If you’re waiting until after your website is built to think about SEO, you’re already behind. At Holler Digital, we don’t treat SEO as an afterthought, it’s an essential part of the foundation. That means before a single pixel is designed or a line of code is written, we’re already laying the groundwork for visibility, rankings, and long-term organic growth.
SEO Starts with Structure
In the site architecture phase, we’re not just organizing pages, we’re starting to shape how search engines and users will navigate and understand your site. A clear, intentional sitemap is one of the most overlooked SEO tools in your digital strategy toolbox.
How We Do It: SEO in the Architecture Phase
Here’s how we bake SEO into the early stages of a website design project:
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Keyword Research, Focused and Strategic
We don’t dive into the deep end of keyword planning at this stage, but we do look at the metrics that matter most: search volume and keyword difficulty. We’re aiming to find the sweet spot, relevant keywords that have the highest search volume and are realistically within reach based on your current SEO profile. That means avoiding keywords that are either too competitive or too obscure to drive value. We’re not trying to over-optimize, we’re just making sure we’re setting the site up to win from day one.
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SEO-Optimized Page Titles & Slugs
Once we’ve identified the right terms, we apply them directly to your site’s structure, specifically in page titles and page slugs. Instead of vague or clever naming conventions, we use clear, searchable language. “/digital-marketing-edmonton” performs better than “/what-we-do” because it matches what your audience is searching for.
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Keyword Clustering Opportunities
As we define your site’s content hierarchy, we look for natural opportunities to group related topics. This helps lay the groundwork for a content strategy that supports topic authority and future SEO campaigns, without needing a major restructure down the line.
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A Sitemap That Works for People and Search Engines
At the end of the day, the sitemap is the bridge between your audience and your goals. It needs to be strategic, crawlable, and intuitive—not just a list of pages, but a thoughtful path designed to guide users and rank well.
Why It Matters
An SEO-informed sitemap helps ensure that your site launches with a strategic edge. You’re not just launching a pretty website, you’re launching a discoverable one. That means more organic traffic, better rankings, and a head start on your digital marketing goals.
Real-World Example: Laying the SEO Groundwork Early
Let’s say you offer SEO services and you’re building out a new website or reworking your current structure. During our site architecture phase, we’d run some basic keyword research like the example below.
In this case, we’re comparing three related terms:
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“seo services” – High search volume (2.5K) but a high keyword difficulty (72), making it tough to rank for without significant authority and ongoing content.
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“seo services edmonton” – Lower difficulty (31), moderate volume (70), and very relevant for a business targeting a specific city.
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“seo services alberta” – Less volume (10), but potentially useful if you’re targeting a broader regional audience.
Here’s what we’d do:
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Use “seo services” as a root keyword to inform your main service page. It’s competitive, but it’s the umbrella term users recognize.
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Create location-based pages (e.g., /seo-services-edmonton/ and /seo-services-alberta/) to target easier wins and support local SEO.
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Structure the sitemap so these pages are part of a logical hierarchy, feeding into each other and helping build topic authority over time.
This approach ensures your site isn’t just organized well, it’s aligned with how people search and designed to grow with your business.
Final Thought:
You wouldn’t build a house without a blueprint. Don’t build a website without a search strategy baked into the foundation. At Holler Digital, we make sure your sitemap works for you, not against you.
Ready to build a website that’s designed to be found?
Let’s talk about how we can optimize your site from the ground up. start your project today.
