Website redesign / Information architecture
How to Plan Information Architecture for a Website Redesign
Information architecture decides what the redesigned website contains, how pages relate, and how people find a useful next step. Set it before visual design makes weak structure expensive to change.
Define the decisions the website must support
Start with the decisions visitors arrive to make: whether the company fits their need, which service or product applies, what proof matters, and how to continue. Add the business decisions the site must support, such as which enquiries to attract, which offers to prioritise, and which content the team can realistically maintain.
Turn those decisions into a small set of audience tasks and page purposes. A page deserves its own URL when it answers a distinct need and has enough substance to stand alone. Do not create separate pages for wording variants that lead to the same answer.
Inventory what exists before drawing a new sitemap
Record every current URL, page type, purpose, owner, traffic signal, conversion role, backlinks or campaign dependencies, and recommended action. Mark each page to keep, improve, combine, redirect, or retire. The guide to deciding what to keep in a redesign explains how to protect useful assets without carrying every legacy page forward.
Include content that lives outside the CMS: landing pages, downloadable resources, help content, forms, calculators, campaign pages, and pages created by integrations. Missing these dependencies is how a tidy new sitemap creates broken journeys at launch.
Build a page model, not just a navigation menu
Group content by the way customers understand the business, then define the job of each page, its parent relationship, primary action, supporting proof, and internal links. Keep labels plain enough that a first-time visitor can predict what sits behind them. Navigation is one expression of the architecture; search, contextual links, breadcrumbs, and URLs should reinforce the same model.
Create rules for future growth. Decide when a new service, location, sector, resource, or campaign needs a page and when it belongs inside an existing page. A durable model prevents the redesigned site from returning to a patchwork after launch.
Test routes before templates are final
Give representative users realistic tasks and ask where they would start, what label they would choose, and whether the destination answers the question. Review the structure with sales, service, marketing, content, SEO, and development owners so operational constraints appear before build.
Document the approved sitemap, URL map, page briefs, redirects, navigation states, and ownership. Then use the pre-redesign audit to confirm that the structural plan protects working journeys as well as creating new ones.
Make the structure earn its place
Need a redesign built around clearer customer journeys?
Northform can turn your content, audiences, search signals, and commercial priorities into an information architecture your team can design, build, and maintain.
Discuss your website redesign Explore website redesign →