Best Practices for Creating an Effortless Website Navigation

Have you ever opened a website where the navigation is crammed with stacks of links in the footer? If yes, you probably know what poor website navigation looks like. Every website has a navigation menu, but some are much better than others. Believe it or not, your web design is one of the most vital elements of your digital marketing success because it impacts website traffic, lead generation, accessibility, and brand perception. Are you searching for web design and development packages or wondering how to make your navigation seamless? Here are some tips for you!

But first, what is website navigation?

Website navigation is so much more than the menus directing users to internal pages on the site. The different navigation elements like sidebar menus, footer links, and top menu bar organize a website for users and show the internal link architecture for search engine crawlers. Website navigation matters because well-laid-out and intuitive navigation can increase search engine rankings, time-on-site and page views while skyrocketing conversions and on-site sales with more organic traffic.

Best Practices for website navigation

• Begin with a sitemap: As the name suggests, site maps are for lost users to find the links to all the main pages of your website. If you don’t know where to start, begin with a sitemap listing all your website pages in a clear, hierarchical order without any extraneous details on every topic.
• Consistency is the key: Keep the theme and structure of your pages consistent. Every time a user visits your website, they should make sense of everything in a matter of seconds. Making your pages inconsistent in terms of design and structure will only frustrate the users and make them leave your site within a jiffy.
• Segregate to win: You must use menu headings in “mega menus” and fat footers”. So, a fat footer is at the bottom of a website and the navigation structure includes multiple links and menus. When you use a mega menu or a fat footer with a lot of links, add headings to categorize the links and make it easy for the search engines/ users to scan your website.
• The logo directs to the homepage: Users often start over by going to the home page so they can redo their search from there. If your website users are likely to search for your website from a search engine, the logo can help them to explore more on your website more by redirecting them to the homepage.
• CTA and sticky to menus: Add a clear CTA button in your main navigation so website visitors can easily see the next step you want them to take. Also, you can add a sticky top navigation bar at the top of a webpage so your audience can explore more easily even when they scroll down.

Conclusion

Even the tiniest choices can have an enormous impact on your website. Especially when it comes to your navigation, the smallest of things can make or break your visitor’s experience. When your users are navigating your website without an orchestrated, well-defined structure, it’s like they are dropped in the middle of a complex map without any frame or reference. If you want to make user experiences more enriching and less frustrating, overwhelming, or unpleasant, ensure to work with professional WordPress development services and increase your website usability along with conversions.