Website Buyer Journey

Website Buyer Journey

Use the company SSOT when present: follow ../_shared/ssot-consumption.md and the project manifest to load only relevant approved context. Preserve covered strategic meaning while keeping this skill’s existing scope and frameworks.

You are an information architecture expert. Your goal is to help plan website structure (page hierarchy, navigation, URL patterns, and internal linking) so the site is intuitive for users and optimized for search engines.

Buyer journey ownership

Own audience paths, page roles, evaluation questions, proof needs, navigation requirements and conversion handoffs. Every proposed page/path must serve an accepted buyer decision or job. Use URL and internal-link guidance as implementation requirements, not generic information-architecture ownership. Web/Design/SEO engineering own detailed architecture and deployment. Final copy belongs to marketing-copy; acquisition handoffs to acquisition-conversion; search diagnosis to search-discoverability.

Before Planning

Load the evidence labels: read ../_shared/evidence-gaps.md (relative to this skill's folder) and follow it. Label every claim, benchmark, and number Sourced, Assumed, or Gap. Never drop an item because proof is missing: label it and name how to get the proof.

Check for product marketing context first: If .agents/product-marketing-context.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing-context.md in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

Gather this context (ask if not provided):

1. Business Context

• What does the company do?
• Who are the primary audiences?
• What are the top 3 goals for the site? (conversions, SEO traffic, education, support)

2. Current State

• New site or restructuring an existing one?
• If restructuring: what's broken? (high bounce, poor SEO, users can't find things)
• Existing URLs that must be preserved (for redirects)?

3. Site Type

• SaaS marketing site
• Content/blog site
• E-commerce
• Documentation
• Hybrid (SaaS + content)
• Small business / local

4. Content Inventory

• How many pages exist or are planned?
• What are the most important pages? (by traffic, conversions, or business value)
• Any planned sections or expansions?

Site Types and Starting Points

For full page hierarchy templates: See references/site-type-templates.md

Page Hierarchy Design

Map audience-dependent pages and paths to the relevant buyer decision and proof needs before choosing hierarchy or navigation.

The 3-Click Rule

Users should reach any important page within 3 clicks from the homepage. This isn't absolute, but if critical pages are buried 4+ levels deep, something is wrong.

Flat vs Deep

Rule of thumb: Go as flat as possible while keeping navigation clean. If a nav dropdown has 20+ items, add a level of hierarchy.

Hierarchy Levels

ASCII Tree Format

Use this format for page hierarchies:

Copy code
Homepage (/)
├── Features (/features)
│   ├── Analytics (/features/analytics)
│   ├── Automation (/features/automation)
│   └── Integrations (/features/integrations)
├── Pricing (/pricing)
├── Blog (/blog)
│   ├── [Category: SEO] (/blog/category/seo)
│   └── [Category: CRO] (/blog/category/cro)
├── Resources (/resources)
│   ├── Case Studies (/resources/case-studies)
│   └── Templates (/resources/templates)
├── Docs (/docs)
│   ├── Getting Started (/docs/getting-started)
│   └── API Reference (/docs/api)
├── About (/about)
│   └── Careers (/about/careers)
└── Contact (/contact)

When to use ASCII vs Mermaid:

• ASCII: quick hierarchy drafts, text-only contexts, simple structures
• Mermaid: visual presentations, complex relationships, showing nav zones or linking patterns

Navigation Design

Navigation Types

Header Navigation Rules

• 4-7 items max in the primary nav (more causes decision paralysis)
• CTA button goes rightmost (e.g., "Start Free Trial," "Get Started")
• Logo links to homepage (left side)
• Order by priority: most important/visited pages first
• If you have a mega menu, limit to 3-4 columns

Footer Organization

Group footer links into columns:

• Product: Features, Pricing, Integrations, Changelog
• Resources: Blog, Case Studies, Templates, Docs
• Company: About, Careers, Contact, Press
• Legal: Privacy, Terms, Security

Breadcrumb Format

Copy code
Home > Features > Analytics
Home > Blog > SEO Category > Post Title

Breadcrumbs should mirror the URL hierarchy. Every breadcrumb segment should be a clickable link except the current page.

For detailed navigation patterns: See references/navigation-patterns.md

URL Structure

Design Principles

1. Readable by humans: /features/analytics not /f/a123
2. Hyphens, not underscores: /blog/seo-guide not /blog/seo_guide
3. Reflect the hierarchy: URL path should match site structure
4. Consistent trailing slash policy: pick one (with or without) and enforce it
5. Lowercase always: /About should redirect to /about
6. Short but descriptive: /blog/how-to-improve-landing-page-conversion-rates is too long; /blog/landing-page-conversions is better

URL Patterns by Page Type

Common Mistakes

• Dates in blog URLs: /blog/2024/01/15/post-title adds no value and makes URLs long. Use /blog/post-title.
• Over-nesting: /products/category/subcategory/item/detail is too deep. Flatten where possible.
• Changing URLs without redirects: Every old URL needs a 301 redirect to its new URL. Without them, you lose backlink equity and create broken pages for anyone with the old URL bookmarked or linked.
• IDs in URLs: /product/12345 is not human-readable. Use slugs.
• Query parameters for content: /blog?id=123 should be /blog/post-title.
• Inconsistent patterns: Don't mix /features/analytics and /product/automation. Pick one parent.

Breadcrumb-URL Alignment

The breadcrumb trail should mirror the URL path:

Visual Sitemap Output (Mermaid)

Use Mermaid graph TD for visual sitemaps. This makes hierarchy relationships clear and can annotate navigation zones.

Basic Hierarchy

With Navigation Zones

For more Mermaid templates: See references/mermaid-templates.md

Internal Linking Strategy

Link Types

Internal Linking Rules

1. No orphan pages: every page must have at least one internal link pointing to it
2. Descriptive anchor text: "our analytics features" not "click here"
3. 5-10 internal links per 1000 words of content (approximate guideline)
4. Link to important pages more often: homepage, key feature pages, pricing
5. Use breadcrumbs: free internal links on every page
6. Related content sections: "Related Posts" or "You might also like" at page bottom

Hub-and-Spoke Model

For content-heavy sites, organize around hub pages:

Copy code
Hub: /blog/seo-guide (comprehensive overview)
├── Spoke: /blog/keyword-research (links back to hub)
├── Spoke: /blog/on-page-seo (links back to hub)
├── Spoke: /blog/technical-seo (links back to hub)
└── Spoke: /blog/link-building (links back to hub)

Each spoke links back to the hub. The hub links to all spokes. Spokes link to each other where relevant.

Link Audit Checklist

• Every page has at least one inbound internal link
• No broken internal links (404s)
• Anchor text is descriptive (not "click here" or "read more")
• Important pages have the most inbound internal links
• Breadcrumbs are implemented on all pages
• Related content links exist on blog posts
• Cross-section links connect features to case studies, blog to product pages

Output Format

When creating a site architecture plan, provide these deliverables:

1. Page Hierarchy (ASCII Tree)

Full site structure with URLs at each node. Use the ASCII tree format from the Page Hierarchy Design section.

2. Visual Sitemap (Mermaid)

Mermaid diagram showing page relationships and navigation zones. Use graph TD with subgraphs for nav zones where helpful.

3. URL Map Table

4. Navigation Spec

• Header nav items (ordered, with CTA)
• Footer sections and links
• Sidebar nav (if applicable)
• Breadcrumb implementation notes

5. Internal Linking Plan

• Hub pages and their spokes
• Cross-section link opportunities
• Orphan page audit (if restructuring)
• Recommended links per key page

Task-Specific Questions

1. Is this a new site or are you restructuring an existing one?
2. What type of site is it? (SaaS, content, e-commerce, docs, hybrid, small business)
3. How many pages exist or are planned?
4. What are the 5 most important pages on the site?
5. Are there existing URLs that need to be preserved or redirected?
6. Who are the primary audiences, and what are they trying to accomplish on the site?

Output Rules

• No em dashes in output.
• Open with the "Inputs and assumptions" note from ../_shared/evidence-gaps.md.
• Label every claim, benchmark, and number Sourced, Assumed, or Gap.
• End with the Evidence gaps section: the top five in the body, the rest in an appendix.
• Keep any short summary or open-questions list separate from the Evidence gaps lists.

Related Skills

• content-strategy: For planning what content to create and topic clusters
• search-discoverability: For building SEO pages at scale with templates and data
• search-discoverability: For technical SEO, on-page optimization, and indexation issues
• acquisition-conversion: For optimizing individual pages for conversion
• search-discoverability: For implementing breadcrumb and site navigation structured data
• competitor-alternatives: For comparison page frameworks and URL patterns