When people land on your website, they are typically looking for something specific. Help them find it by delivering amazingly easy navigation on your site.
Good website navigation leads to new customers and increased conversion rates. Poor website navigation causes frustration and anger. Which do prefer?
So, in the spirit of creating many happy site visitors and increasing your website’s conversation rates, here are 7 tips to better website navigation:
Keep it Consistent
By far, this is the most important tip. Once you decide on navigational protocols for your site, keep them consistent throughout the site. The more you change the navigation from section to section or page-to-page, the more you are making your site visitors work. The idea is to make it easy for them, not hard.
Offer Multiple Navigation Options
Give site visitors options for navigating through your site to find what they are seeking, and more site visitors will find it. For example, include text links, graphic links, drop-down menus, breadcrumb links, etc.
Avoid Right-Hand Navigation Systems
Web users intuitively expect your site navigation to be on the left-side of the page or at the top. Make it easy for them and stick to these guidelines.
Provide Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs show you a series of hierarchical links that the site visitor has used to go from page to page (For example: Products > Bicycles > Mountain Bikes), and can be extremely helpful for the site visitor interested in jumping back and forth between content.
Use Contextual Links
Include links in the actual body copy on the page to help your site visitors find contextually relevant, detailed information.
Include a Site Map
For certain personality types, seeing an overarching structure of the site is the easiest means for drilling down and finding what they are looking for, so be sure to include a Site Map in your website.
Use Clear, Concise Language
Don’t make your site visitors guess what your navigational items mean. Make it easy for them to understand what they can find by clicking on any navigational option.
These are just a few tips to help you create a great website that drives your revenue growth. If you need additional help, let me know below or at www.WebsiteMarketingNOW.com. Thanks!
