Website Navigation Tips

If you have a website or are about to get one you need to be aware that one of the most important things is the navigation. You can have the best looking website in the world but if none of your visitors can find what they are looking for then it is likely you will make very few sales. The aim of this article is to give you a few tips on how to ensure your navigation is clear and easy.

1. Plan Your Navigation in Advance

Decide what you want to go onto your website in advance, knowing your main section and sub-sections. Otherwise you could come up with your links later and find your website looks cluttered as you try to fit in unexpected links.

2. Categorise content, products or services

Plan you main categories and sub-categories for your content or products. This will help you with planning out the navigation. You will know what the main headers and sub-headers for your navigation are. Then if you add new pages to your website at a later date you can decide what category to add the page to and it will very easily fit into your navigation structure.

3. Use Drop Down or Fly Out Menus

When you categorise your content make sure that if you have a lot of content you keep the main categories down to a minimum. Then use sub categories that can be accessed through drop down or fly out menus. This will prevent your menu from becoming cluttered and give clear sections to your website.

4. Always Include a Link to Your Home Page

It is important that your visitors always know how to get back to the home page of your website so make sure every page within your site includes a link to the home page.

If your website is split into sections or categories it is also important to include a link back to the main page of each section. This will enable users to go back but also to know where they are.

5. Keep Your Menu Bar Consistent

Wherever you have your menu bar, top or side make sure this is consistent throughout your website. This will keep continuity to your visitors’ navigation and will stop them from getting confused or lost. It will also mean that if they want to go to a section they saw earlier it will be easy to for them to do.

6. Use Breadcrumb Trails

Using breadcrumbs can be very useful if you have a lot of content deep within your site. It will show the user the path they have taken to get to where they are and also enable them to move the number of steps back that they want very easily. The other advantage to using breadcrumbs is that if someone arrives at your site several pages down they will instantly know where they are.

7. Include related Links

One way to help people move around your site is to include related links at the bottom of each page. This will allow your visitors to find information on the topic they are interested in without much effort at all.

8. Use Short, Clear and Precise Text in Your Links

It is important that your visitors know where each link will take them. We would always recommend including links within your text to give visitors more options of where to go. However it is important that they understand where these links will take them, if not they could either not click or go somewhere they don’t want to be. Remember you want to make it as easy as possible for your visitors.

9. Include Clear Page Titles and Headers

Labelling pages and making it clear what each page is about will reassure your visitors that they are in the right place. People can very easily get lost on a website and if they do this they will likely leave your site very quickly. If pages are labelled correctly your visitors will know they went to the right place and what the page is about and so are more likely to stay and progress through your site.

10. Include a Site Map

A site map will allow all the pages in your website to be put in one place with a full navigational structure. This will allow people to quickly browse the pages you have on your site and jump in exactly where they want to go.

11. Use the Three-Click Rule

This means that no page should be more than three clicks away from your home page. Again this may take some preparation at first to ensure you have everything categorised properly but it will keep things simple.

If visitors have to go deeper and deeper into your site to find the one page they are looking for they will probably get bored before they get there and leave and go somewhere else. Following this rule will massively reduce the chances of people leaving before they find what they are looking for.

12. Include a Search Box

If possible include a search box on your website to help people find what they are looking for. This should be placed in a clear position on your website and then be in the same place on every page.

It is not necessary to implement all of the above to have a clear navigation of your website but following some of these steps and thinking about things from your visitors’ perspective will help. Remember to keep it as simple as possible and not to make your website a rabbit’s warren of pages.

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