Written by: Ryan Walsh

Date: 29/01/2026

Who’s got lost in a big city because their phone battery has died? Google Maps has abandoned you, and you feel like screeching at the top of your lungs, “I’m a bit lost!!!”

Well, that will be a large number of us- just maybe some of us will have created less of a scene!

You could use this analogy for a website: if people can’t get to where they want to go quickly, they don’t just get frustrated; they get angry and they well, jolly well leave!

And, in terms of SEO, an angry shopper means that they leave the website, which can spike the “bounce rate”.

Google Analytics starts reporting that the bounce rate has jumped if this happens a lot, and marketing managers, well, they won’t be happy!

Therefore, when the marketing manager, on a wet and cold Monday morning, decides to open Google Analytics- well, they may spit their Frappuccino all over the computer screen in shock that the bounce rate has now exceeded over 90% because of say a re-design gone wrong.

This is not a good place to be.

Sure, there will be some industries where it’s natural have a higher bounce rate; however, it’s not a stat that you want to increase if you can avoid it.

Therefore, it’s the SEO’s job to suppress it.

 

Keep your website architecture super simple

Now, granted, that’s easier said than done, but we realise this, especially if you own an e-commerce website with a warehouse full of different products that you want to flog (sell).

However, you need to keep things simple, ultra streamlined- SEO’s call this improving the ‘user experience ‘- by implementing specific strategies like effective internal linking and improved page layout this can help improve rankings.

A bit like housekeeping: if you don’t keep on top of it, well things can start looking a right mess.

This is the same for web design architecture: the temptation is to keep bolting on new product categories and new pages, creating an absolute maze of products.

This can be bewildering to the customer, Googlebot and your SEO team.

However, you have to stop for a second, put on some calming music, grab a green tea and do the following:

 

• Design the whole website so shoppers can get to the right page with the minimal amount of clicks
• Keep the main menu as uncluttered as feasibly possible
• Keep the menu descriptions accurate, short and snappy
• Carry out keyword research so you can describe your products the same way the majority of shoppers are on Google?
• Make your website fast (Google Core Web Vitals)

Think about using visual elements to help your clients better navigate the website- for example, if they click on electrical goods, slap a picture of a fridge/freezer to help them enter that product category without thinking so much, so it becomes effortless for them to get to the right page and quickly.

 

I’m lost. Take me back to the start. What does website architecture even mean?

In modern civilisation, we all love a hierarchy.

Bosses love to show charts of where they are sat in the company and where the teams sit beneath them; it feeds the ego, serves no real purpose, and is just a way of keeping, well, people in their place.

 

We digress

But when it comes to website structure, you need a hierarchy needs to be made clear and is worth thinking about: as it shows how everything links to the homepage, how less important pages are placed lower down, and how your best-selling items are moved up. It also allows to think how the website can be made more simple, how products can be ordered.

We always tell clients to think of website architecture a bit like an airport (stay with us).

At the airport, you want to find the right terminal, get there, sit down, have a drink, and worry about whether your luggage is too large to be classed as a carry-on bag.

Therefore, the emphasis is on transporting people in the airport to the right place as smoothly as possible. Good signage, those fancy belts that move you along twice as fast, and a logical layout are applied to airport design.

Use this concept when designing or redesigning your website. How can you get the shopper from A to B as simply as possible?

 

Retaining customers

Good website architecture is all about retaining customers’ interest, helping them get to where they want to go rather than leaving, causing them to abandon their shop and increasing the bounce rate.

The overall aim is to therefore:

• Reduce bounce rates
• Improve dwell times
• Improve number of pages visited
• Increase sales

For example, let’s give you a really straightforward one: let’s say, for a second, you’re a builder.

You need to buy a specific type of skylight/Velux and do it pretty fast, whilst on the job.

Now, if a website doesn’t allow you to navigate it quickly, sort items, or if the product description is non-existent, then customers leave.

The bounce rates increase, so really what we are talking about here is U.X- how can you improve the user experience, by implementing better website architecture to retaining the customer for longer. Improving the UX can mean many things; therefore, it’s not just about designing and implementing a simple-to-use main menu. You also need to make the website faster, offer more helpful content marketing, and create an interesting design, not just a mass of 1,000 products for the customer to wade through.

 

A rooted tree graph

Regardless of the business’s size, you can create a rooted tree graph.

The purpose is to show the homepage, then how all the other pages branch out from it. This can then provide you with a much better understanding of how the pages are interlinked.

 

Just make the top-level navigation simple.

Amazon have this down to a fine art.

You can practically purchase every type of product under the sun on Amazon and get to the right page quickly.

Yet the main navigation is simple and easy to use, which is why customers keep returning.

It saves time, it’s simple.

Now, think of this when designing your e-commerce website: how can you make it simpler?

How can you, as the marketing experts, say “remove friction from the buying process,” which is a rather fancy way of saying, “how can you make people’s lives simpler”?

 

Split testing / A/B testing

Split testing is super important.

Your top companies, well, they often spend millions per year making small, incremental changes to their websites. If, for example, slightly changing the main menu gives them a sales boost.

So, whether you are a multinational company or an SME, you should adopt the same marketing strategy: making small improvements slowly and steadily.

 

Breadcrumbs and user-friendly URLs

So, it’s important to use breadcrumb navigation and have URL slugs or extensions that accurately describe what that page is about. However, a word to the wise, you might have read on numerous SEO blog posts that you need “user-friendly URLs”.

However, don’t change the URL structure or extension to make the URLs user-friendly if they are on established pages.

URL structure. Which means Google bots crawl and index, and if you cause a violent shift in the website’s rankings, you can damage its visibility and organic SEO strength.

 

Internal links should form part of your website architecture

In SEO, you need to remove what we call “roadblocks”.

So, your content marketing team could spend forever and a day publishing highly informative blog posts about “why you should buy our luxury dog food”.

This then skyrockets the organic traffic you see in Google Analytics. This all looks great in theory.

However, you’re more experienced, you’re a more expert SEO agency, well, they’re going to say, hang on a second, why does it say 99% of all the organic traffic only visit just one page?

 

Why are they not visiting more pages?

Well, it could be for a multitude of different reasons: the copywriter could have a rather boring writing style, the information could be “content thin,” or it might just be as clear as day that the author, rather than deploying Google EEAT, hasn’t got a clue what they’re writing about!

On the other hand, it could be because they are offering top-quality advice, they are adhering to the principles of Google EEAT, and, well, they haven’t added a few internal links.

Internal links with well-written anchor text can make a massive difference to the number of pages read. It can actually mean the difference between someone researching a product, gaining advice from your website, and actually flipping open their wallet and making a purchase!

Plus, Google’s algorithm likes it when a business holds a shopper’s interest, whether that’s through higher dwell times, more page views, or the fact that they don’t need to visit a competitor’s website, because you have given them the information or product they need.

So this is why your UX, that’s “user experience”, needs to be, well, good!

 

XML sitemaps and why nothing can be clicked on unless it’s indexed

So, you could spend a huge sum of money improving website architecture; however, you also need to make sure the website can be “crawled and indexed”.
Because, well, if Googlebot can’t index the page, it can never appear in Google’s organic search results.

Therefore, it’s a must to keep an up-to-date XML sitemap. This ensures that all relevant pages are crawled and indexed.

 

Key takeaways

Get the customer where they need to go with as few clicks as possible.

Okay, a key takeaway from this article is improving the U.X to make things simpler for the customer.

Whether you have one product or one million, what’s important is getting the customer to the right product with the fewest possible clicks.

To do this, you should take inspiration from leading companies in your business sector.

Obviously, don’t copy their content marketing, that’s a major no-no. However, you could have a look at how they have set out their product categories and how they are grouped.

Sometimes something as simple as grouping all the electrical products related to “audio” under one tab is all that is needed. Then a graphic designer can help create a page with visual icons, splitting “home audio” into “personal audio”, then to “speakers for your television” into another page.

This creates a very visual, simple way to split customers into the appropriate product categories, all on a single landing page.

 

Create a well-designed main menu.

Take your time to create a well-thought-out main menu; make it simple and well-designed.

 

Grouping products

This is really important if you’re having a brand-new website designed. That is how you should group products.

How can you best sort the potentially thousands of product lines into manageable product groups?

How can you declutter that main menu as simply as possible?

This is so that when someone is tired, stressed, perhaps they’ve overdone the number of espressos that anybody should drink a day, how can that rather fatigued individual get to the right page and buy, umm, some dog food?

 

Split test

If you do have the budget, consider split testing.

Split testing asks, ‘How can you improve the web design that bit further?’

It was something of a buzzword for several years. That is “continuous improvement” It was something of a personal mantra that a lot of people were using and continue to use to improve their personal lives.

Now, how can you apply the concept of continuous improvement to your web design? How can you improve the U.X?

 

How can we help you

Well, we are quite simply one of the best SEO consultancies out there- here’s how we can help your business to gain more sales: (plus we are also very modest)

 

Organic SEO

We are first and foremost organic SEO specialists- we’ve been doing this for blinking ages.

This means that our consultants specialise in getting traffic from the free section of Google’s results.

And, well, again, it doesn’t sound very modest, but we are very good at this process. We have actually been at it for over 10 years.

Therefore, we have learnt about all of the various major Google updates over the years.

Plus, we’ve learnt about the less important Google algorithm updates, such as the Google Pigeon update! The Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird were more important.

We know how to write content marketing that works, build backlinks that boost a page’s authority, and improve a website’s UX.

 

Local SEO

Local SEO can sometimes be a vital lifeline for an SME business. Therefore, it’s not just another “add-on” form of marketing, such as e-mail marketing.

Nope, it’s actually the main bread-and-butter way some businesses gain more customers.

Therefore, we are the experts at local SEO,

 

E-commerce SEO

We can help you sell more products online.

No matter which products you sell, we can help improve your e-commerce SEO. Whether you need more backlinks, more content, improvements to the technical SEO, or improvements to the U.X- we can take care of it all.

From our Cardiff base, we are an SEO business that knows our stuff. We can help you gain more sales.

 

Give us a call today.