TL;DR
Before writing the first articles for my new travel website, I spent time planning the structure of the site. By defining categories and thinking about how content would connect together, it became much easier to organise ideas and plan future articles.
How I Planned the Structure of a New Website
After researching ideas and narrowing the direction of the project, the next step was turning those ideas into a clear structure for the website.
It can be tempting to start writing articles immediately when building a new site. But spending a little time thinking about how the site will be organised can make the writing process much easier later on.
For this project, the goal was to create a structure that would support both search traffic and Pinterest-friendly content over time.
Why Website Structure Matters
A website structure is essentially the framework that holds all of the content together.
Without some level of planning, it’s easy for articles to become scattered across unrelated topics. Over time that can make a site harder to navigate for both readers and search engines.
Even a simple structure can help guide decisions about what content to create and how different articles should connect to each other.
For this site, the structure would eventually become the foundation for future content clusters.
Defining the Main Categories
The first step was deciding on the main content categories for the website.
These categories would act as the primary sections of the site, grouping related articles together and making it easier for readers to explore specific types of content.
Because the goal of the site is to explore destinations in a layered way, the categories were designed to reflect different aspects of travel experiences.
These include themes such as:
• cultural context
• meaningful travel experiences
• practical travel guidance
• food and cultural immersion
• solo and small group travel
Each category represents a different “layer” of understanding a destination.
Instead of focusing only on attractions or itineraries, the goal is to explore places through a variety of perspectives.
Thinking in Content Clusters
Once the categories were defined, the next step was thinking about how articles would connect within those sections.
Rather than writing isolated posts, the idea is to gradually build content clusters around destinations.
For example, a destination like Rome might eventually include multiple articles exploring different aspects of the city, such as culture, food, neighbourhoods, and historical context.
This approach allows the site to build depth over time while keeping the content organised and easy to navigate.
It also makes internal linking between articles much more natural as the site grows.
Creating a Framework for Future Content
Another benefit of planning the structure early is that it creates a simple framework for future ideas.
Instead of wondering what to write next, new article ideas can usually fit naturally into one of the existing categories or clusters.
This makes the content planning process much smoother.
It also helps maintain a consistent direction for the site as new destinations and topics are introduced over time.
What Comes Next
With the structure of the website in place, the next step was choosing the first group of topics to write about.
Rather than introducing dozens of destinations at once, the plan was to start by building depth around a small number of locations.
In the next article, I’ll explain how I chose the first content clusters and how those decisions helped shape the early stages of the site.
Next article:
→ Choosing the First Content Clusters