Defining your Business Website Structure
So, you have decided you're serious about creating your website. The next step is to start to put some flesh on those metaphorical bones, and define the structure for your site.
This is where the work you did on defining the strategy comes into its own. A good way of defining your website structure is to prioritise what it is you want to achieve.
For instance, it may be that there are five key things you want the website to achieve as a result of your strategy. As a practical example, imagine you are building a website selling pashminas. You might want to:
- Sell silk pashminas
- Sell wool pashminas
- Sell other miscellaneous clothing items
- Provide informative articles on wearing pashminas and fashion in general
- Create a dialogue with customers, e.g. a monthly newsletter they can subscribe to
Now based on these elements, you now need to rank them and ask "what is the one thing I most want visitors to my website to do?". If you decide the one thing you really want them to do is to buy silk pashminas (because you have the greatest margin on that item), then you should ensure that the site structure reflects this accordingly.
Therefore when defining the site structure, we would ensure our top category was silk pashminas, with the various product pages and sub-categories and information pages relating to silk pashminas underneath it. A useful mechanism is to write on paper the site structure such that it mimics a fully expanded menu - in other words write the key heading in bold at the top left then draw the sub-pages as relevant indented to the right underneath the main keywords. For some, drawing a spider diagram helps them visualise the site structure.
We then repeat the question and ask which our second most important aim is, and so forth. This strategy also impacts on the content of the pages too which will be dealt with in the next section.
When planning site structure, also use your competitor research to help you in case there are any important elements you have missed out.
And remember that the majority of sites will have some page names in common, for instance terms and conditions, privacy policy, a general contact us form to name a few standard pages.
Once you have defined your site strategy and structure, it is time to start thinking about any interactive features your website may require - read about website interactivity to find out more.
This guide to building a business ecommerce site is by Clarity Media Ltd
Quick Links
Researching the opportunity... Site strategy... Site structure... Interactivity... Ecommerce... Future proofing and updating... Creating content... Choosing images... Site build... Launch... Measuring success... Building traffic: free methods... Building traffic: paid methods... Onwards and upwards
Home page: building a business website guide
Quick Links
Researching the opportunity... Site strategy... Site structure... Interactivity... Ecommerce... Future proofing and updating... Creating content... Choosing images... Site build... Launch... Measuring success... Building traffic: free methods... Building traffic: paid methods... Onwards and upwards
Home page: building a business website guide
