You might have considered how your website will look, what it will contain and how your visitors will find it, but have you thought about how those individuals that do stumble upon your site will navigate around it?
A website is not like a book. Your audience will not start at the start and read through to the end. A website provides your audience with the opportunity to jump straight to the information that they need to know, therefore an excellent navigation system within your websites design is absolutely essential. With so many competitive websites on the World Wide Web today, it is imperative that you keep your visitors on your site for as long as possible as they click their way through the pages. Make your navigation difficult to understand, or inconsistent amongst your pages, and you will instantly lose page views to your rivals. Website navigation is an important aspect of Website Design so hopefully by following the five tips below this should provide a good basis to work from.
Top Tips for Successful Navigation in Your Website Design
1. Keep it consistent
The quickest way to confuse your visitors is to change the location of the navigation bar amongst different pages; for example, swapping to a navigation bar on the right hand side, when it was at the top of the page that you just came from. Essentially, your website needs to be idiot proof.
2. Keep your fonts clear
You might have discovered an incredible font for your navigation menu. It’s swirly, it’s beautiful, it’s… Impossible to read! Keep your font clear and large enough for anyone visiting your website to be able to see.
3. Link from your logo
If your logo is located within the header at the top of your website, your visitors will assume that it links back to your homepage. If it doesn’t, they may well be temporarily confused, searching for another means to return Home. Don’t allow them to be, even a small miscommunication in navigation such as that could cost you a sale or lead.
4. Consider your navigation’s location
Where do you expect to find the navigation for a website? The vast majority of websites will contain a menu either at the top, just underneath the header, or on the left hand side. You might have an idea for a funky website that has navigation at the bottom or on the right hand side, but unless you are completely sure of your style this is a risky manoeuvre.
5. Generate a sitemap
A sitemap does what it says on the tin; it provides a map for your website. Linking to your sitemap from the footer, or even from your main navigation bar, will allow a
visitor to jump directly to any page that they desire easily. You need to minimise the number of clicks necessary for a viewer to reach the required information and a sitemap is a very effective way of doing just that.
If your website design incorporates the above navigation tips, you will undoubtedly be more successful at keeping visitors on your pages for longer. However, before you release your site to the world, have a click through it yourself. Is it intuitive? Does it take less than three clicks to get to any one page? If not, perhaps it is time to get back to the drawing board.