At the Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference Stoney deGuyter, president of Pole Positioning Marketing talked about Web site architecture.

(Coverage of the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference continues at webproworld Videos.  Keep an eye on webproworld for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Site architecture is making your site user friendly. “It’s a powerful tool in the Web site marketing arsenal,” de Guyter said. You don’t want to confuse visitors to your site because it reduces sales. “With site architecture, you’re trying to get them to think less.”

Your domain name should be short and memorable and use keywords if possible. “Don’t give your traffic to someone else,” de Guyter said.

Document and page structure should have a natural flow of topics and sub-topics. Title tags should be unique from page to page and set up default titles for products.

Content should be clearly written and accurate. Do research and use keywords and transcribe both video and audio content. “Unique content stands out, ” de Guyter said.

Eliminate code bloat and excessive tables. “Get rid of all the fluff and get to the meat for the spiders, ” de Guyter said.

 When linking, link to absolute urls in navigation. Avoid flash or JavaScript links. Every relevant page needs at least one link.

Use breadcrumbs to let visitors know where they are and have a good sitemap. Conduct broken link checks frequently.

de Guyter said, “Site architecture is absolute priority.”
 

webproworld Video anchor Abby Prince contributed to this report.