In this article Thrive Learning Institute covers creating effective website navigation. Our studies have shown that effective website navigation will increase your conversion rate which in turn increases the profitability of your website.
Brick and mortar companies make it as hard as possible to get to what a customer needs. For example, grocery stores place items like milk in the back of the store so that customers have to walk through other products to get to what they need. Nine times out of ten a customer will make a purchase other than what they originally came for. This technique does not work for a website. If a customer cannot get to what they need, nine times out of ten they will end up leaving the site.
We want to focus on some key points of successful website navigation. Keep the website simple and clean, use short words or phrases, utilizing duplication in navigation, and focus on the right keyword phrases in navigation.
The majority of times, people focus on navigation on the top, left, or right side of the website. The bulk of searchers will search this way but not all searchers are the same. Make sure that core navigation is clear and prominent in order to make a clean navigation. Do not make the names of the pages too long; short names and phrases work best. Try to keep all links at one to two words; this allows people to skim through the navigation. If they cannot skim they are not going to get any further into a website and they will most likely leave.
Keep it simple; do not make it huge and advanced. The bulk of the time, even an extra fly out or dropdown menu can lose people. Simple text in navigation is the best way to go.
Create duplicate ways to get people into the site. For example, a webpage can have product links and link to those same pages through images of the products. Making more than one way to get people into your site is beneficial.
Use the keyword selector tool to determine which words or short phrases are commonly searched for and use those same phrases in the navigation throughout your site. Make sure your navigation links are words or phrases people would actually search for through the search engine. Doing this will draw more people, deeper into your site. For example, if somebody types in diesel performance or diesel fuel mileage into a search engine, they will search for diesel performance or diesel fuel mileage when they come to your site. Providing a link with that title will encourage them to go deeper into the site.
In short, adapt a navigation system that will link into your site in as many ways as possible to draw people deeper into the site. You can link images or navigation. Keep it as clean, simple, and short as possible.
The great thing about this industry is that it is always changing. For more information please follow the links provided.
Thrive Learning Institute is a business consulting firm that specializes in helping people start their own online businesses. To learn more, visit
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