There are many sites out there that could use an internet version of Extreme Makeover. Sometimes, a site’s lack of success in the search engines is due to tiny problems within its pages, which only a professional SEO firm can catch. More frequently, however, it’s something obvious that your SEO professional will shake their head at.

Navigation is one of the prime culprits for keeping a site’s ranking down, tripping up search engine spiders as they try to crawl a site. Even when the structure of your site and its navigation don’t drag down you ranking, they could be lacking the optimisation that would make them work harder for your site.

Example 1: A large retail site

Retail sites often have a lot of hard work ahead of them when it comes to SEO. Usually filled with hundreds, if not thousands of pages, retail sites often struggle to find a way to present all pertinent information to the search engines. Site users are frequently in danger of becoming lost as well.

• Clearly defined paths. The biggest problem large retail sites have is figuring out where to store their pages. Often pages end up in badly-categorised clumps, with pages replicated from category to category. The first step is to sort out categories into a manageable handful with product pages no more than four clicks away from the home page. This means that instead of Home > Products > Women’s > Tops > Shirts > Summer > T-shirts > Mickey T-shirt, a better organisation would be Home > Women’s > Summer > Mickey T-shirt. Achieving this kind of short path takes major planning and not a little reorganisation, but users and search engines alike will appreciate the shorter path
• Breadcrumb navigation. To keep users on the path, planting a breadcrumb navigational path along the top of the page is a great addition to your site. Although it requires a little more programming for your pages, it is also great for SEO. This form of navigation is getting more and more attention from the search engines, and provides a perfect place to feature your keywords

Example 2: A smaller business site

Smaller sites often don’t use their natural assets to the full before they approach a search engine optimisation company. Navigation is a prime example of this. Consider these two possible forms of footer navigation:

Home; Contact Us; About Us; FAQ

Each of these pages might provide a good opportunity for SEO, but their links provide an even better opportunity if the brand keywords are put to good use:

Fashion Fest Home; Contact Fashion Fest HQ; More about Fashion Fest; Fashion FAQs

You’ll notice that these more descriptive links also provide a bit more information for the site user, and perhaps will entice a few more clicks.

SEO problem areas are often hard to spot. Even once spotted, a problem can be difficult to solve without prior experience. Many businesses find professional assistance essential for SEO, and you can talk to our experts at SEO Consult about your site.

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