Web design

Structuring a company website: pages, navigation, order

Plan the page structure and navigation of a company website: which pages does your business need, in what order, and how should they link together?

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Page structure: what exactly is it?

The structure of a company website has three levels: the home page as the entry point and signpost, the main sections (for example services, about us, contact) and the subpages (individual services, case studies, articles). Navigation is the system that connects these levels: the main menu, the footer, the breadcrumb trail and links within the text.

A good structure follows visitors' questions, not the organisation chart. People do not search for the “sales department”, but for “request a quote”. They do not ask about “company philosophy”, but “How does working together actually go?”. These questions become pages, and the pages become a tree that leads from the general to the specific.

For search engines the same structure has a second function: it shows which pages belong together and which are particularly important. Pages that many other pages link to are regarded as more significant. That is why your most important services belong in the main menu or on the home page, and why related pages link to one another, as this website does too.

Background

Page structure: why it matters.

A website is like a building: anyone who walks in needs to see where they are and how to get to what they are looking for. Many sites, however, grow bit by bit, with a new subpage here and an exception there, until nobody knows where anything is.

Myth: “The more pages, the better for Google.” Fact: what matters is that every page answers a question of its own. Ten thin pages on almost the same topic weaken one another. One good page for each clearly defined need goes further than forty repetitions.

Example (fictional): an electrical firm offers installation, smart home, photovoltaics and an emergency call-out service. Instead of one “Services” page with four paragraphs, there are four separate service pages, each with a paragraph on the process, price factors and frequently asked questions, plus an overview. Anyone searching for a wallbox lands on a page that answers exactly that.

Overview

Page structure: building blocks and variants.

Home page

Answers: who are you, what do you offer, what is the next step? Directs visitors to the right subpages.

Service pages

One page per service, with its aim, process, price factors and questions. The heart of every company website.

Trust pages

About us, references, process, facts. They answer: can I trust you?

Guides and blog

Answer the questions prospects ask before buying. They bring in visitors from search and lead them to your services.

Contact and enquiries

Reachable from every page, with clear routes: telephone, form, email and, where relevant, appointments.

Legal pages

Legal notice and privacy policy, reachable from the footer of every page.

From customers' needs to a page list: the inventory in six steps

A good structure is built from the outside in: first the visitors' questions, then the pages that answer them. The following method works for small and large businesses alike and can be done in an afternoon.

Collect the needs. Write down every reason people get in touch with you. Sources: phone calls, emails, quote requests, initial consultations, search queries, reviews. Use your customers' own words (“My roof is leaking, what will it cost?”).
Group them. Sort similar needs into groups. “Leaking roof”, “roof renovation” and “installing roof windows” become the group roofing work.
Prioritise the groups. Which make up the largest part of your business, or should do in future? These groups get pages of their own and a place in the main menu.
Name the pages. Give each group a name that customers would understand and search for.
Define the relationships. Which pages belong together, and which lead to which action? Sketch it as a simple tree.
Look for gaps. Which questions are left without a page? These are candidates for guides, FAQ pages or additions.

The result is a list of pages with their purposes. It is also the best basis for a quote, because it is clear how many pages are really needed.

Three example page trees (fictional businesses)

The examples show how different structures can look. They are suggestions, not templates to copy.

Level	Trades business (roof and façade)	Consultancy (tax and bookkeeping)	Medical practice (orthopaedics)
Main menu	Services, references, process, about us, contact	Services, who we work for, process, about us, contact	Treatments, practice and team, appointments, how to find us, contact
Services	Roof renovation, roof windows, façade insulation, repairs, emergency call-out	Bookkeeping, annual accounts, payroll, start-up advice	Joint problems, back pain, sports injuries, preventive care
Supporting pages	Funding and permits, materials, maintenance	Documents for the initial consultation, data exchange, prices and packages	Preparing for your appointment, public and private insurance, advice after procedures
Trust pages	Projects with before and after, certificates, memberships	Qualifications, client examples, way of working	Qualifications, equipment, data protection in the practice
Guides	When renovation pays off, grants, maintenance	Deadlines through the year, organising receipts properly, start-up mistakes	Exercises, when to see a doctor, rehabilitation routes
Legal	Legal notice, privacy policy, accessibility statement if required	Legal notice, privacy policy, professional-law notices	Legal notice, privacy policy, professional-law notices

Note two patterns: in every column the desired actions (enquiries, appointments, contact) appear in the main menu, and services are named after needs rather than procedures.

Navigation in detail: elements and their purpose

Element	Purpose	Rules
Main menu	Shows the most important sections and the main action	Five to seven items, named in terms customers understand, with the contact item highlighted
Submenus	Organise large sections	At most one submenu level, usable by keyboard and touch, not only on mouse hover
Footer	Legal information, contact details, important additional pages	Legal notice, privacy policy, contact, guides, location. Not a second main menu
Breadcrumb trail	Shows where you are	On all subpages, every level clickable; structured data can help search engines understand it
Links in the text	Lead to pages with more detail	Meaningful link text, not “click here”
Related pages at the end	Offer the next step	A selection as needed, not every page
Search function	Helps when there is a lot of content	Only once the volume is such that navigation is no longer enough
Table of contents	Organises long pages	Jump links to sections, collapsible on mobile

One detail is often overlooked: the navigation has to work the same way on every page. Anyone who jumps from one page to another and finds a different menu loses their bearings.

Naming: from company language to customer language

Many menu items come from the business's point of view. Visitors, however, search for their own problem. The following overview shows typical translations.

Company language	Customer language	Reason
Our portfolio	Projects or references	The term is familiar and unambiguous
Solutions	Services	Plain wording, no riddle
Products and services	What is actually bought, named specifically	Less room for interpretation
Careers	Jobs or vacancies	More direct, unambiguous
Company	About us	The usual label
Service	Contact or help, depending on the content	“Service” means something different to everyone
Latest	News or guides, depending on the content	Separates news from lasting articles
Downloads	Documents, brochures	Describes what you get

Test your menu wording by showing the list to someone who does not know your business and asking: “Where would you click if you wanted to know this or that?” Wherever they hesitate, the naming is not clear enough.

Web addresses: readable, stable, logical

A page's address (URL) is part of the structure. It appears in search results, gets copied into messages and should stay valid for as long as possible. Good addresses are short, descriptive and follow a pattern.

Principle	Good	Bad
Descriptive	/leistungen/dachsanierung	/index.php?id=348
Lower case and hyphens	/ratgeber/foerdermittel-fuer-daecher	/Ratgeber/Foerdermittel_fuer_Daecher
Visible hierarchy	/leistungen/dachfenster	/dachfenster-einbau-leistung-nummer-3
No dates for lasting content	/ratgeber/dach-pflegen	/2026/10/15/dach-pflegen
No umlauts or special characters	/ueber-uns	/über-uns
Stable	The address stays the same when the text changes	The address changes with every heading

If an address has to change, set up a permanent redirect (301) from the old one to the new one. That way neither visitors nor links are lost. The article Setting up 301 redirects correctly explains how.

Internal linking: turning pages into a network

The links between your pages are like signposts. They show visitors the next step and show search engines which pages belong together and which are particularly important. Pages that many others link to are regarded as more significant.

The hub principle

An overview page (hub) summarises a topic and leads to detail pages. The detail pages link back to the overview and to one another where it makes sense. Example: the “Roofing work” page lists renovation, roof windows and repairs. Each of these pages links to the others and to the matching guide article. This website uses the same pattern: a service page leads to topic pages, which link to one another and to guides.

Rules for link text

The link text says what the visitor can expect: “Everything about roof renovation” rather than “more”.
The same destination, ideally the same wording. That makes things easier to understand.
Do not overload with links. A paragraph with five links is distracting.
Place links where they answer the reader's question, not collected at the end.
Check for broken links regularly and fix them.

You will find practical examples and the technical side in the article Internal linking: how it works.

Anatomy of the most important page types

Page type	Essential building blocks	Optional building blocks	Next step
Home page	Value proposition, main action, overview of services, route to contact	Projects, questions, process	To the relevant service or straight to an enquiry
Service page	Short answer, benefits, process, price factors, questions	Examples, comparison tables, checklists	Enquiry about the service
About us	Who, since when, what the business stands for, how to reach it	Values, partners, qualifications	Contact or services overview
References and projects	Starting point, approach, result, context	Quotations with consent	Make a similar enquiry
Process	Steps of the collaboration, the customer's role, timeframe	Documents, pricing logic	Book an initial consultation
Contact	Telephone, email, postal address, form, opening hours	Map as a link, notes for first contact	Submit, call
Guide article	Answer first, outline, sources or evidence	Checklist, table, glossary	To the relevant service
FAQ page	Grouped questions with concise answers	Links to details	Ask further questions

Important: not every building block has to appear on every page. What matters is that each page fulfils a purpose and does not leave the visitor in a dead end.

Several audiences, locations or languages: a decision tree

Do you address several clearly different audiences (for example private customers and businesses)? Yes: consider separate entry points on the home page (“For private customers”, “For businesses”) with their own service pages. No: one shared structure.
Do you have several locations, each with its own offering and its own team? Yes: one page per location with real, individual details (address, contact person, special features). No: a note on the areas you cover is enough, without artificial location pages. More on this under local SEO.
Do you serve customers in several languages? Yes: separate language versions with a clean technical separation, with translated texts (not just software) and signals for search engines. No: just one language.
Do you have many products or variants? Yes: a category structure, filters and product pages, ideally with a suitable shop system; see online shops.
Is there an area for logged-in customers or partners? Yes: keep it clearly separate from the public site, with its own navigation and separate security planning.

More structure means more upkeep. So decide only on what you can fill with content and keep up to date in the long term.

Growing without chaos: rules for new pages

Websites grow. Without rules, duplicates, dead ends and forgotten corners appear. Before every new page, ask yourself these questions:

Which question does the page answer, and is there already one that does?
Who is meant to read it, and how will they get there?
Which menu item or overview does it belong in?
Which two to five other pages link to it, and which pages does it link to?
Who maintains it, and when will it be reviewed?
What happens when it is no longer needed: where will it be redirected?

Merging is often better than creating something new. Two thin pages on the same topic make one good one. Deleting is part of it too: pages that nobody visits and that contribute nothing cost upkeep and dilute the structure. When you remove a page, always set up a redirect.

Myth versus fact: misconceptions about page structure

Myth	Fact
Everything must be reachable in three clicks	Clarity before click count: what matters more than the number of clicks is that every step is unambiguous. A longer route without guesswork beats a short one where you have to guess. Important pages should still sit close to the home page
The more pages, the more visitors	Pages without a purpose of their own dilute the site. Visitors arrive via pages that answer questions
A long menu shows expertise	Above all it shows a lack of clarity. Group and prioritise
The home page has to contain everything	It is a distributor. The details belong on the subpages
A sitemap file replaces navigation	It helps search engines, not visitors. You need both
You can still change the structure later	You can. But every change to addresses takes effort and puts findability at risk. The earlier it is planned, the cheaper it is

Self-test: the click test in 20 minutes

Write down five typical customer questions, such as “What does … cost?”, “How does … work?”, “Where can I find you?”.
Start from the home page each time and count the clicks to the answer. More important than the number is where you hesitate: note those places.
Open five random subpages and check: is there a breadcrumb trail? Are there links to related pages? Is there a next step?
Look for pages that are not in the menu and that no other page links to (“orphan pages”).
Look for pages that say almost the same thing. Decide which one stays.
Check the addresses: are they readable and do they follow a pattern?
Try the menu with the keyboard and on a mobile phone.

If you find many weaknesses, a reorganised structure can achieve more than a new design. The details of user guidance are described under UX design. If you are revising content anyway, it is worth looking at website copy.

Case study: reorganising a structure (fictional consultancy)

A consultancy for staff development (entirely made up) has 31 pages. The main menu has nine items: Home, Company, Services, References, News, Careers, Downloads, Press, Contact. Behind “Services” are five subpages whose content overlaps heavily. “News” contains four posts, the most recent from 2021. The home page has a welcome text, three tiles and an image.

Findings of the inventory

The most frequent enquiries concern three topics: developing managers, team development, onboarding. None of them has a page of its own: they are scattered across the five overlapping service subpages and only touched on in the body text of “Services”.
The “Press” and “Downloads” pages hardly get any visitors during the year.
Four of the five service pages begin with the same sentences about the company.
There is no route from the home page to the guide articles, even though these perform best in search results.
The contact form is on a page that can only be reached via the footer.

New structure

Section	Pages	Change
Home page	1	New value proposition, three main services, process, contact
Services	1 overview + 3 detail pages	One page per service with its own purpose, process, price factors, questions
Who we work for	2	Entry points for HR managers and senior management, with links to the services
Process	1	Steps of the collaboration, the customer's role
About us	1	Merged from “Company” and “Team”, with qualifications
Projects	1	Examples with starting point, approach, result (only with consent)
Guides	1 overview + 6 articles	Grew out of “News” (four old posts revised, two new), organised by topic
Contact	1	In the menu and in the header, with form and telephone
Legal	2	Legal notice, privacy policy in the footer

Instead of 31 pages there are now 21, each with a clear purpose: the 20 pages in the table plus “Careers”, which remains as a link in the footer. “Press” and “Downloads” are integrated into other pages. All old addresses are redirected to suitable new pages. The example shows that less can be more when the number of pages matches the number of questions, not the organisation chart.

The home page: three design variants compared

There are several sensible ways to build the same thing. The choice depends on your offering, your audience and how much guidance you want to give.

Variant	Structure	Suits you if	Risk
Distributor	A short statement, three to five tiles with destinations, contact	There are several clear areas of service and visitors know what they are looking for	Little persuasive power if evidence is missing
Narrative structure	Problem, solution, process, evidence, call to action on one long page	One main service is the focus and visitors need persuading	Other services get hidden
Audience switch	Two to three entry points by audience, each with its own path	Very different audiences with their own offerings	Double the upkeep, visitors choose wrongly

In practice many sites combine elements: a clear distributor at the top, followed by a short narrative section with the process and evidence. What matters is that you choose the variant deliberately and test with real people whether it is understood. How visitors behave on such pages is covered under UX design.

Maintaining content: a simple editorial plan

A structure is only as good as its upkeep. A small plan makes sure that nothing is orphaned, goes out of date or gets duplicated. It does not have to be complicated; a table is enough.

Column	Content	Benefit
Page and address	Title, link	Overview of all pages
Purpose	Which question does the page answer?	Prevents duplication
Person responsible	Who maintains and checks it?	Clear responsibility
Last review	Date	Shows what is overdue
Next review	Date or cycle	Plans the work
Importance	High, medium, low	Priority when time is short
Links to	Which pages are linked?	Helps with restructuring and deletion

Review cycles: service pages and prices quarterly, guides once a year, legal pages after every relevant change. Let pages that nobody can or wants to review run down: update them, merge them or remove them with a redirect. That keeps the site lean and credible.

Building a guides section: topic clusters instead of scattered notes

A guides section is a gain for visitors and search engines when it is organised. Articles without order are rarely found and dilute one another. The cluster principle creates order: one central page on a topic, with several articles on sub-questions, all linked together.

Example (fictional): central page “Replacing your heating”. Sub-questions: which heating suits my house? What funding is there? How long does the replacement take? What does it cost to run? Each article links to the central page and to two or three related articles. The central page leads to all the articles and to the relevant service.

Choosing topics: collect your customers' questions, check which of them relate to what you offer, and sort them by frequency and importance. In each article, answer one question fully.

Order on the page: an overview by topic (not just chronological), tags only if they really help, links to related articles at the end.

Upkeep: articles with the date of the last review; update outdated ones or merge them. The structure of this website follows this principle; you can see examples in the blog.

Terms relating to structure and navigation

Information architecture: The organisation and naming of content.
Sitemap (for people): An overview page listing all the sections of a website.
XML sitemap: A file that tells search engines about the pages of a website.
Breadcrumb trail: A line showing the path from the home page to the current page.
Hub page: An overview page that brings a topic together and leads to detail pages.
Orphan page: A page that no other page on the website links to.
Canonical address: The preferred address of a page when the same content can be reached at several addresses.
301 redirect: A permanent redirect from an old address to a new one.

Our work

Page structure: what we do for you.

Content inventory

We collect what you offer, what customers ask and which pages already exist. The page list is built from that.

Designing the page tree

Main sections, subpages, order. Each page gets an aim, an audience and a next step.

Designing the navigation

Main menu, footer, breadcrumbs and links between pages, so that routes lead in both directions.

Defining addresses

Descriptive, short web addresses that will not need to change later.

Testing the structure

Playing it through with typical tasks: can a visitor find the information they want without having to guess? Clarity comes before click count.

Quality

Page structure: how to recognise good work.

The most important services are reachable from the home page in one click
Every page has a recognisable aim and a main heading of its own
Menu items are short and named in terms customers understand
There are breadcrumbs or another orientation aid on subpages
Related pages link to one another
No page stands in isolation without incoming links
Web addresses are readable and follow a pattern
There is an XML sitemap and an overview that people can read

Costs

Page structure: what it costs.

Structure is the part that saves the most money later. Clear planning at the start prevents rebuilds once content has already been written. The effort depends mainly on the number of services and audiences and on the amount of existing material.

The calculation behind it: how we price our work.

What determines the price

Number of services and audiences
Amount of existing content that needs organising
Several locations or languages
A guides section or knowledge base
Rounds of sign-off within your team

What you can prepare

A list of your services with two sentences of description each
The ten most frequent customer questions
Your existing pages, brochures and quotes
Competitor sites that you like
A decision on who has the final say on structure and naming

Pitfalls

Page structure: common mistakes.

Menu items based on internal departments instead of customer needs
Everything in a single menu with twelve items
Duplicate pages on the same topic
Services that appear only in a brochure PDF
No links at the end of a page offering the next step

Frequently asked questions

Questions on page structure.

Which pages does every company website need?

Home page, services, about us, contact, legal notice and privacy policy. Depending on the business, also references, prices or process, guides and jobs.

How many menu items is a good number?

So few that you can take them in at a glance. Five to seven is usually enough; anything further belongs in submenus or the footer.

Should there be a page for each town or city?

Only if you genuinely have a separate offering, team or location there. Special rules apply to local visibility; see local SEO.

How many clicks may a route take?

Clarity before click count: there is no fixed upper limit. Important pages should sit close to the home page, but what matters is that every step is unambiguous. A clear route of several clicks is better than a short one where you have to guess.

How do I find the right menu wording?

Look at how your customers write: in enquiries, reviews and search queries. We also check the wording against search intent; see content and keywords.

Does a structure plan help with a relaunch?

A great deal. It shows which old pages move where. More on this under relaunch. For further practical examples, see websites.

How often should I review the structure?

Once a year, and after every major change to your offering. Look in particular at pages with no visitors, duplicate topics and new customer questions.

Do I need a separate page for every service?

If a service has its own questions, its own process or its own costs, yes. Related minor items are better combined on one page.

How much text does a hub page need?

Enough for visitors to understand what to expect on the subpages and to decide where they want to go. One or two paragraphs plus clear links are often enough.

Should the legal notice be in the main menu?

No, the footer is enough as long as the link is visible on every page and easy to find. The main menu is reserved for visitors' goals. What the legal notice and, where applicable, an accessibility statement must contain depends on the individual case. This is not legal advice; if in doubt, ask a solicitor.

What should I do with pages that nobody visits?

First check whether they have a purpose that they are failing to achieve (poorly linked, unclear naming). If they serve no purpose, merge them with a related page or remove them with a redirect.

Guides

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