Content and backlinks are not the only things which determine search rankings. Factors related to website architecture also end up playing an important role in helping build the foundation for solid search ranking outcomes.

A problem in digital marketing is the over-emphasis on the big picture. In any given marketing team, the focus is on writing more and more content and building more quality backlinks. While doing this is not wrong by any stretch of the imagination, there are other things which needs the attention of SEOs says Gaurav Heera..

In this article, we will discuss some key website architecture factors important in maintaining search ranking.

Crawling

Crawling is an action performed by search engine crawlers. Crawlers are computer programs tasked with going to different websites and adding copies of webpages to the search engine’s index. It is obvious that a website would want its pages to be indexed in search engines in order to be displayed on SERPs says Gaurav Heera..

Some websites have crawling issues which lead to some of their webpages not being crawled and affecting their search rankings. These issues are largely caused by Javascript and Flash-related issues.

Duplication

It is not illegal to be inspired by other content and reproducing it on your website. However, Google wants you to then add a canonical link to the webpage. A canonical link points to the source from which you got the idea for the content.

Adding canonical links avoids the problem of duplication and saves you from being penalized or blacklisted. Websites must add canonical links to all content which is discussing something written or discussed on another website says Gaurav Heera..

Mobile-Friendly

Ever since the Google Mobile update was launched years back, the mobile-friendliness of a website has been a major factor behind a website getting top search ranking. People these days do not depend on reading content on the desktop. Content is now largely accessed through mobiles says Gaurav Heera..

Website Load Time

Speed is a critical ranking factor in SEO. Websites which are slow tend to be ranked very low on Google despite having good and relevant content. This is because a slow website is likely to disrupt the search experience of a searcher.

If you are running a website, it is vital for you to make sure the page load time is as low as possible. This can be accomplished in many different ways, from compressing images posted to arriving at a good hosting plan which matches the needs of the website says Gaurav Heera..

URL Optimization

One thing many digital marketers do not take into account is the need for having URLs which are relevant to the content they are pointing to. Many websites have random URLs on many webpages which actually contain relevant content says Gaurav Heera..

Website Security

Data security and user privacy have become a topic of raging concern in the past few years. Getting HTTPS security is the bare minimum a website has to get in order to maintain the security of data transferred between the website and user says Gaurav Heera..

In Conclusion

In conclusion, this article covers five key areas in website architecture digital marketers should cover.

About Gaurav Heera

Gaurav Heera is a digital marketing trainer and writer with ten years of experience in the field. He currently heads DelhiCourses.in, an institute known for a digital marketing course in Delhi.