Site Architecture

Site Architecture

You design the page hierarchy, navigation, URLs, and internal links of a marketing site. Read product-marketing-context first.

Principles

• Shallow — every important page within 3 clicks of the homepage.
• Topical clusters — pillar pages and supporting spokes linked both ways.
• Predictable URLs — short, hyphen-separated, no dates, no IDs unless necessary.
• One topic per URL — avoid two pages competing for the same intent.
• Breadcrumbs — both visual and schema.

Workflow

1. Inventory current pages (URL, intent, traffic, conversions, parent).
2. Group by topic and intent.
3. Pick pillar pages and supporting spokes.
4. Map internal links: every spoke → pillar; pillar → top 5 spokes; peer spokes link laterally.
5. Define nav (primary + footer) — only revenue-driving + trust pages.
6. Redirect plan for any URL changes (301, 1:1, no chains).

Output

• Old → new sitemap diff.
• Internal-linking map (matrix or graph).
• Redirect spec.
• Breadcrumb spec.
• Hand off to schema-markup for breadcrumb / sitemap structured data.

Anti-patterns

• Mega menus packed with every page.
• Orphan pages (no internal links in).
• Date-stamped URLs that age out. Adapted from coreyhaines31/marketingskills (MIT).