We often think that setting up thetree structure of an e-commerce site is a fairly simple thing to do.
But it’s one that needs to be done with the utmost care.
The tree structure you choose for your e-commerce site will determine not only your visitors’ user experience, but also your site’s SEO.
Let’s take a look at how to choose the right tree structure for your e-commerce site to optimize SEO.
A quick reminder about PageRank
Google’s algorithm uses PageRank as an indicator.
It is used to rank pages in the search engine.
PageRank depends on several criteria, such as the page’s inbound and outbound links, and the Page Rank of the pages making these links.
A page with a high PageRank will be better positioned in the search results.
Similarly, a site with high PageRank pages will be crawled more frequently.
As a result, its updates will be more quickly visible in Google.
It’s therefore in your best interest to carefully select the tree structure of your e-commerce site.
Improve the PageRank of every page on your e-commerce site.
It’s bound to rank higher in the search results. 
Classic but effective architecture
Here we’ll describe a classic e-commerce tree structure, which is nonetheless extremely effective in terms of UX and SEO.
The tree structure simply consists of accessing the site with the following hierarchy:
- Home page.
- The different categories.
- Subcategories (if any).
- The products.
The tree structure should then be found in the urls accessible on the site.
Let’s imagine we set up a site to sell “My favorite book” online.
The tree structure could be as follows:
- monlivreprefere.fr/
- monlivreprefere.fr/bandedessinees/
- monlivreprefere.fr/bandedessinees/Youth/
- monlivreprefere.fr/bandedessinees/Youth/Dracula
or
- monlivreprefere.fr/
- monlivreprefere.fr/bandedessinees/
- monlivreprefere.fr/bandedessinees/Policier_et_suspense/
- monlivreprefere.fr/bandedessinees/Policier_et_suspense/Blacksad
These urls represent the site’s tree structure.
In these two examples, “monlivreprefere.fr” is the site’s domain name, and is the url for the home page.
“bandedessinees” is a book category, “Jeunesse” and “Policier_et_suspense” are sub-categories.
Finally, “Dracula” and “Blacksad” are products, books.
The main advantages of this tree structure for e-commerce sites
A higher PageRank for the home page
The aim is for a page to have a high PageRank in order to achieve better referencing.
One way of increasing a page’s PageRank is to have several internal or external links (from other sites) pointing to it.
With this type of tree structure, most links will point to the site’s home page.
It will therefore be the best positioned page in the search engine, which is no mean feat. 
Efficient PageRank distribution for other pages on the site
The advantage of organizing the site according to a hierarchy of categories, sub-categories and products is that it responds to the iterative aspect of PageRank calculation.
Setting up a breadcrumb trail will ensure effective internal site meshing.
Products can be accessed from the home page via a category.
From the product page, it will be possible to go back to the category and then to the home page.
Reduced crawl depth
This tree structure makes it possible to access any product with a maximum of three clicks.
Categories are accessible with one click.
Products can then be accessed with one or two additional clicks, depending on whether they are in the selected category or a sub-category.
The crawl depth is therefore limited, while maintaining a clear and efficient hierarchy.
On the other hand, if a category contains a large number of products, pagination and a greater number of products on the same page will be necessary.
To maintain crawl depth at all times, each page should be accessible within two clicks.
You really need to be able to navigate between pages.
So it won’t be enough to have links to the first and last pages.
A better user experience
A well-structured tree structure with a clear hierarchy will enable users to access product pages more quickly.
A simple navigation menu composed of the different categories will provide the user with the necessary starting point for his search.
The semantic cocoon technique
It’s not always easy to choose the organization of an e-commerce site that will enable it to be optimized in terms of SEO.
The semantic cocoon technique should help.
What is a semantic cocoon?
A semantic cocoon is a way of organizing the pages of a website.
It consists in grouping together all those pages dealing with an identical subject.
This creates levels in the tree structure with an identical lexical field.
Before detailing the tree structure of your e-commerce site, you’ll need to carry out a lexical study or semantic analysis.
Each product is then categorized.
It will then be grouped with all the others belonging to the same lexical field.
Putting semantic cocoons into practice
Now that you’ve identified all the products, you can define the e-commerce site’s tree structure.
Let’s take the example presented at the beginning of this article.
We can see that for our book sales site, we’ll find a semantic cocoon containing all comics.
Another semantic cocoon might concern art books, for example.
The use of semantic cocoons will improve the referencing of the various pages.
Improving the internal meshing of your semantic cocoons
To optimize SEO linked to semantic cocoons, you also need to improve internal linking.
Product pages within a category (i.e. belonging to the same semantic cocoon) should contain links to other pages in the same category.
This can, for example, provide links to products similar to the one presented, should it not be exactly what the user is looking for.
Please note, however, that this is all about internal linking, and pages in one category must never link to pages in another category.
This would break semantic cocoons.
Product referencing would be degraded.
To conclude on the tree structure of an e-commerce site
The tree structure of an e-commerce site is very important.
It should not be taken lightly.
Search engine positioning of pages and products depends on it.
Setting up semantic cocoons can greatly help improve SEO.
However, this requires a rigorous approach.
What’s more, technical implementation may require the installation and configuration of extensions to your e-commerce CMS.
As an experienced e-commerce developer, I’ll be with you every step of the way, from the design and implementation of your site’s tree structure to its SEO optimization.
