Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites

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A website “homepage” will normally be a “.com” or other such “top-level domain” like “.org, .net, .us, .biz”. There are several other domain-extensions, many which correspond to the country that the site is located in. Anything after a .com/ is considered a second level (example: http://www.examplesite.com/secondlevel/index.htm) In the search engine theme pyramid, as well as with any information architecture flow chart, there will be several tiers. A large high quality site will have four to five tiers with each tier consisting of three to nine categories. The second tier in the pyramid will consist of the site’s prime top two word phrases. “If your site is about cars, and your first subtopic is about engines, then subtopics could include two-cycle engines, v6 engines, turbo engines, etc.” (Tabke, webmasterworld.com)

The third tier of a site’s information architecture will house a good majority of the site’s “important” informational content. Many people will navigate to this level of a site via the search engines when searching for specific information. A visitor will often have their first experience of a site via a third level tier so it is important that every page has reliable navigation to explore the rest of the site effectively. The third level topic for the above mentioned example site on cars could include topics like ‘…“internal combustion engines, then target keywords such as (v6 engines, v8 engines, rotary engines, wankle engines, turbo v6 engines, etc.) (Tabke, webmasterworld.com) (Appendix 1-6)

The fourth and fifth tier of a site will be based around the more in-depth information of the upper tiers. Some sites may only require three tiers, but very few should require more than five. Continuing with the car site example used above, fourth level categories might include, “slant six, inline six, straight six, v-six, v6 theory, turbo charging a v6, etc.” (Tabke, webmasterworld.com) This level will be very important to users and establish the site’s credibility within the given industry. It is important to plan for future development when creating the information architecture of a site.

Appendices
(All in a single document) Appendix 1-1: Overture Search Term
Research Tool

Appendix 1-2: Wordtracker Search Query Research Tool

Appendix 1-3: Google Sets Website Theme Research Tool

Appendix 1-4: Reach/ Acquire/ Convert/ Retain

Chart Appendix 2-5: Zehnder’s of Frankenmuth Information Architecture Flowchart

Appendix 2-6: Search Engine Themes Pyramid Information Architecture Example

Appendix 2-7: Webpage Download Time by File Size Chart

Appendix 2-8: Expected Locations for Common E-commerce Elements

Appendix 2-9: Website Usability Checklist

Appendix 2-10: Text Vs.Code Ratio/ Content Near the Top of Souce Code Examples

Appendix 3-11: Overture Bid Price Tool

Appendix 3-12: Webalizer Website Visitor Tracking Tool

Appendix 3-13: AW STATS Website Visitor Tracking Tool Appendix

3-14: Clicktracks Website Statistics
Analysis Tool

References
Author Notes

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Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites Table of Contents

Planning, Developing, and Promoting a Successful Small Business Website

Information Architecture for Small Business Websites Page 13

Search Engine Theme Pyramids

Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites

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