By now, you should know that your company website is vital to your online marketing campaign, no matter what strategies you are employing. However, it doesn’t matter how good your website’s blog is, how much work you’ve put into you calls to action or how effective your landing pages are if your website has navigation issues. The navigation of your website is arguably the most important factor in determining the success of your website because it affects your website’s search engine rankings, your user-friendliness, your conversions and your website traffic. If your website’s navigation is poorly designed, then all of that effort you put into your online marketing strategy is wasted. The following are 3 common website navigation problems that you might need to fix:
Not adhering to website navigation standards
There’s something to be said about a company that tries to make its website design unique in order to stand out from the crowd. However, when it comes to navigation, stick to the standards. This means having your navigation bar located either across the top or down the left side. Place it anywhere else, such as in the middle of the page, at the bottom of the page or at the right side of the page, and visitors are going to have issues locating it. This will in turn increase your bounce rate. Visitors will expect to see the navigation bar where it typically is (at the top or on the left), and if it’s not there, many won’t bother to look for it. This ends up hurting your visits per page and your conversions as well. Those who do find it will feel awkward using it, which hurts your user-friendliness. When it comes to the navigation bar, stick to the standard.
Using vague or generic terms for your navigation labels
The labels of your navigation bar should be specific to your company. Don’t use generic terms such as “about us” or “products and services”. First, this tells the visitor the absolute bare minimum about what that page contains. Secondly, you are doing nothing to set yourself apart from competing websites and finally yet importantly, you’ll be hurting your search ranking. By using more specific keywords in your labels, you’ll be making your pages more relevant to search engines. Think about it for a second – your target audience isn’t typing in “products and services” in their search engines. They are being specific – so you should be too!
Sorting your navigation links poorly
There are two things you want to keep in mind when sorting your navigation links. First, too many items are going to frustrate visitors. Nobody wants to visit a website and see two dozen links in the navigation bar. This is too much information and makes it difficult to find what you are looking for. Not to mention that our short-term memories only hold seven items. The fewer items you have in your navigation bar, the easier it is for visitors to scan over them without forgetting what they’ve just seen. Secondly, avoid having drop down menus. This is just a way to sort more items, but it creates friction in the visitor’s mind. This is because once they see a label they want to click on; they don’t want to see another submenu pop up with even more choices. Once they’ve made a decision to click on a link, they want to be taken to that page, not to an entirely new set of links. This will only frustrate them.
Your website navigation is not something you should take lightly. These may seem like small mistakes to make, but they can have drastic consequences concerning your page visits and bounce rates – so be sure to avoid making these 3 website navigation mistakes when designing your company’s website!
