Building an Information Structure for your WordPress Site

HandsOnWP.com @nick_batik@sandi_batik
Building an
Information Structure
Austin WordPress Meetup
March 19, 2018

WHY IS SITE STRUCTURE
IMPORTANT?• Building a logical content
structure for your website is
crucial for both usability and
findability
• Many eCommerce sites lack
the structure to successfully
guide visitors to the product
they want
• Having a clear site structure
helps Search Engines better
understand the purpose of
your site which is critical for
good SEO

SITE STRUCTURE IS
CRITICAL TO THE USER
EXPERIENCE (UX)
• If visitors are able to find
the information or
products they’re looking
for they are more likely
to become customers
• A good site structure will
help you do that.

SITE STRUCTURE IS
CRITICAL TO THE USER
EXPERIENCE (UX)• Navigating should be
easy
• Categorize your posts
and products so they will
be easy to find
• New audiences should
be able to instantly
grasp what kind of
products or services
you’re featuring on your
site

SITE STRUCTURE HELPS
GOOGLE UNDERSTAND
YOUR SITE• Your site’s structure
determines whether a search
engine can understand what
your site is about — what
you’re selling and where to
find the most important
content
• It determines how easily a
search engine will find and
index the content on certain
products
• A good structure can lead to
a higher ranking in Google.

SITE STRUCTURE PREVENTS
COMPETING WITH YOUR
OWN CONTENT
• You site probably has multiple blog
posts and pages about your
product or service
• Those pages can be competing
with each other for a high ranking
in Google
• Your site needs a good internal
linking and taxonomy structure for
Google know which page you
consider most relevant
• A good site structure can make all
those pages work for you, instead
of against you

NAVIGATION PLAYS A CRUCIAL
ROLE IN GETTING SITE VISITORS
TO VIEW PAGES
• Navigation plays a
crucial role in getting site
visitors to view more
than just the home page.
• If navigation choices are
unclear visitors may
chose to hit the “Back”
button on their first (and
final) visit to your web
site

GUIDING A VISITOR
THROUGH YOUR SITE
• Don’t place hurdles for visitors
looking for something on your site.
• Decide the priority of the materials
site visitors need to engage
• Your navigation flow must reflect
those priorities
• Material you want most accessible
should be available from first-level
menu options
• Supporting Information can be
accessible through submenus or
links within pages

THE TYPICAL WEBSITE WILL
HAVE 2–3 LEVELS OF
NAVIGATION• Homepage – This page is usually shown at the top of a
sitemap
• Primary navigation – Also referred to as “Parent Pages”
make up the main navigation of your website. These pages
are at the top-most level of your site
• Secondary navigation – Also referred to as “Child Pages”
or “secondary pages” — these items are most often seen
in a dropdown. They are one level deeper than the primary
navigation such as Cornerstone Pages - evergreen content
that other pages or posts link with

THE TYPICAL WEBSITE WILL
HAVE 2–3 LEVELS OF
NAVIGATION• Tertiary pages – These pages are located one level deeper
than the secondary navigation and are often not visible in the
site’s navigation. Examples would be Product Pages on an
e-commerce website
• Call-to-action items – These often take the form of a
highlighted button — a donation button or a shopping cart
that you click to complete an action or access a form.
• Special file types – Interactive or downloadable elements
such as forms, downloadable PDFs and documents

A SUCCESSFUL INFORMATION
STRUCTURE STARTS WITH A SITEMAP
A sitemap is a diagram that outlines the
hierarchy of pages within a website.

SITEMAPS ARE A PLANNING TOOL
USED TO MAP OUT THE STRUCTURE,
NAVIGATION AND PAGE HIERARCHY
OF YOUR WEBSITE
• Define and organize
every page of your
website
• Sort pages from most
broad to most defined
• Keep your entire design
development and
marketing team on track

THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN PAGES AND
POSTS
• The WordPress install
comes with two content
types — Pages and
Posts
• For those new to
WordPress it is easy to
get confused between
Pages and Posts

PAGES
• Pages are hierarchical
by nature and are
designed for static
content that rarely
changes — like About
Us and Contact Us
• A Page can become a
Parent Page to a Child
Page allowing you to
group different sub-
pages under one Parent
page

PAGES
• By default Pages do not
allow comments - they
meant for social
engagement but for
sharing information
• Though not intended to be
social — some Pages will
have Social Buttons
connecting readers to the
site’s Social Media
accounts to encourage
Follows or Likes

WHAT ARE POSTS?
• The entries into your WordPress
Blog are Posts
• Post content is listed in reverse
chronological order in your blog
• Post are meant to be timely so
the most current information is
listed first
• Older posts are archived based
on month and year
• All your Posts are searchable
by Categories and Tags

HOW DO WE DISTRIBUTE
OUR POST CONTENT?
• Post Are Social
• Install one of the many
social sharing plugins to
encourage readers to
share your posts in
social media networks
like Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn or other venues
that fit your user profile

POSTS PROMPT
RESPONSE AND
CONVERSATION• Posts have a have a
built-in commenting
feature that allow users
to comment on a
particular topic
• You can control the
‘How, When and If’ of
Commenting through
your WordPress
Dashboard Settings

PAGES VS. POSTS —
SUMMARY OF PRIMARY
DIFFERENCES• Posts are timely vs. Pages are timeless
• Posts are social vs. Pages are NOT
• Posts can be categorized vs. Pages are hierarchical
• Pages have custom template feature vs. Posts do not
• Note “ Edge Case Exceptions” – You can use plugins
or code snippets to extend the functionality of both
content types

Do You Understand How to Use
Categories to Guide
Your Content Structure?

CATEGORIES AND TAGS
• Categories and Tags are
both examples of a
taxonomy system
• The sole purpose of
Categories and Tags are to
sort and organize your
content to improve the
usability of your site
• Sorting and organizing site
content helps the visitor
more easily browse content
by topic rather than
chronologically

CATEGORIES
• Categories are meant for broad
grouping of your posts
• Think of these as general topics
or the table of contents for your
site
• Categories are there to help
identify what your blog is really
about
• It is to assist readers finding the
right type of content on your site
• Categories are hierarchical, so
you can sub-categories

CATEGORIES
• No one can accurately predict all
the right categories
• A Best Practice is to start with
five generic categories
• Then become more specific
using subcategories
• Measure your site visitor’s
reaction and engagement
• Adjust and add Categories and
subcategories as dictated by
community interest and
involvement

HOW TO USE GENERIC
CATEGORIES TO FUTURE-
PROOF YOUR BLOG
• Build a Primary
Category Structure with
generic categories like
—
• How-To’s
• News
• Case Studies
• Tools

WHEN TO ADD A
SUB-CATEGORY
• Whenever you find that you are writing about a Sub Topic topic
repeatedly…
• Example: Main Category “How To’s”
• Frequent sub-topic to “How To’s” topic — A/B Testing
• If you are focusing on A/B Testing more than five times — Make
it a Sub-Category to the Parent Category of “How To’s”
• Go back to the previous A/B Testing blogs and correct the
existing Category reference

ASSIGNING ONE POST
MULTIPLE CATEGORIES
• With the proper use of Parent and Sub-
Categories you shouldn’t need to classify one
post into multiple top-level categories
• Adding multiple categories to a post DOES
NOT benefit SEO
• Adding multiple categories to a post DOES
NOT benefit user experience

BECAUSE YOU CAN
DOESN’T MEAN YOU
SHOULD
• WordPress ALLOWS
you to add one post into
as many categories as
you like
• Many Bloggers add
multiple categories to a
post because they
THINK it helps their
users

THINK BEFORE YOUR
CLICK
• Use only ONE Category
per Post
• Think of Categories as
Table of Contents for
your blog
• Think of Posts with the
same Category as
Chapters of your Blog

BEST PRACTICE FOR
MANAGING CATEGORIES• EXAMPLE —Your blog has three categories:
• Project Management
• Enterprise Resource Management
• Client Relationship Management
• You notice that your many of your posts can fit into all of these multiple
categories
• A Best Practice would be to identify an umbrella category for all three
• Maybe these posts should be Categorized under Business
Management with a sub-category of Project Management, ERP or
CRM?

WHAT’S THE OPTIMAL
NUMBER OF WORDPRESS
CATEGORIES?• There are no specific optimal number of
categories
• It depends on the size and complexity of
your site
• For the sake of structure and usability a
Best Practice is to utilize Sub-categories and
Tags

CATEGORY ARCHIVES
ARE LANDING PAGES
• To a Search Engine your
category archives are
more important than
individual pages and
posts
• If carefully structured
these archive pages
should be the first result in
Google
• That means those
archives can be your most
important landing pages

HOW WORDPRESS HELPS
• WordPress automatically
generates an archive for every
category tag and custom
taxonomy
• That archive lists each post
associated with that taxonomy
in reverse chronological order
• If you carefully and
consistently organize your
blog posts with categories and
tags you guide your site visitor
to the content they need

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN CATEGORIES AND
TAGS• The biggest difference between Categories
and Tags is that you MUST categorize your
post
• If you do not Categorize your post, then it will
be categorized under the “Uncategorized”
• WordPress does not require you to add any
tags

Do You Understand the Purpose
of WordPress Tags?

TAGS
• Tags were added In WordPress 2.5 to improve the
usability of your site
• Tags are not hierarchical
• Tags are meant to describe specific details of your posts.
• Think of Tags as your Blogs Index words.
• Tags are the micro-data that you can use to describe your
content

SHOULD YOU LIMIT NUMBER
OF TAGS ASSIGNED TO
EACH POST?
• Think of Tags as an Index and Categories as being the
Table of Contents of your Blog
• Tags are popular keywords that loosely relate your posts
• Tags make it easy for users to find your Posts using the
WordPress search
• I don’t care What you are Blogging about —It is very
hard to justify more than Ten Tags for a Blog Post

DO TAGS WORK LIKE
META KEYWORDS?
• Rookie Mistake: Adding as many Tags as
possible thinking Tags are meta keywords
• Tags are NOT default meta keywords for your
blog
• Installing the SEO by Yoast plugin enables you
to use your Tag structure in the meta keywords
template

SEO
CATEGORIES VS TAGS
• The question of using Categories over Tags
or vice versa for a SEO Advantage is a
NON-ISSUE
• Categories and Tags are just the two
default taxonomies, designed to work
together, that comes with WordPress

LAST THOUGHTS ABOUT
CATEGORIES AND TAGS
• Your site’s Blog is an ever-evolving book
• Develop the Table of Content (categories)
carefully
• Chose broad topics — but be careful not to
be too vague
• Use Tags to generally relate multiple posts

LAST THOUGHTS ABOUT
CATEGORIES AND TAGS
• If a specific Tag seems to be trending — give
some consideration making it a sub-category
• If the trending Tag would have to be added as a
subcategory to several multiple top-level
categories — leave it as a TAG
• The goal is always to make the site as user-
friendly as possible

LAST THOUGHTS ABOUT
CATEGORIES AND TAGS
• Most advanced sites use custom taxonomies
for sorting their content in addition to
categories and tags
• Custom Taxonomies will be addressed In a
future Intermediate WordPress Class

Navigation Tips and Tricks
What issues are tripping you up?

Navigation Resources
WordPress Developers & Designers Cheat Sheets
https://www.shoutmeloud.com/15-best-wordpress-cheat-sheets-for-designers-and-
developers.html
Creative 404 Page Designs
https://www.solodev.com/blog/web-design/30-creative-and-clever-404-error-
pages.stml

CONTENT CREATION
CHECK LIST
• Check your “inspiration sources” for
content ideas
• Choose a headline
• Check keyword competition and edit
your headline as needed
• Research and plan your article
• Choose your category and add tags
• Fill in the SEO fields
• Write your first draft
• Go back and edit out cliches and add
keywords and phrases
• Add images, video, and/or other rich
content
• Re-read it. Edit.
• Add an excerpt
• Read it again
• Publish
• Check your editorial schedule for the
next article

WORDPRESS RESOURCES
GET CONNECTED — Join and contribute to the Austin WordPress
Tribe at: http://www.meetup.com/austinwordpress.
We look forward to seeing you at a #WPATX meetup soon

Sandi Batik
WordPress evangelist, consultant, trainer, curricula
developer, author, unapologetic geek, unrepentant
capitalist, lucky enough to do what I love everyday. I’ve
served as Austin WordPress Meetup co-organizer since
2010. With my husband Nick Batik, co-founded Pleiades
Publishing Services in 1992 and Hands-On WordPress
Training in 2010.
Follow me @sandi_batik / @WPATX
Contact me at: handsonwp.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hsandrachevalierbatik
Presenter

Nick Batik
Started in web development in 1994 and have been a
WordPress consultant, and web developer since 2007.
A WordPress evangelist, I’ve served as Austin
WordPress Meetup co-organizer since 2010. With my
partner, co-founded Pleiades Publishing Services in 1992
and Hands-On WordPress Training in 2010.
Follow me @nick_batik / @WPATX
Contact me at: handsonwp.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasbatik
Presenter

Building an Information Structure for your WordPress Site

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