How to Structure Your Website for Sales, Not Confusion

If your website makes people work too hard to find what they need, they won’t stick around. 

Confused people don’t convert—and most websites are more confusing than we realize. 

In today’s episode, I’m going to walk you through how to structure your site so visitors can get where they need to go in 3 clicks or less. 

This isn't just about user experience—it’s about building trust and increasing conversions. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why Simple Site Structure Matters
• 3:31 The Three-Click Framework Explained
• 4:36 Creating Clear Navigation Menus
• 6:51 Blog Architecture For SEO Success
• 8:49 Building Trust Through Simplified Design
• 10:56 Take The 60-Second Navigation Test

Transcript

Carrie Saunders: 0:49

If your website makes people work too hard to find what they need, they won't stick around. Confused people don't convert, and most websites are more confusing than we realize. In today's episode, I'm going to walk you through how to structure your site so visitors can get where they need to in three clicks or less. This isn't just about customer experience. It's about building trust and increasing conversion. So let's dive in Struggling to turn website traffic into real sales. You're not alone and you don't have to figure it out all yourself. Welcome to Smarter Online Business, the podcast. For course creators, coaches and e-commerce entrepreneurs who want their websites to convert visitors into buyers without the tech overwhelm. I'm your host, Carrie Saunders, a website strategist and conversion expert with over 20 years of experience. Each episode delivers simple, proven strategies to help you generate more revenue and make your website your smartest sales tool. Welcome back to the show. Today, we're talking about how to get your website to three clicks or less to help build customer trust and customer conversion. So, first off, why do we want to do this? A simpler site structure just simply converts better. It also makes the search engines happier too. They aren't wanting to click much farther than your customers are either. It's a balancing act, in that the search engines are looking for what makes the customers happy too. So if you're making the customers happy, you're also going to be helping the search engines rank and list your site too, and most websites are too cluttered, they're too deep or they're too vague. So what we want to make sure is that we have everything accessible within three clicks or less. Users sometimes are forced to guess where to click, which kills the momentum that they have on your website, and it also kills their trust, and when people can't find what they're looking for quickly, they do end up leave. So we want to make sure your key pages and actions are never more than three clicks away. So one thing we need to realize is that your site isn't a brochure. It's a guided path to action. That's what we want to be a guided path to action, not just a static brochure. Those don't sell.

Carrie Saunders: 3:09

So let's talk about the three-click framework. We want to first identify your key actions. What are the top one to two things that you want people to do when they're on your website? Do you want them to book a call? Do you want them to sign up for a lead magnet? Do you want them to buy a product or a course. Do you want them to shop? Everything on your site should point to these goals. Not 10 goals, just a few. Those who are looking for the extra things will find them. You want to tailor it to the majority of the people, who just need the one or two things that your main offers, or the main things that you want them to do.

Carrie Saunders: 3:48

So, first off, we want to make sure that our navigation is simple. We only want about five to seven main menu items at the top of your page, and the common ones that I recommend are a home link so that they can get back to your homepage, your services or your shop or your products that you offer. That should be a link somewhere next. And then I recommend you know, say, maybe some resources, freebie or your blog would be maybe the next link. And then the last two critical links are there about you or they're about your business, whichever is appropriate and then a contact link so that they can find out how to contact you. So let's go over those menu items again real quick, in case you're multitasking and need a little help getting them to sync in.

Carrie Saunders: 4:37

So, first off, we want a link to your homepage so you can get back to your homepage. And then next is your shopping link. So whether that is buying your one-on-one coaching or shopping for e-commerce products, or whether it is buying your course, the next one is some sort of shopping type of link. And then next we want to have, whether it's your resources, so a freebie, or your blog post, whatever it is, that's your give back type of resource. And then, finally, the last two we want to have about you or your business, and then a contact page. So those are the top five that I recommend minimally, and again about seven max, if you can.

Carrie Saunders: 5:19

We don't want to overwhelm people with drop down after drop down. Fewer choices equal less friction. So let's say you do have an e-commerce site and you do have the need for drop downs. Just make sure you keep it clean and don't like nest dropdowns too much. We want to maybe have one dropdown, maybe one more expansion after that, and that's it, cause that's about three clicks, right. And then we want to create the click pass. So I want you to map how a user gets from the homepage to your freebie or your blog, from your services to how do they book to your freebie or your blog from your services to how do they book from your blog to a product page. Make sure that nothing takes more than three clicks. Use smart internal linking, and all that really means is linking to other things within your webpage. And you probably just heard Mac meowing. He has decided to talk to me while we're doing the podcast, and then we want to have maybe some sidebar call to actions, if needed, and buttons to guide people. We want to make sure this is really clear and really easy to get to.

Carrie Saunders: 6:25

And then, speaking of blog, I do want to touch on that because this is something I find pretty often, honestly, is that somebody who have a really nice blog and years and years and years of articles that are great on there, but what they don't have is they don't have a way to get to the old archived articles, and what I mean by that is they don't have a menu structure. Here comes Mac, and if you're watching this on YouTube, you get to see Mac today he's being very needy. So if what I mean by that is they don't have a menu structure to get to the old archives, so what I've seen before is just blog posts and pages where it's just the blogs are listed, and then it goes to page two and page three and page four and page five. They don't categorize them or create a menu on the right or left of a blog archive so you could go to, like, august 2025 or, let's say, home organization for your living room, so they didn't categorize it out and have a menu way to get to it. So then what happens there is that Google drops those old pages because there's too many clicks to get to the old blog posts. And the old blog posts might still be great for search engine optimization, but it doesn't matter if Google can't find them, and it definitely doesn't matter if your customers aren't looking at them either, because Google knows when they look at your pages if you have Google Analytics installed. So we want to make sure that this is something common. I find that the blogs need to have that architecture, that hierarchical architecture, that they can get in to the older articles, because many times their older articles are still great and still relevant.

Carrie Saunders: 8:16

And then let's go to a real world example of a menu or how you want to have things structured on your site. So let's say you're a course creator and someone lands on your homepage Can they figure out how to learn about your course. See if that's easy for them to find. Is it easy for them to find testimonials or FAQs about it? Is it easy for them to join your list, or do they have to dig around to figure it all out? This is why this matters. The easier you make it, the faster they can act, the faster they can get their information, which gives them more confidence and more trust in you. So this again goes back to confidence, and trust in your website helps you convert better. If they can get the information they need quickly and efficiently, they'll feel like you have thought about your website. You have thought about how things are laid out, and this is all subconscious. They aren't really thinking this like in their head consciously, usually, unless they're a web developer or somebody who analyzes this stuff for a living. They will just have more trust in you because of this.

Carrie Saunders: 9:20

So make sure that you look at your website from your client's eyes. Is it easy to do the goals that you want them to do? Share it with a business friend. Share it with somebody who's going to give you some great honest feedback. You know, you know you know those people in your life who are going to give you great honest feedback. So share it with them and ask them the questions. You know, who am I, what? Who do I serve, what, what do I do? You can ask them that too and see if they know your answers real quick.

Carrie Saunders: 9:48

Because if they can't figure that out fast, then then we have a bit of a disconnect there. So if your site feels too deep or too disorganized, don't worry about it, it is fixable. You can work to get this fixed and if you need professional help for it, you can always reach out to us on our website and contact us and get some professional help for it. And if you want weekly tips to help you optimize your site structure, increase conversions and grow your business smarter, not harder, just go on over to smarteronlinebusinesscom and find our newsletter signed up link and go ahead and sign up for our newsletter. We just send that out about once a week and provide extra tips on our newsletter.

Carrie Saunders: 10:28

And then I want to give you, before we wrap up today, the 60 second navigation test.

Carrie Saunders: 10:34

So I want you to test your site today.

Carrie Saunders: 10:37

Ask a friend or someone in your audience can you find my offer or booking in three clicks or less without me helping you. So pick it. Pick whatever it is that you want them to find and see if they can find it in three clicks or less. If their answer is no, then start tightening your structure, start taking some of the tips from this podcast episode and make some adjustments and some fixes, and if you ever need some extra help, you can always jump out and reach out to us in our emails or on our social medias to ask the question. And simplifying your website is one of the fastest ways to improve trust retention and results, so it's something I want to challenge you to look at and not ignore. I hope you found this episode of Smarter Online Business helpful. I hope you found this episode of Smarter Online Business helpful and, if you did, please be sure and rate and review us and share with a business friend. That really helps. Spread the word out so we can help more businesses just like yours.