Information architecture (often shortened to IA) is how the content on your website is organised, labelled and linked together. It decides which pages exist, how they are grouped, what the menu says and how someone gets from the home page to the exact thing they need. Breadcrumbs are one small but useful part of it: the trail of links, such as Home > Services > Boiler Repairs, that shows people where they are on a site.

Get the structure right and visitors find answers quickly, search engines understand what each page is about and the site is far easier to grow. Below we explain IA in plain English, then walk through sitemaps, navigation, URL structure and breadcrumbs, including how to add breadcrumbs and their structured data to a WordPress site.

Information architecture is the plan behind the pages

Think of a website like a shop. Before anyone decides on paint colours, someone has to decide which departments exist, where they go and what the signs say. Information architecture is that floor plan. Design makes it look good, but IA makes it make sense.

For a small business site, good IA usually means:

• Every important topic has its own page. One page per service, product range or location you want to be found for, rather than everything squeezed onto one page.
• Pages are grouped in a way customers understand. By what people are looking for, not by how your business is organised internally.
• Labels use customers’ words. “Kitchen fitting” rather than “Interior solutions”.
• Nothing important is more than a few clicks away. Flat, clear structures beat deep, nested ones.

When we plan a new site, the IA comes before any design work. It is much cheaper to move boxes around on a plan than to restructure a finished website.

Related reading: Website Layout: How to Design One That Works for Your Business

Start with a sitemap, not a homepage design

The word sitemap means two different things, and both matter.

The planning sitemap

This is a simple diagram or list showing every page and how they relate to each other. For a typical service business it might look like this:

• Home
• Services
  • Service one
  • Service two
  • Service three
• Areas we cover
• About
• Case studies or reviews
• Blog
• Contact

To build one, list everything a customer might want to know, group related items, then give each group a clear label. Card sorting, where you write topics on cards and ask a few customers or colleagues to group them, is a simple way to check your groupings make sense to someone outside the business.

The XML sitemap

This is a file for search engines that lists the pages you want indexed. WordPress creates a basic one automatically, and SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO and Rank Math produce their own. Submit it in Google Search Console so Google can find new pages quickly. It does not replace good internal linking, but it helps.

Navigation and URLs should mirror the structure

Your main menu is the most visible piece of your information architecture. A few rules keep it working:

• Keep the top level short. Five to seven items is plenty for most small businesses. Put supporting pages in dropdowns or the footer.
• Put the most important items first and last. People tend to notice the start and end of a list more than the middle.
• Use plain, specific labels. “Services” and “Prices” beat “What we do” and “Investment”.
• Make the mobile menu match. The same structure behind the menu icon, with dropdowns that are easy to tap.
• Use the footer as a safety net. Contact details, key service pages, policies and accessibility information.

Internal links within your content matter too. Linking from a blog post to the relevant service page, and between related services, helps visitors and shows search engines which pages are most important.

URLs should read like a sentence

A good URL tells people and search engines what is on the page before they click. Compare these two:

• example.co.uk/?page_id=482
• example.co.uk/services/boiler-repairs/

The second is clearer, easier to share and reflects where the page sits in the structure. Some sensible rules:

• Use short, lowercase words separated by hyphens.
• Reflect the structure where it helps, for example /services/boiler-repairs/, but avoid nesting more than two or three levels deep.
• Leave out dates and unnecessary words, so URLs do not look out of date or get unwieldy.
• In WordPress, set this under Settings > Permalinks. “Post name” is the usual choice.
• If you ever change a URL, add a 301 redirect from the old address so you do not lose visitors or rankings.

Breadcrumbs show visitors where they are

On the web, breadcrumbs are a line of links, usually near the top of the page, that show the route from the home page to the current page. They take their name from the trail of breadcrumbs in Hansel and Gretel. A typical breadcrumb looks like this: Home > Services > Boiler Repairs.

Types of breadcrumbs

Type	What it shows	Best for
Hierarchy (location-based)	Where the page sits in the site structure	Most business websites, service sites and blogs
Attribute-based	The filters or categories that describe the item, such as Shoes > Women’s > Size 6	Online shops with filtered product listings
Path-based (history)	The pages the visitor has just visited	Rarely useful, since the browser back button already does this

For most small business sites, hierarchy breadcrumbs are the right choice.

Why breadcrumbs help

• Orientation. Visitors who land deep in your site from a search result can see where they are straight away.
• Easy movement. One tap takes people up a level, for example from a single service back to all services.
• Extra internal links. Every breadcrumb is a link back up the structure, which helps search engines understand how pages relate.
• Clearer search results. Breadcrumb structured data can help Google show a tidier page path in search results on desktop. Google simplified mobile results in early 2025 so they show only the site’s domain rather than the full breadcrumb, but the markup still helps Google understand your structure.

Breadcrumb good practice

• Place them near the top of the page, above the main heading.
• Keep them small and quiet. They support navigation, they do not replace it.
• Make every item a link except the current page.
• Use a simple separator such as “>” or “/”.
• Do not bother on the home page, or on very small sites where every page is one click from home.

BreadcrumbList structured data tells Google your structure

Structured data is extra code, invisible to visitors, that describes a page to search engines in a standard format. For breadcrumbs the format is called BreadcrumbList. According to Google’s breadcrumb documentation, it needs at least two items, and each item has a position number, a name and the page’s URL. Google supports it in JSON-LD, Microdata and RDFa formats, with JSON-LD being the most common in WordPress.

Google also recommends that breadcrumbs reflect a typical path a user would take to the page, rather than simply copying the URL structure. After adding the markup, check a few pages with Google’s Rich Results Test and keep an eye on the breadcrumbs report in Search Console.

How to add breadcrumbs in WordPress

1. Check your SEO plugin. Yoast SEO and Rank Math both include breadcrumb features. Switch breadcrumbs on in the plugin settings, choose your separator and decide what the trail should show for posts, pages and categories.
2. Display them on the page. Depending on your setup, that might be a breadcrumb block in the block editor, a widget in your page builder, a theme setting, or a short piece of code your developer adds to the theme template.
3. Check the structured data. These plugins usually output BreadcrumbList markup automatically. Run a page through the Rich Results Test to confirm it is there and has no errors.
4. Avoid doubling up. If your theme and your SEO plugin both add breadcrumbs, switch one off so you do not get two trails or conflicting markup.
5. Tidy your categories. Breadcrumbs on blog posts usually follow categories, so a post filed under “Uncategorised” will show exactly that. Give each post one sensible main category.

Signs your website structure needs work

• Visitors phone or email to ask questions your website already answers.
• Several pages compete for the same search term, and none ranks well.
• Your menu has grown to ten or more items, or has dropdowns inside dropdowns.
• Important services have no page of their own.
• Pages exist that nobody links to and nobody visits.
• URLs are a mix of styles because they were added at different times by different people.

Frequently asked questions

What is information architecture in simple terms?

It is the way a website’s content is organised, grouped, labelled and linked, so people can find what they need. If design is how a site looks, information architecture is how it is laid out behind the scenes.

Do breadcrumbs help SEO?

Yes, modestly. They add helpful internal links, make your site structure clearer and, with BreadcrumbList structured data, help Google understand where each page sits. They will not rank a weak page on their own.

Does a small website need breadcrumbs?

Not always. If you have five or six pages all reachable from the main menu, breadcrumbs add little. They become useful once you have sub-pages, blog categories or product ranges.

How often should I review my site structure?

Whenever you add a new service or product range, and at least once a year. Check your menu, look for pages with no internal links and make sure new content has a clear place to live.

Get a website that is easy to find your way around

Our web team plans the structure of every site before we design a single page, so visitors and search engines can find what matters. If your current site has grown messy, we can help untangle it. See our website design service and SEO support, or get in touch for a chat.