Content Organisation / Information Architecture (Part 2c of 5)
Why is the way the content is organised important?
It is important to remember that search engines no longer see information in isolation – the way that this information interacts is very important.
In a similar way to the advice provided under the Site Structure section and Website Accessibility, information that interacts with other information provides contextual insight into the priority and importance of content to users and bots. Things to consider include:
- How the on-page information organised (navigation, body, sidebar, footer)
- Put the most important content (and keywords) at the top of the page
- Order the links in the navigation bar / sidebar in a way as to highlight their priority
- Link related content as much as you can to show it's importance.
- How many links leave that page (is the page a hub of related resources or single spoke of niche information?)
- Where on the page does link from?
- What anchor text is used and the relevancy of the surrounding content of the link
Information Architecture
A fancy name for the organisation of content is 'information architecture' (IA). You can read about what information architecture is here and also the importance of information architecture for SEO here.
A good tip is to make decisions of users as informative and intuitive as possible, that way many SEO content organisation considerations come as second nature.
With bite-sized chunks you can break any problem down into manageable chunks. We hope by reading the Bourn Design & SEO blog you will gain a better understanding of the decisions made by our team when building websites and marketing websites, as well as providing some helpful tips along the way too!
Posted By: Ben
22 January 2009