Taxonomy question - best approach for site structure
-
Hi all,
I'm working on a dentist's website and want some advice on the best way to lay out the navigation. I would like to know which structure will help the site work naturally. I feel the second example would be better as it would focus the 'power' around the type of treatment and get that to rank better.
.com/assessment/whitening
.com/assessment/straightening
.com/treatment/whitening
.com/treatment/straighteningor
.com/whitening/assessment
.com/straightening/assessment
.com/whitening/treatment
.com/straightening/treatmentPlease advise, thanks.
-
Bee159,
I would look at two aspects.
(1) How much content do you have? Does the amount of content you have point to one page, or two pages (or more)?
(2) If this is a new build for an old site, what of your target market uses smart phones versus desktop/laptop browsers? If this is a new website, what is the demographic of your target market, and are they likely to use smartphones or desktops to find you?
Why does this matter? Outside of the fact that Google has put the mobile index first, you want to keep your interface as simple as possible for the users. If they primarily use a cellphone to access your website, then you will want to have longer, scrolling pages. If they have to click around a lot on a cell, it can be harder for them to find and read your information, and that can affect your bounce rates.
If your clients/customers are primarily desktop users, then I would focus on what makes sense in terms of your site structure to put on one page or more. I'm not trying to hedge my answer, but I know you could have a huge site, or a small one, and those inform the site design and taxonomy, along with the target demographic for your site's users.
When it comes to SEO and taxonomy, I would opt for KIS (keep it simple). What makes it as simple as possible for your users to find the information they need? What is logical in terms of bigger topic ==> more granular.
When it comes to naming your URLs, if you decide the content is small enough to put on one page only, you can always do:
.com/dental-services/whitening-assessment-treatment
.com/dental-services/straightening-assessment-treatmentI do think when you use subfolders, you should try to keep the names unique (think unique identifiers, even though it is a folder) when at all possible or if it makes sense. Why? Because it reduces confusion for people and bots.
So per your
.com/whitening/assessment
.com/straightening/assessment
.com/whitening/treatment
.com/straightening/treatmentHas a lot of the same words used again and again. Instead, consider something like:
.com/teeth-whitening/unique-keword-here-assessment
.com/teeth-whitening/more-keywords-treatment
.com/teeth-straightening/another-unique-word-treatment
.com/teeth-straightening/different-keyword-now-assessmentUsing 2 word mid-tail keywords or 4 word long tail keywords can you help you rank better and improve the logic of your taxonomy.
To summarize, base how much content you put on one page on how your users read your material (mobile browser or desktop or both) and by how much content you have. And how to judge that, I don't know how to tell you without seeing it.
However you organize your pages and taxonomy, do your best to give the subfolders unique names even when they don't have the same parent. The caveat is if it is not logical to the human eye and understanding to use 2-4 word phrases, then don't. You don't want to overthink or over optimize it.
Some other thoughts...keep to web conventions, as people are used to HOME SERVICES ABOUT CONTACT (etc.). The slugs you can name using more detailed keyword phrases. If you have older clients (50+), then I'd stick to a very explicit taxonomy and navigation. If you have younger users, you can be a little more creative, like use the much-maligned hamburger menu.
Does this all make sense?
-- Jewel
-
Thanks for all the responses everyone and thanks Jewel for taking time to lay out that taxonomy.
So what you're saying is, it's better to have one page /whitening with all the different services in full, than to have:
/whitening/ - hub page H2s for each service and a paragraph on each with a link to more i.e.
Home Whitening Kit
with a link to:
/whitening/home-whitening-kit/ - full page with lots of in depth info, linking back to main hub page for other whitening services.
Thank you.
-
I agree with Logan Ray about going from the granular to the specific regarding site structure.
Having said that, in designing a taxonomy around users, I would do a navigation bar like this:
-
HOME
-
SERVICES
-
Whitening
-
(on whitening page)
Whitening Assessment
(down page)
Whitening Treatment
-
Straightening
-
(on straightening page)
Whitening Assessment
(down page)
Whitening Treatment
-
LOREM
-
IPSUM
-
VALOR
I do think users will be more likely to search under "whitening assessment" or "whitening treatment", for example, than your first example.
As the others said, the parent/child folder structure won't make or break your overall SEO, but a well-designed navigation will help improve the on-page user experience, and that will help reduce bounce rates.
I would not create 4 pages, unless you have so much content it makes sense to break it into 4 pages. Remember, we must design for people first, and robots second. The less clicking around people have to do, the better. Especially on a mobile phone, it's easier for the users if the information is all on one page.
-- Jewel
-
-
In my opinion, I dont think it matters much. However, i do like my urls to have keyword placement in the same manner as they would be typed by users (so, basically keywords with more search volume or what you think people would be typing in)
To answer your question, I would ask what do you think people are going to type in Google for if they wanted any of these services? Will it be 'whitening treatment' or 'treatment whitening'?
As Logan said, its not going to make or break your SEO, I wouldnt be too worried about it but yes, when being in a situation like this, I would like to go with what I mentioned earlier.
-
Honestly, search engines aren't that particular about URL structure, it is important, but not to the degree where one of these two examples is going to make or break your SEO campaign. That being said, I usually set up my URLs with the broadest category in the first folder, and get more granular from there. In your first example, the assessment and treatment folders make more sense to me, since there's additional content that could live in each of those respective folders. In your second example, there's less opportunity for future content to live in those folders.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Whats the best way to structure my site?
Hi All, Hope everyone is well. I have a hypothetical and would love some experts advice. For a product like a corporate credit card what's the best URL structure to get the most out of SEO. Assuming the Page Title is Corporate Credit Card (unless this isnt the best idea? However the product is called the "corporate credit card" ). The reason this is trickier than I thought is because they say the rule of thumb is to use the plural of everything for best SEO. However I have pluralized the sub page "credit cards". www.website.com.au/products/credit-cards/corporate 2) www.website.com.au/products/credit-cards/corporate-credit-card 3) www.website.com.au/products/credit-cards/corporate-credit-cards If someone were to search for corporate credit cards would option 1&2 show up correctly? Would moz rank this as an "F" ? Thanks everyone! Dave
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CFCU0 -
Link Juice + Site Structure
Hi All, I have attached a simple website model.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
Page A is the home page attracting 1000 visitors per month.
One click away is Page B with 400 visitors per month, so on and so forth. You get an idea of the flow and clicks required to get to various pages. I have purposely placed Pages E-G to be 3 clicks away as they yield very little traffic. 1] Is this the best way to distribute link juice?
2] Should I point Pages C + D back to page A to influence its Page Rank (PA) Any other useful advice would be appreciated. Thanks Mark vafnchI0 -
How important is the HTML structure for on-page/on-site SEO?
To be more specific, say a page layout has Header, Body, Left Sidebar, Footer sections. Which layout from the following options is more SEO-friendly? Header > Body > Right Sidebar > Footer Body > Header > Right Sidebar > Footer Does it make a big difference to code HTML so that the the copy of the body appears in front of all other sections when spiders crawl a website? Is it worth taking extra steps to make this happen? I am asking this question because our site has a header navigation with a lot of dropdown menus. So I assume that this is "noise" for spiders as it pushes the main content of the page down. Please bear in mind that the question is more geared towards how search engine see the page rather than how it appears to the end user as layout can be controlled by CSS.This question also assumes that all other on-site SEO best practices are followed for both options.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Saugar0 -
Best possible linking on site with 100K indexed pages
Hello All, First of all I would like to thank everybody here for sharing such great knowledge with such amazing and heartfelt passion.It really is good to see. Thank you. My story / question: I recently sold a site with more than 100k pages indexed in Google. I was allowed to keep links on the site.These links being actual anchor text links on both the home page as well on the 100k news articles. On top of that, my site syndicates its rss feed (Just links and titles, no content) to this page. However, the new owner made a mess, and now the site could possibly be seen as bad linking to my site. Google tells me within webmasters that this particular site gives me more than 400K backlinks. I have NEVER received one single notice from Google that I have bad links. That first. But, I was worried that this page could have been the reason why MY site tanked as bad as it did. It's the only source linking so massive to me. Just a few days ago, I got in contact with the new site owner. And he has taken my offer to help him 'better' his site. Although getting the site up to date for him is my main purpose, since I am there, I will also put effort in to optimizing the links back to my site. My question: What would be the best to do for my 'most SEO gain' out of this? The site is a news paper type of site, catering for news within the exact niche my site is trying to rank. Difference being, his is a news site, mine is not. It is commercial. Once I fix his site, there will be regular news updates all within the niche we both are in. Regularly as in several times per day. It's news. In the niche. Should I leave my rss feed in the side bars of all the content? Should I leave an achor text link on the sidebar (on all news etc.) If so: there can be just one keyword... 407K pages linking with just 1 kw?? Should I keep it to just one link on the home page? I would love to hear what you guys think. (My domain is from 2001. Like a quality wine. However, still tanked like a submarine.) ALL SEO reports I got here are now Grade A. The site is finally fully optimized. Truly nice to have that confirmation. Now I hope someone will be able to tell me what is best to do, in order to get the most SEO gain out of this for my site. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | richardo24hr0 -
What is the best: one big site or several small ones?
Sometimes I've felt that my choice was incorrect. I know taht with a big amount of content on the same subject a bigger one is better: it’s easier to maintain, and a big number of pages is good for Google ranking, but when you have many small sites, each one focusing on a totally different subject, you can crosslink them and this will improve your rankings. Furthermore, many small sites allow you to focus in specific niches and help you rank better for different keywords. So, what is the best choice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sergio_redondo0 -
Launching a new site with old, new and updated content: What’s best practice?
Hi all, We are launching a new site soon and I’d like your opinion on best practice related to its content. We will be retaining some pages and content (although the URLs might change a bit as I intend to replace under-scores with hyphens and remove .asp from some extensions in order to standardise a currently uneven URL structuring). I will also be adding a lot of new pages with new content, along with amend some pages and their content (and amend URLs again if need be), and a few pages are going to be done away with all together. Any advice from those who’ve done the same in the past as to how best to proceed? Does the URL rewriting sound OK to do in conjunction with adding and amending content? Cheers, Dave
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Martin_S0 -
Separate Site or should we incorporate it into our main site
Hello, We have a website to sell personal development trainings. The owners want to start 2 blogs - one for each owner - that promotes their personal coaching practices. What's the SEO advantages of embedding both blogs in the current site vs starting 2 brand new blogs with their names as the domain names?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Architecture questions.
I have two architecture related questions. Fewer folders is better. For example, www.site.com/product should rank better than www.site.com/foldera/folderb/product, all else constant. However, to what extreme does it make sense to remove folders? With a small site of 100 or so pages, why not put all files in the main directory? You'd have to manually build the navigation versus tying navigation to folder structure, but would the benefit justify the additional effort on a small site? I see a lot of sites with expansive footer menus on the home page and sometimes on every page. I can see how that would help indexing and user experience by making every page a click or two apart. However, what does that do to the flow of link juice? Does Google degrade the value of internal footer links like they do external footer links? If Google does degrade internal footer links, then having a bunch of footer links would waste link juice by sending a large portion of juice through degraded links, wouldn't it? Thank you in advance, -Derek
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dvansant0