Half of online sales are lost because users can't find the content they are looking for.
Have you ever been on a website that was confusing to navigate? Its frustrating. You leave the website unhappy and its doubtful you will be back.
How can you keep your potential customers from having the same experience? Design your website navigation with users in mind.
7 Steps to Great Website Navigation:
- Ideally, you should be able to go to any page in a maximum of two or three clicks, with your main pages accessible in one.
- A navigation bar can give readers immediate knowledge of the depth of your site. Just glancing over your navigation links should give them an idea of what you offer and what's here that they definitely want to see.
- Top navigation tends to work best, since users read left to right. This also ensures it will be above the fold.
- Primary navigation should hold 4 to 5 links to the main sections of your site. Any more and you'll overwhelm people. For longer navigation, use drop down lists so users can quickly find the topic they are looking for (ie Services, Products, etc.)
- Remember that the majority of your visitors will not land on your homepage - they'll often arrive on a page deep within your site from a search engine, and therefore must be able to pick up your navigation immediately.
- Not only should users be able to get to where they want to go, but make sure they can backtrack easily. This could mean including a breadcrumb trail so users can click back to a previous page easily, and include a link on your logo to take them quickly back to the homepage.
- Include a search box, as many users prefer to search quickly for what they want if it isn't immediately visible.
