What is site architecture and how does it affect my customers?
The purpose of good site architecture is:
- To make your site more user-friendly by providing straightforward, easy-to-use navigation
- To give search engines and customers a clear idea of each page’s purposes
The following steps should be taken when improving your site or when building it from scratch. This will assist in improving conversion rates, organic rankings in search engines, and faster listings in search engines.
1st step: Choose the main theme of the site. Then separate your products into as many different categories/sections you can come up with. The sections can be broken up in many ways (for instance: Shop by price, Shop by brand, Shop by color, Shop by size, Gold jewelry, silver jewelry, Bracelets, Necklaces, Men’s fragrances, Women’s fragrances, etc.). The sections or categories will be used for your site’s navigation and landing pages.
2nd step: Choose the navigation types needed. Typically, a competitive analysis will show that your competitors have three or more types of navigation. These navigation types consist of main navigation columns, textual links, image links, footer links and others.
So, execute step 1 by choosing your site’s theme, then execute step 2 by dividing your products and services into sections and categories, then choose what type of navigation types you wish to employ.
Once you complete steps 1 & 2, you will need to develop the pages linked to your navigation types. These linked pages are sometimes called “Landing Pages.” The landing pages are actually the sections or categories created in step 2. These pages are created to target specific keywords and phrases (e.g. when some looks for black leather women’s boots they “land” on the women’s leather boots page).
As an example, if I were looking for a paintbrush, I would hope to land on a page that gives me the information and products I am looking for. You, as a merchant, will want to develop your landing pages to pitch your product details and information. In addition, you would not want to list all of your products’ information on each landing page, just the section or category specific to the landing page. Landing pages are a great way to use more specific keywords and main phrases.
In summary, as your site’s architecture incorporates a theme, various types of navigation (i.e. columns, images, contextual links, tables, etc.) and landing pages, you are making your site user friendly and giving search engines and customers a clear idea of each page’s purposes.
Long-Time Commuter Gives Up Drive For Profitable At-Home Business
After 30 years of commuting as a contract programmer, Scott Bushong is ready to quit the hour-and-a-half drive and do some online retail sales.
In February 2002 Scott received an invitation in the mail to attend a free StoresOnline Internet Marketing Conference. He attended the seminar and then attended the all-day workshop hosted several days later, after which he purchased three StoresOnline website licenses and an online processor package.
Scott then proceeded to do a lot of research on the Internet to discover whether he could find a product comparable to or cheaper than the StoresOnline software package.
“I went online to price out other builders and found out that StoresOnline was priced very competitively.” In one case, “a 10-page site had a price tag of what one license cost me, and currently one of my sites is 100-plus pages.”
As time passed, Scott gained an even greater appreciation for the StoresOnline software package he purchased.
“Lots of people sell websites with templates that are much cheaper, but you are not going to get the bang for the buck. [StoresOnline] is well worth the money.”
And Scott got a lot of bang for his buck. Shortly after purchasing the package, he researched some possibilities for online retail products and came back with the resolve to provide greenhouse supplies.
“It seemed like a fairly underrepresented market, so I jumped into that,” he says. Scott spent the next couple of months after the seminar building his site. About a month later he had his first sale. Over the past two and a half years, he has slowly increased his sales.
While building his first site, Scott quickly learned how to use the StoresOnline software.
“The Store Builder is easy to pick up; I printed off the tutorials and walked myself through the steps,” he says. “Once you know how to do the basic stuff, it is really easy to do.”
Now after building three different Web sites, Scott says the “StoresOnline platform is a Cadillac; I can build into my site just about anything I want.”
Another bang for the buck Scott enjoys is the superior customer support he’s received.
“Support is very good,” he says. StoresOnline’s 24/7 Customer Support Live Chat fits Scott’s lifestyle, as he sometimes works during movies and in the middle of the night. All he has to do is get online and pose his questions to the Customer Service team.
Scott says one of the best parts of beginning his own retail Web site has been his newfound interest in working for himself:
“This is a kick,” he says. “I’ve been totally bored and worn out from working for somebody else. I like this. If I were to talk with someone thirty years junior to me, I’d say ‘Do it now man.’”
Scott’s Web sites can be found at:
http://www.bestgrowlights.com
http://www.roboganza.com
*Testimonial results are not typical and your individual results will vary. Your success depends on having the right price, product, and marketing efforts. Opinions expressed and comparative research are the opinions of Mr.Bushong.
