How do you plan a website structure?
A good website structure starts with a short list of what people come to do: find out whether you offer something, see what it costs, check you are real and nearby, and get in touch. Each of those tasks becomes a page or a group of pages, and the groups become your menu.
If a page does not help a visitor complete a task, it probably does not need to exist.
Work through it in this order:
- Goals. What should the site produce: enquiries, bookings, orders, job applications?
- Audiences. Thai customers, foreign residents, tourists, overseas buyers? Each may need different pages or languages.
- Pages. List every page those audiences need, then cut duplicates.
- Hierarchy. Group pages under four to six top-level headings.
- URLs, navigation and links. Name the addresses and decide how pages point to each other.
Do this on paper or in a spreadsheet before any design work. Changing a page list costs nothing at this stage; changing it after the build costs time and money. It is also the point to confirm whether you need a full site or one page, since a single campaign page needs no structure at all.
Which pages does every business website need?
Almost every business website in Bangkok, from a dental clinic to a freight forwarder, needs the same core set:
- Home. Says what you do, for whom and where, then routes people to the right page.
- Services or products. One page per main service, not one long page listing everything. Separate pages let each one answer a specific search.
- About. Who is behind the business, where you are, why a customer can trust you. Real details beat slogans.
- Contact. Address, map, opening hours, phone, email and chat buttons such as LINE or WhatsApp, plus a short form.
- Pricing or quote. Either published prices or a clear way to request one. Visitors who cannot find any price information often leave.
- FAQ. The questions your staff answer every week, written down once.
- Privacy notice and cookie notice. Required in practice under Thailand's PDPA whenever you collect personal data through forms or tracking.
That is seven to ten pages for a small business with a handful of services, which is why many small sites fit in five to fifteen pages.
Optional pages worth adding
Add pages only when you have something real to put on them and someone to keep them current.
- Industries or client types. Useful for B2B firms that serve distinct sectors, for example an accounting firm with pages for restaurants, exporters and property companies.
- Blog or guides. Worth it if you can publish useful answers regularly. A blog with three posts from two years ago hurts more than no blog.
- Careers. Hotels, clinics and restaurants that hire often save time by listing roles and benefits in one place.
- Locations. One page per branch, each with its own address, hours and map, if you operate in several parts of Bangkok or other provinces.
- Portfolio or projects. Essential for builders, interior designers and architects; less relevant for a clinic.
If you are rebuilding an existing site, start with the page list you already have and check which pages actually receive visitors before deciding what to keep. Our website redesign guide walks through that audit.
Hierarchy, URLs and menus
Keep depth shallow
Pages that bring in business, such as services, pricing and contact, should be reachable within two clicks of the homepage. Deep folders of pages hidden three or four levels down are hard for visitors to find and tend to get less attention from search engines too.
Design URLs once
Addresses should be short, lowercase, use hyphens between words and describe the page: /services/teeth-whitening/ rather than /page?id=482. Choose them carefully, because changing a URL later means setting up a redirect. Avoid dates and words that will age, such as "new" or "2026".
Menus and footer
The main menu should hold four to six items that match your groups: Services, Pricing, About, Blog, Contact. Put the most useful action, often "Get a quote" or "Book", as a button. The footer can carry the longer list: every service, legal pages, address and hours. On mobile, where a large share of visitors browse, test that the menu opens easily and the call and chat buttons stay within reach of a thumb.
Thai and English sections
A bilingual Thai and English website works best when each language has its own set of pages with its own addresses, for example English at the root and Thai under /th/. This lets search engines show Thai searchers the Thai page and English searchers the English one, and it lets you write each version for its own readers instead of translating word for word.
- Mirror the core pages. Every core page should exist in both languages. Blog posts can differ, because Thai and English readers often ask different questions.
- Language switcher. It should jump to the matching page in the other language, not back to the homepage.
- Hreflang tags. These tell Google which pages are translations of each other. Google explains the options in its guide to managing multilingual sites.
- Slugs. Latin-script slugs are easier to share and read in links; Thai characters in URLs turn into long encoded strings when pasted into LINE or email.
Linking pages together
Menus are only one way pages connect. Links inside the text do much of the work, and they are worth planning at the same time as the page list.
- Service to service. Related services should mention each other where it helps, such as implants and orthodontics on a dental site.
- Guide to service. Each blog post should link naturally to the service it relates to, so a reader who learns something has an obvious next step.
- Everything to contact. Every service page ends with a clear way to enquire.
- Descriptive link text. Write "teeth whitening prices" rather than "read more", so both people and search engines know where the link leads.
A simple spreadsheet with one row per page, its URL, its parent and the three to five pages it should link to is enough for most businesses. That same sheet becomes the brief for the design and build.
Three sample structures
These are illustrative examples, not templates to copy. Adjust them to what your customers actually ask: a clinic website, for instance, is usually built around treatments and bookings.
A clinic
- Home
- Treatments: one page per main treatment
- Doctors and team
- Prices
- Book an appointment
- About, FAQ, Contact, Privacy notice
An online shop
- Home
- Shop: categories, then product pages
- Delivery and returns: couriers, delivery times, cash on delivery
- Payment: PromptPay, cards
- About, FAQ, Contact, Terms, Privacy notice
A manufacturer or exporter
- Home
- Products or capabilities, grouped by product line
- Industries served
- Quality and certifications held
- Request a quote or sample
- About the factory, Contact, Privacy notice
A factory site is usually read by overseas buyers comparing suppliers, so English often leads and Thai follows. There is more on this in our post on manufacturing website design.
From plan to build
With a page list, a hierarchy and URLs agreed, a designer can wireframe the key pages and a developer can estimate the work accurately. The plan also answers a question every owner asks: how long does it take to build a website? A site with a clear page list and content ready moves much faster than one where pages are still being decided during the build.
If you are unsure where planning stops and building starts, our explainer on how website development differs from design sets out the split. And when the site is built, the plan turns into your final test: our website launch checklist covers checking every page and link before go-live.
Structure planning is part of every website development project we take on: we agree the page list with you before design begins. If you have a rough sitemap, or just a list of what customers ask, send it and get a written quote based on that scope.
Sources
- Google Search Central: SEO Starter Guide
- Google Search Central: Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites
Builds and ranks the websites: the systems behind the 17 client sites whose Search Console numbers we publish. This guide was written by the Website Development Bangkok team. More about us