Site Architecture

Site architecture is the diagram that organizes a website's pages according to a hierarchical logic, from main sections down to subpages. It looks like an organizational chart: the homepage at the top, then branches extending toward sections, categories, and detail pages. It is one of the very first deliverables of a web project, even before the mockups.

What is a site's architecture?

It is the site's navigation map: it lists every page and shows their parent-child relationships. It answers three simple questions: which pages exist, how they relate to one another, and what path a visitor takes to reach them. It comes before the wireframe and the mockup, since you cannot design an interface without knowing what it needs to contain.

What is the point of a site architecture?

• It ensures every piece of content has a logical place and that no page ends up orphaned.
• It improves the user journey by reducing the number of clicks needed to reach a piece of information.
• It forms the basis for internal linking and URL structure, two major SEO levers.
• It avoids costly back-and-forth during design or development, once the site is already built.

How do you create a website's architecture?

The most reliable method starts from existing or planned content: list every page needed, group them by theme, then organize these groups into levels (homepage, sections, subsections, final pages). Card sorting techniques, where real users sort content themselves, help confirm that the chosen logic matches how visitors actually search for information rather than how the company organizes itself internally.

What software should you use to create a website's architecture?

Dedicated tools like Miro, Whimsical, or specialized extensions let you build collaborative visual architectures. Figma also works well, especially when the architecture directly precedes a wireframe or UX prototype built in the same tool. At Mazette.co, this step is part of our product design phase, before any work begins on Webflow.