How to plan a website structure that answers visitors
Start with the questions visitors arrive with, not a list of pages you think a website should have. Group the questions, give each group a home, and only split a group into its own page when it has enough to say or a reason to be found on its own. The navigation then follows from the groups.
Step 1: write down the questions
Spend twenty minutes listing what people ask before they buy, book or get in touch. Look at emails, phone calls, reviews and the questions you answer at the counter. A physiotherapy clinic's list might read: do you treat back pain, can I book online, how much is a first appointment, do I need a referral, where do I park, who will I see.
Mark each question with how often it comes up and whether it blocks a decision. "Do you treat back pain" blocks a booking; "what year did you open" doesn't. The blocking questions shape the structure. The rest can live in an FAQ or nowhere.
Step 2: group them into pages or sections
Sort the questions into piles that a visitor would expect to find together. For most small sites you end up with five to eight piles: what you offer, proof you're good at it, who you are, prices, how to start, and practical details. Each pile becomes either a section on the home page or a page of its own.
| Give it its own page when… | Keep it as a section when… |
|---|---|
| People search for it by name ("sports massage Leeds") | Nobody would search for it on its own |
| It needs more than a screen or two to answer properly | Three sentences and a list cover it |
| You'd link to it from an email, an advert or a post | It only makes sense next to the content around it |
| Different visitors need different versions of it | Everyone needs the same short answer |
| It changes often and you want one place to update | It rarely changes |
A one-page site is a fine answer when every group stays a section. The one page vs multi-page guide covers that choice in more depth.
Step 3: draw the hierarchy
Sketch the pages as a tree on paper. The home page sits at the top; the main pages sit one click below it; anything more specific sits under its parent. Keep it shallow. A visitor should reach any page from the home page in two or three clicks, and every page should link back up to its parent.
Name each page by what it answers, not by internal jargon. "Treatments" beats "Our Offering"; "Prices" beats "Investment". The page name usually becomes its URL, its heading and its navigation label, so a plain word does three jobs.
Step 4: decide the navigation
- Put the pages that answer blocking questions in the main navigation: usually what you offer, prices and how to get in touch.
- Keep the main menu short. Five to seven items is a practical ceiling on a phone, where the menu folds into a button.
- Make one item the action: Book, Get a quote or Contact. Give it more visual weight than the rest.
- Move practical and legal pages (privacy, terms, delivery, careers) to the footer, where people look for them.
- Use real links. Google's link guidance says it generally crawls only
<a>elements with anhref, and descriptive link text helps both people and search engines know what's behind it.
How many pages should a website have?
As many as you have distinct questions worth answering, and no more. A local tradesperson may need four: home, services, work, contact. A clinic with six treatments may need ten, because each treatment is searched for separately. Empty pages written to fill a menu hurt more than they help: they give visitors nothing and dilute the pages that matter. Google's SEO starter guide makes a related point: a logical structure helps people and search engines understand how pages relate, but small sites don't need elaborate directory schemes.
Common mistakes
- Copying a competitor's menu. Their structure answers their customers' questions, which may not be yours.
- An About page carrying the selling. If the reason to choose you sits only on About, most visitors never see it. Put proof near the offer.
- Splitting thin content. Five service pages of eighty words each are weaker than one strong services page.
- Navigation labels that don't match headings. A menu item called Pricing that opens a page headed Packages makes people wonder if they're in the right place.
- Forgetting the second visit. Returning customers want opening hours, booking and contact details fast. Make sure those are one tap away on every page.
Check the structure before you build
Give the sketch to someone who doesn't know the business and ask them three real questions from your list. Watch where they'd click. If they hesitate or guess wrong, rename or move that page. Repeat after launch with your analytics: pages with lots of exits straight back to the home page often mean the label promised something the page didn't deliver.
Planning a structure with Anticode
When you describe a site, Anticode's Architect asks up to three questions where the answer changes the build, then shows a short plan with the name, kind, sections, look and features before anything is built. That is the moment to check the structure against your list. Design-engine sites can have separate pages for Work, Shop, Services, About, Pricing, FAQ, Book and Contact; ask for the ones your groups need and leave the rest as sections. Writing the questions into your request helps, as the website brief guide explains.
The limit: those are the page types the design engine offers. A deeper tree, such as a page per treatment, needs CMS collections, which serve a list page and a page per item, or a different tool.
Questions people ask
Should each service have its own page?
Only if people search for the services separately or each one needs a lot of explaining. Otherwise one services page with a clear section per service is easier to read and maintain.
Is a sitemap the same as a site structure?
Not quite. The structure is the plan of pages and how they link. A sitemap.xml file is a list of URLs for search engines; it helps them find pages but doesn't replace sensible links between them.
How deep should the hierarchy go?
For a small site, two levels below the home page is plenty. If you need a third, check whether some of those pages could be sections instead.