When optimising your school’s website for SEO, there are a lot of things you need to take into consideration.
- Adding the right keywords to your pages? Done and dusted!
- Getting other websites to link to you? Got it covered!
- Reviewing and refreshing your school website structure? Umm….
Your school website structure is critical when it comes to your search engine rankings. And the good news is, there are plenty of things you can do to give it a well-deserved boost!
So, what is the importance of a good website structure for SEO?
A logical and well-thought-out structure helps search engines like Google crawl your pages, making it easy to understand the purpose and context of your site.
Not only this, but it shows which of your pages are most important so that you can nudge these pages to the top of the search engine rankings. After all, you don’t want your T&Cs to be your highest-ranking page!
Ready to get that school website structure into shape? Here are seven best practices for creating a user-friendly (and search engine friendly!) website.
1. Create a clear and understandable site structure
Think of your site structure like the foundations of a house – the more solid it is, the better!
While it’s best to consider site structure when you first build your school website, you can restructure it anytime. Just remember to put page redirects in place so people can always find the right content.
Here are our top tips for building the perfect school website structure.
- Group similar pages together. For example, if you have a page for each class in your school, put them in the same section of your site
- Don’t make your navigation too deep. Ideally, website visitors should be able to find the page they need in three clicks or less
- Look at what other schools in your area are doing and how they’ve structured their sites
- Keep an eye on your stats. If a section of your site isn’t getting many clicks, it might be an indication that visitors are struggling to find or access it
2. Build a sitemap
A sitemap is a file that contains a list of all the URLs on your website. This makes it super easy for search engines to identify the links on your site, as well as if any new content has been recently added. Most websites have just one sitemap, while larger ones might have multiple maps for each site section.
The first step is to see if your website’s sitemap has been submitted to Google. You can do this by checking Google Search Console. Go to Indexing, click Sitemaps, and your sitemap will be displayed there.
Can’t see anything? SEO site checkup will tell you where your sitemap is located. You can then add it to Google Search Console.
If you don’t have a sitemap, you should be able to create one using your content management system. For example, there are extensions on WordPress that you can use to generate a sitemap. If you use Magento, you can create a sitemap through the admin panel.
3. Use a clear URL structure
A clear and clean website link doesn’t just help the search engines, but it helps your customers too!
Consider the following URLs:
- www.coolschool.com/blog/5-ways-to-revise-for-exams
www.coolschool.com/blog/53de3spor-2023
Which one are you most likely to click on? We’ll bet our lunch money that it’s the first link!
Make sure your URL shows your visitors what they can expect when they click on it, keep it short, and include any relevant SEO keywords. Also, avoid using dates in your URLs, as this can rapidly age your content.
4. Add structured data
Structured data (often called schema markup) provides search engines with additional information about the content on a page.
Imagine that your drama department is putting on a show. This in itself doesn’t provide Google with much context.
However, you can use structured data to tell Google when the play takes place, how much tickets cost and how long the show is. That way, if people are looking for things to do near them, your performance is more likely to appear on the first page.
Using schema markup is a great way to improve website search visibility. Google has a structured data markup helper you can use to create your data; then it’s just a case of getting your web developers to add it to the relevant page on your site.
5. Use internal linking
In previous articles, we’ve talked about how getting backlinks to your website can boost your search engine rankings. However, internal linking is fantastic for your school website structure too!
Linking to other pages on your website (like in the paragraph above) helps SEO in two different ways.
Firstly, it encourages people to stay on your site for longer, showing the search engines that your website offers value. Secondly, it shows the search engines which pages on your website are most important. A page that is linked to a lot is more likely to rank higher than a page that isn’t linked to at all.
Try to add two or three relevant links to each page you create. Make sure the text you use to identify your links is contextual– ‘click here’ doesn’t give the search engines much information to work with!
6. Optimise your images
Source: kinsta.com
When you think about optimising your images, you may think about reducing the file size so your page loads more quickly. However, you can optimise them so search engines understand your website better too!
One of the easiest ways to improve your school website structure is to use descriptive file names and alt tags – this text helps with accessibility and is read aloud by screen readers. The search engines indexes file names and alt tags to understand the content on your pages.
So if you’re uploading images with filenames like ‘P000000001’ – time to get more creative!
7. Set up a breadcrumb trail
A breadcrumb trail is a navigational element that shows you where you are in a website structure – generally found at the top of the page.
The breadcrumb trail takes its name from Hansel and Gretel – where the two children dropped breadcrumbs so they could find their way out of the forest and back home. Hey, we’re education SEO specialists for a reason, you know!
The great thing about a breadcrumb trail is that it helps your website users understand where they are on your site and gives them an alternative way to navigate it. For example, if they’ve gone to the wrong section, they can go up a level rather than give up and leave.
If your school website is only small and doesn’t have many layers, you probably don’t need a breadcrumb trail. However, if you have a more complex website structure, it’s an easy way to improve your navigation.
Bonus tip: make sure your site is optimised for mobile responsiveness
If you’re looking at the structure of your school website, it’s also essential to make sure your pages load quickly and work well on mobile.
You could have the most intuitively structured site in the world. However, if your pages take ten minutes to view, you’ll end up with very frustrated visitors and a low ranking in Google!
We’ve put together an article about mobile responsiveness and website speed that will get your site firing on all cylinders!
Let the experts optimise your school website structure
Still not sure what to do when it comes to optimising your school website structure? Don’t worry; help is at hand!
When you take advantage of our SEO audit, our expert team will look at your website, the goals you want to achieve, and the websites of competing schools in your area.
We’ll then provide you with an easy-to-understand report, telling you what changes you can make to boost your site’s rankings!