Beginner Questions - Site Structure + Location of content

[RedundoJourno]

Hi all,

Thanks again to everyone who has helped with answers so far - they've been very useful to me at this stage, where I'm still planning things out.

On that note, I have some more questions for anyone willing to help.

I'm going down the route of a site that provides information on multiple channels (i.e. casino/bingo/poker/sportsbetting). The site will be providing news articles, strategy articles, guides and of course reviews. I'm not sure how best to structure the site taking into consideration ease of navigation for the user/reader and SEO benefits.

For example, should I put all my news articles in a mysite.com/news/ folder. Or should I have mysite/news/poker + mysite/news/bingo etc.

Ditto for reviews and guides. Or would the best structure be for mysite/casino/news and mysite/casino/reviews etc.

I hope that question is clear, as I'm confusing myself!!

The other question is regarding how "deep" the actual content should be. For example, if I go with mysite/casino/reviews, and I decide to "categorise" my reviews, for example into "Suitable for US", "Biggest Bonus" etc. would I then structure it as mysite/casino/reviews/category/actual review? As that seems like the real content is then a lot of clicks away from the homepage which, I understand, is a bad thing.

I'm also going to be writing some blog style articles. A kind of "thought of the day" type thing. Mostly covering relevant stuff, obviously, but perhaps with the off off-topic article. I also have a couple of friends/ex-colleagues who are going to be writing stuff for the site too.

Would I be best served having this all the site too? eg. mysite/blogs/myblog/article and mysite/blogs/friendsblog/article. Or would I bet better off having these blogs run on external sites (whether actually using a different domain or a free blogging service). There are benefits, I guess, to having as much content on the site as possible. But if these blogs are going to be regularly updated, maybe they would be better as an external site that links in to mysite?

I've possibly rambled a little there, but if anyone has can actually understand what I'm asking (!) and have some insight, that would be great!!

[universal4]

I think you are over-complicating what you are asking yourself.

The folder structure need not change the number of clicks to get to the content.

Only the navigation structure affects that.

Rick
Universal4

[thepokerkeep]

Here's the way I do my sites:
I set up my home page to link to my hub pages. A hub page would be "casino reviews", "bingo reviews", "news", etc.

So my url structure would be...
http://mysite.com for the home page.
http://mysite/casino_reviews.com.html for the hub page.

On the hub page, I list all the pages related to the hub page. In this case it would be all the casino review pages.
They would have a url like this:
http://mysite/bobs_casino.com.html

The reasons I set up my page urls like this are two fold.
1. It keeps the url's short which is better for SE's and visitors.
2. It follows the 2 click rule - every page is available within two clicks of the home page.

[universal4]

If you end up with pages a third level deep (or deeper) for whatever reason....a simple fix to this is to include a site map page.

On the site map you can link to all pages within the website and if the sitemap is linked to the home page than all pages are never more than 2 clicks away from home.

Study what others are doing, ask questions like you are here, and always keep the visitor in mind when deciding on design and structure....

Rick
Universal4

[RedundoJourno]

Thats great, again, guys.

I'm trying very hard to (primarily) keep the reader in mind. That's my journo training after all. I obviously don't want to ignore SEO and design implications though.

My biggest stumbling block at the moment is I want to make things well categorised, specifically for the reader, and also from an aesthetic point of view. But in order to do that the way I plan, it will take more than a couple of clicks from the homepage to get the real "content page"

I am covering Casino, Bingo, Poker and Betting on the site. So in the first instance, from the home page the reader will have to "select" one of these categories. For example, they click on the online casino section. The reader will then choose from the casino news section, the casino reviews section and the guide section (which will incorporate rules/strategy/articles etc.)

If they then click on reviews, they will have a further selection of categories - eg. US friendly, UK casinos, best for signup bonus etc.

So by the time they actually reach a review page (which is ultimately the "money" page, yes?) then they could have clicked three or four times. I like the structure of the site (in my head) as the plan is to enable targetted pages at each click, so the reader can find exactly what they are looking for (better for conversions?) BUT, this means several clicks which has SEO implications (I believe) and I guess is not AS ideal a solution as being able to find everything they want within one or two clicks. But if I sacrifice the ideal I have of accurately categorising everything, then I lose something from what I am actually trying to acheive.

The SiteMap solution you (Rick) suggest is, I imagine, easy enough to implement but does that fully compensate for the extra clicks the reader has to make during natural navigation?

Maybe I'm getting into the minutae too much at this stage, but I really want to plan this accurately from the outset and avoid running into problems that require major amendments once I've built a 100+ site. I've always approached writing articles in the same way - plan it in detail and then write it - so this comes naturally to me. But it's more difficult when there are many more considerations that I'm not particularly knowledgeable on!!

On a sidenote, I've read through a lot on this forum now and have to comment on the amazing willingness of people to help others (particularly newbies who can currently offer nothing back) out. I'd have been lucky to get this much help from colleagues in the past when we were working for the same organisation - never mind help from people who are ultimately competitors!!

Not sure what I can offer in return to you guys, but open to suggestions. Terry - perhaps you'd be interested in an article for your Affiliate Aid site from a beginners point of view and how various resources are helpful? Rick - let me know if there's anything I can do for you.


Cheers!

[universal4]

If you honestly feel that the design you are considering is easy for the visitor to find what they are looking for, then give it a shot.

The sitemap is a way to help the search engines AND your visitors dive deeper into your website and gives visitors another avenue to find what they are looking for.

If you are worried the design may be too complicated, you can always put it up for review here and get tips and ideas from others on ways to make it easier to navigate...

Rick
Universal4

[RedundoJourno]

Thanks Rick. I'm trying to utilise a) what logic suggests, b) what seems to be working for others and c) what I would want to see if I was looking for the information.

But, also, wanting to do things in a different way so I don't just become a clone of existing websites.

Challenging? Hell yeah. Driving me mad already? Ditto. Very exciting too though!!

[thepokerkeep]

You can always use your home page much like a site map by listing each of your categories along with a sub-listing of the most important pages for each of those categories.

At least you would end up getting your visitors down to three clicks for the most important pages.

By all means, write me an article. I think it's a great idea. Plus, you'll get some back links out of it. A win - win!

[RedundoJourno]

I will do exactly that then Terry. I'll keep some notes based on my experiences from the outset until the site initially goes live, and submit an article to you at that point, if that works for you?

I'm a big fan on win-win situations!!

[thepokerkeep]

I will do exactly that then Terry. I'll keep some notes based on my experiences from the outset until the site initially goes live, and submit an article to you at that point, if that works for you?

I'm a big fan on win-win situations!!

Perfect!