In this guide, we’ll explain what website taxonomy is, why it’s essential for user experience and SEO, and how you can structure your site for better navigation. You’ll also learn the different types of taxonomies and practical tips to organize your content effectively.
What Is Website Taxonomy?
In the world of website design, website taxonomy is the art of creating a logical classification and navigation system for your content. Think of it like a library. A library isn’t just a random collection of books; it’s a meticulously organized system with categories, shelves, and labels that help you find exactly what you’re looking for.
On a website, taxonomy uses elements like topics, categories, and tags to organize your content. Without a clear taxonomy, your website would be a chaotic mess, and a visitor would have a very difficult time finding what they are looking for.
Why Website Taxonomy Matters
A well-structured website taxonomy is essential for both your users and search engines. Here’s why it matters:
- It improves user experience: A website with a clear, logical structure is easy to navigate. This is a crucial part of providing a good user experience, which can lead to a lower bounce rate and a higher conversion rate.
- It helps search engines crawl your site: A clear taxonomy is a map for a search engine’s bots. It helps them find and index all the pages on your site. This is especially important for large websites with thousands of pages.
- It builds authority: When your website is neatly organized, a search engine can understand the relationship between your pages and which ones are the most important. This can help you build topical authority in your niche.
The Four Types of Taxonomies
When it comes to organizing your website, there are four different types of taxonomies you can use. The best one for you depends on the size of your website and your business goals.
Flat Taxonomy
A flat taxonomy has a homepage with a list of subcategories, but no sub-levels. This structure works well for small websites with a limited amount of content.
Hierarchical Taxonomy
A hierarchical taxonomy has different levels of subcategories within subcategories. This is a good choice for websites of all sizes, especially if you can neatly categorize your content. It is, however, important to keep the number of levels in the hierarchy low so it is easy for visitors to find specific content.
Network Taxonomy
In a network taxonomy, categories are connected by association. Think of “most popular” products on an e-commerce website. This type of taxonomy can be layered on top of a hierarchical taxonomy.
Faceted Taxonomy
Faceted taxonomy allows you to categorize content according to shared attributes, like brand, size, or color. This is a great tool for large e-commerce websites with a lot of products. However, if left unchecked, faceted taxonomy can create a lot of duplicate pages, which is bad for SEO.
Key Considerations for Your Website Taxonomy
Taxonomy Is Not Navigation
Taxonomy is the pure categorization of content, and it is not a substitute for website navigation. It’s a tool that helps you understand how visitors navigate your website and which pages you should emphasize.
How Do You Plan to Scale?
If your taxonomy seems unsustainable as you add new categories and subcategories, you should reconsider it. You want to be able to easily add new pages and categories to your taxonomy as your website grows.
Look at User Journeys
When you first launch a website, start simple. As you start to get traffic, you should look at your user journeys. This will tell you more about the best way to structure your website than any SEO guide. A professional SEO platform Clickrank can help you with this. The platform can analyze your website and provide a prioritized list of tasks to fix these issues.
