keep the taxonomy in mind from the start. Group things as logically as possible – but don't make the mistake of thinking that how you group your products internally makes sense to customers. Try and look at it with fresh eyes, right from the start.
For a free, no-obligation consultation on how to create the right website for you, talk to the team at BT Web Consult and Build.