User experience of a website is not all about the design of the website. It is actually more concerned about how users experience the website. It means that the content of the website needs to be satisfying enough to help in the improvement of conversion rate.
The organic search journey involves landing on the page to exploring the site through internal links. If the users are taking time to explore your site, they are more likely to convert.
In this scenario, it would be worth talking about the “information architecture” and “linking hierarchy”. Both of these aspects affect the user experience on your site in both the positive and negative manner.
What is Information Architecture?
You can call information architecture, IA, an anatomy of the site which tends to give information to the viewers. IA is mainly about how the site is structured and how pages are nested inside the site. Information architecture is not associated with the URL structure. Although the information architecture can be identified through folders and subfolder mentioned in a URL, it is not solely based on URL.
What is Link Hierarchy?
The site’s link hierarchy is what that helps users understand the information architecture. Link hierarchy is mainly a connection between the pages within a specific framework. It is basically a path that helps a user in navigating the website.
In this scenario, it is quite important to make sure that Linking Hierarchy is supporting the Information Architecture. It means that all of the pieces of information in the website are connected to each other in a sensible manner.
Here, you can consider Information Architecture as framework and Linking Hierarchy as pieces. This structure can help you in solving the complex puzzle of creating sensible connection between the pages.
IA & Linking Design considerations that help in improving conversion and SEO
After understanding the connection between IA and linking design, it is important to pay attention to a clear funnel which is aligned to customer journey. In this scenario, there are some elements which you need to work on.
- First you need to focus the keywords. These keywords mainly help you identify the topics which you can work on.
- While forming a connection between linking design and information architecture, you need to make sure that you are keeping user intent in focus.
- Make sure that there is no dead end in the website structure. Every step should direct customers to the next step. If the customer is not interested in the next step, there needs to be some other suggestions in order to make sure that the user is not going away from your site.
- Keep eye on the metrics to analyze the performance of your website structure.
