In a nutshell:
- The structure of a website determines whether visitors become customers—not the design alone.
- Intuitive navigation, clear value propositions, targeted CTAs.
- We’ll show you the structural principles that help SME websites actually turn visitors into leads.
On average, users skim a website for five seconds. If they don’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll abandon their search and look elsewhere. That’s why it’s essential for businesses to design a well-structured and engaging website to attract customers in the long term. Here, we’ll reveal how website structure should be designed.
What makes for a good website structure?
Just imagine your website as your own house—each room has its own function. A house generally has this structure: entrance, hallway, living room, kitchen, etc. The rooms aren’t randomly thrown together but are coordinated with one another. It’s no different with a website. Here are the key points to keep in mind when building your website:
- The goal of your website
- Target audience analysis
- Sales psychology: The right way to address customers
- Website structure
- Keyword research
- SEO compliance
| Tip: Use Excel to sketch out the website structure in advance. A structure prevents you from getting bogged down or going off track while building your website. This saves time, energy, and money. |
First Step: Define Your Website’s Goal
To design a website structure that achieves your goals, you should first ask yourself this question: What is the goal of your website? Even though answering this question may sound easy at first, it’s important not to be vague here. After all, a website can have different goals and be structured differently accordingly. You can formulate goals as follows:
- “We want to sell products on the homepage.”
- “We want to attract new clients.”
- “We want to strengthen our brand awareness and expand our reach.”
Depending on how the website’s goal is defined, the website will require a different focus, strategy, and integration of tools: An online store is essential if the focus is on selling products; an appointment booking tool if you want to attract new customers; and a blog, freebie, or podcast if brand building and reach are the goals you want to focus on.
| Brainstorming for the perfect website structure: Write down everything that comes to mind with your team: products, services, and other content such as your vision, experiences, or a special method you’ve developed. Nothing needs to be neatly organized at this stage. Just brainstorm freely. Whether by hand or using an online tool: Now organize the content that belongs together by using different colors and circling, underlining, or highlighting it. |
Step Two: Analyzing the Target Audience
As with all marketing efforts in general, the target audience should be analyzed when building a website. Therefore, answer these questions in advance:
- Who has bought what from us and for what reason?
- What is the age of our target audience?
- Does our target audience speak one or more languages (for a multilingual website)?
- What are your customers’ pain points and challenges?
- What can’t they accomplish on their own?
- Where do our customers want to go with our help?
- What are they willing to invest? Where is the pain threshold?
All these answers will help you tailor the design of your website. Above all, however, don’t let your answers veer into praise for your brand or your company. Unfortunately, this still happens at many companies. Yet customers want nothing different online than they do offline. They want help with a problem or to achieve a goal with your assistance.
Should you tailor your website to your target audience?
A target audience analysis is absolutely one of the fundamentals of an online presence. After all, your website is your “silent” employee who takes care of your potential customers when you’re not there—that is, on holidays, weekends, and at night. And all without an hourly wage…
However, to attract customers, a website must offer solutions, provide answers, and create added value for customers. Pain points can also be addressed. By doing so, you generate customer engagement, which is worth its weight in gold when it comes to customer acquisition. You can learn more about this here.
Step Three: Sales Psychology – The Right Way to Approach Customers
It may sound cliché, but once you view yourself or your products as “wish fulfillers,” something happens automatically. You place your customers at the center of your overall marketing and website design. And with that, you already have a significant edge over your competitors, who likely put themselves in the spotlight.
As service providers or product manufacturers, we’re often so deeply immersed in the subject matter that we forget one thing: Our potential customers probably don’t know nearly as much about the technical details as we do. As a result, many companies drift into technical jargon that customers find too complex. And that must not happen.
What our reptilian brain has to do with your website design
We want to clearly convey to our customers on our website that we are the right choice and that they’re getting a good deal with us. This communication is an essential part of marketing and website design, because instinctive behavior patterns come into play here.
We all have a part of our brain known as the reptilian brain. Why are we discussing this in this article? Because this part influences our purchasing decisions—and thus your customers’ decisions as well. The reptilian brain is one of our oldest brain stems and has therefore proven itself over the course of evolution. It knows only flight, freeze, and fight.
An example: Let’s assume that a diving equipment website describes its products unclearly. The following internal dialogue might take place in the customer’s mind: “I’m not sure if this diving mask meets my needs. If I buy it now and it doesn’t arrive by my vacation in two weeks or is too small, then I won’t have a suitable diving mask… hmm, I don’t want to take that risk. Let’s see what’s available on Amazon.”
This example perfectly illustrates the “flight” response, as the customer feels uncertain and consequently leaves the website. So far, no drama for the neocortex, which rationalizes the underlying emotion. But it is very much a drama for the reptilian brain. It doesn’t warn us with words, but with a feeling. In this case, uncertainty.
So, here’s how to phrase things clearly on the website
What could the shop do better? It could elaborate on the questions from step two and formulate them more clearly. This is relatively easy if you just keep a few things in mind: What is the customer benefit, and what product strength lies behind it? Often, only strengths are communicated without any benefit.
But FDF—facts, figures, and data—aren’t enough to satisfy our reptilian brain. It needs a benefit, because that’s what creates a “good feeling” in this part of our brain. This means that when you sell something, you’re not selling the product or service itself, but the benefit:
- You don’t sell irons; you offer wrinkle-free shirts.
- You don’t sell fashion; you sell a lifestyle.
- You’re not selling prosthetics; you’re selling independence, freedom, and agility.
If you want to articulate specific product strengths, the process works the same way:
| Product Strength | Customer Benefit |
| Waterproof with a wide rubber seal | This prevents water from getting into your eyes. |
| Anti-fog feature | The lens of your diving mask won’t fog up, so you can see everything clearly underwater. |
| Easy to adjust | If the pressure changes underwater, you can easily adjust the strap with just one hand. |
| Perfect fit | It won’t slip while you’re swimming, so you can enjoy your dive. |
To avoid making mistakes here, it’s worth translating each individual product feature into customer benefits. The phrase “that means for you…” or alternative phrasing like “that helps you…” etc. works well here. You can also use these phrases effectively on your product page and on the homepage. This will make your website structure perfect.
| Formula for the perfect customer appeal Product strength + bridge (“..., that means for you”) = customer benefit & reason to buy |
Step Four: Keyword Research
Before you tackle the structure, you should first conduct keyword research so that your website “speaks” to your customers and you sell more. There are free tools available for this, as well as more expensive providers that allow you to define your search queries even more precisely.
The tools draw their information directly from Google search queries and suggest, among other things, phrase combinations. This makes it easier to formulate headlines, as well as to name subpages on your website. After all, the best website structure won’t do you any good if your messages don’t get through.
Furthermore, keyword research is a wonderful source of inspiration for a blog, a podcast, video productions, or an FAQ subpage. People often search the internet specifically for tutorials. Keyword research delivers your customers’ questions to you on a silver platter. Another plus. You can also reach more people with so-called help content than with a dry company profile.
With a post like, for example, “How does my basil survive the winter?”, you kill several birds with one stone. For one thing, people are looking for a solution to this problem, so they’ll read your article more carefully. The result: Users stay on your website longer, which helps your site climb the SEO rankings. Plus, you can subtly promote your product in the blog.
| Tip: Use keyword research to create a content and social media plan. This allows you to work twice as effectively and always have content ready to share. |
Step Five: What structure should you choose?
Before we dive into the details, here’s a rough overview of a website’s structure. Generally, a website follows a tree structure. The homepage or landing page serves as the starting point:
- Homepage
- Subpages
- Company page / Information pages / Contact pages
- Blog
- Topic pages
- Blog/Podcast
- FAQ
- Shop
- Category pages / Product pages
- Applications
- Order forms
- Contact Form / Booking Tool
| Note: Always keep your customers in mind when designing your site and ensure that the content is always tailored to their needs. This is the only way your website can help you achieve your business goals. |
The Menu
Navigation is essential. Not just when driving, but also on your website. To help users find their way around your website right away, they need a clear, intuitive menu. Choose meaningful menu items rather than generic terms. These items should be included in the menu:
- About Us (Company, Team, Jobs)
- Services & Offers (Products, Services)
- News (Blog / Podcast)
- Topics (Guides, Content Hub)
- Contact (Contact Form)
If you want to clarify these points, you can easily do so with a few specific and descriptive words:
- Our SEO Team
- Work with us
- SEO Blog
- Free SEO Tips
- Contact Us
As you can see, refining the menu and making it more descriptive isn’t rocket science. A so-called “sticky header” is also particularly helpful. This keeps the menu fixed in place at all times, allowing users to easily access subpages without scrolling. This is especially ideal for an older target audience, as it makes navigation even easier.
In the past, it was common to position the menu on the left side. Avoid this design, as it benefits neither you nor the user and only makes navigation more complex and confusing. Of course, this menu is still permitted on responsive sites for smartphones and tablets. Here, it is used due to limited screen space.
| By the way: In technical jargon, this is referred to as the “user experience.” The goal here is to make the website more user-friendly in order to boost sales and build or maintain customer relationships. As you can see, there’s much more to a good website structure than just clarity. |
The Header
This is where your USP (Unique Selling Point) comes into play in the form of an appealing tagline. A tagline is a sentence or phrase closely associated with the brand or brand name. When selecting images, please avoid impersonal stock photos or shots of buildings without people. There’s a reason for the saying, “People buy from people.” Your website should feel human and not overly polished.
The Content Area & Body
Make sure your content is easy to digest. In marketing, we often say that a 5-year-old should be able to understand the text. Simplicity prevents unnecessary jargon. Besides, users’ attention spans on the internet are unfortunately getting shorter and shorter. Complicated and incomprehensible text increases the bounce rate.
The font size and color are easier to adjust. Use an easily readable font size and make sure the colors on the website don’t “clash” while reading. The landing page can be designed to be wonderfully clear if you structure it like a one-pager where all subpages are teased.
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| Tip: Show your menu to three to five people. Can these people understand what you offer without knowing the rest of your website? If not, you should revise the menu items so that they are self-explanatory. |
The Footer
The footer is the ideal place to include the privacy policy, legal notice, and cookie banner information. These three items must be accessible on every subpage with just one click—this is required by law. By placing them in the footer, you don’t waste any space while still adhering to the rules.
You can also include categories, social media links, your contact information, and logos of certifications and seals here. Experts recommend that users be able to reach all subpages of your website with just five clicks. Given the ever-dwindling patience of web users, we recommend three clicks.
Structure of the Website Subpages
Once the user’s curiosity has been piqued on the landing page and they click on a subpage, they naturally shouldn’t be disappointed here. The design should be similar yet slightly different to improve navigation. Colors and shapes can be easily adjusted. With a sticky header, users can always switch to other menu items on the subpages, maintaining flexibility.
Instead of the tagline, use meaningful headings on the subpages. Keyword research can help you with this. Please be careful not to try to be too creative or rely on too many puns. After all, users still want solutions to problems, not to solve riddles.
The body and footer are subject to the same requirements as on the landing page. On the offer page, it’s worth adding an FAQ section at the bottom of the subpage to answer recurring questions. You can also prominently place a contact form here.
| Note: All tools that collect data from your users must be listed in the privacy policy, and a so-called data processing agreement must be signed. Otherwise, you may face a warning letter. If you’re unsure, it’s best to contact a lawyer specializing in online law. |
How do you structure your website to be SEO-compliant?
Experts define search engine optimization as all measures that help a website achieve greater visibility in search engines. The most popular search engine is Google. However, there are also other search engines like Bing or Ecosia. They all aim to provide relevant answers to search queries such as “How does my basil survive the winter?”
You may have noticed that this is precisely why a meaningful and helpful website is so valuable. Because if users stay on your site for a long time and engage with your content, the search engine views this positively and your visibility increases. If you follow the steps above carefully, you’ve already done a lot to ensure your SEO compliance.
Overview of SEO-Compliant Website Structure
Website structure is very similar to the folder system on our laptops. So-called CMS (Content Management Systems) like WordPress and TYPO3 also work according to this principle. A clear website structure is just as important for SEO as keyword density and content quality. Everything builds on each other, which is why the website should always be viewed as a whole.
It’s also worth keeping the website structure as flat as possible. This means that it should take no more than three clicks to reach the destination. Because if the user takes longer, they’ll likely leave your site prematurely. Furthermore, the user should understand what you’re trying to convey just by scrolling.
So, make sure your wording is clear and to the point. Avoid too many creative buzzwords. Websites are always about solving problems, not creating puzzles. The same applies to the design. It should remain clean and make reading a pleasure. Furthermore, it’s a good idea to create a separate HTML page for each topic and its associated subtopics.
Each page should also have a unique URL, as this is particularly important for SEO. Ideally, there should be only one URL per keyword. This allows Google to link directly to different topics and content. There is one small exception regarding website structure: the one-pager. Here, all content is displayed on a single HTML page. This makes sense for local businesses or small retail stores.
Checklist for your website structure:
| You can clearly state the goal of your website. Your target audience is well-defined, and you can identify their pain points, desires, and needs without hesitation. You know what you stand for, understand your USP, and are already marketing it.All important content and topic areas are color-coded and ready to go. You are able to rephrase product strengths into customer benefits. Keyword research has been conducted, and you now have a list of additional ideas for search queries and topics relevant to your target audience.You know which keywords your customers are searching for. Your website structure is flat. A maximum of 3 clicks takes users to all subpages. The landing page is clearly organized, structured like a one-pager. |
Conclusion: Waterproof Web Wizard helps with website development
After reading this article, you’ll know how to build a website. If you have further questions or would like to work with us to design your website, please feel free to contact us. SEO is our passion. We specialize in the following areas:
- Search Engine Optimization – SEO
- Local SEO
- Technical SEO
- SEO Audit
- Google Ads / PPC
Feel free to check out our customer reviews. You can reach us by phone at +49 751 95899217 or contact us via our contact form. We look forward to hearing from you.