What makes great web design, well, great? If you remove the different elements of web design, from the graphics and images to the white space and kerning, you can tell that a website is well-designed and well-built if it has a solid site architecture.

Why is website architecture important? According to a Scottsdale SEO expert, humans crave logic and order. They expect to find things where they should be located. In essence, a solid website architecture satisfies that craving.

But apart from that, a solid website structure offers plenty of additional benefits. For one, it makes your website easy to use and navigate. This increases the time users spend on your website. In contrast, when you give little thought to the architecture of your website, users will simply bounce off and go to another website. And when Google and other search engines notice that you have a low bounce rate and a high dwell time, you are rewarded with high rankings.

Google also rewards websites with a sound site structure with site links. Site links refer to the listing format in search engine results pages which are shown along with your main page. Apart from providing a boost to your website's SEO, site links can help enhance your reputation and help earn the trust of users, improve your clickthrough rates, and boost conversions. Again, site links are a reward for great site architecture and there is no other way to earn it.

How do you create a solid architecture for your website?

Make sure that each page targets a keyword or group of keywords

The keywords you target for each website page helps both searchers and search engines to gain a fair idea of what each page is supposed to be about.

Showcase your best content

Put your best content front and center on the main page. This tells website visitors and search engines that that piece of content is valuable and helpful. The simplest way to do that is to link to that content piece from your home page.

Include important pages in the primary navigation

If a particular web page is important, it should be included in the primary navigation. Otherwise, users and search engines cannot easily find and view these. These pages may include your contact page or the products or services that you want to give a good push to.

Link important pages internally

In crafting content for your website, you can boost site architecture by linking important pages to the content of other sections.