Website navigation is a predominant feature of the overall user experience that can impact your visitor’s experience and the chances of conversions by making or breaking it.
Having a robust site navigation system assists you in boosting the user retention rate and lessens the bounce rate of your website.
Smooth site navigation enables visitors to conveniently get and garner the pieces of information they are interested in. Besides that, it also allows search engines to index your crucial information efficiently and effectively. Hence, the more accessible and engaging your navigation experience is, the higher the retention rate your site will have.
According to the reports, even well-designed websites have a lower retention rate and lose more than 55% of visitors due to a lack of navigation experience. But we have come up with 11 ways that will certainly help you boost your website navigation and increase the retention rate.
Website Navigation At a Glance
You can consider website navigation as navigating websites, pages, and apps on the internet. Hypertext or Hypermedia is the technology that works behind it, and a hyperlink is a link that works to lead your web browser to a URL.
Hyperlink or hypermedia is a text-based web page that uses hyperlinks to connect them to another page on the internet. The URL suggests and shows the particular file that the browser has to access from the server and then downloads and delivers the data to show the users.
There are two types of links: Internal links and External links. The internal links lead to several pages from the same domain. On the other hand, external links do the same to several pages from different domains.
Website navigation utilizes menus with internal links and provides convenience to the users to find their preferred pages. For a user-friendly website, perfect navigation is a must-have and brings unmatched advantages.
Let’s Explore the List of the Ways Worthwhile to Improve Your Website Navigation!
#1. Keep Your Navigation Mobile-first
Ensuring your menu is ready to be operated using mobile devices will come in handy. This is due to Google’s mobile-first indexing, which means it primarily uses the mobile version of the website when indexing it. Google announced recently that it would enable mobile-first indexing by default for new websites.
Mobile devices are limited in space, and they require a particular layout to look and feel good and be usable. There are plenty of productive solutions for responsive website navigation based on CSS, JavaScript, etc.
Understanding this will help you hire web developers suitable to your requirements. And when you hire them, you must explore if they are aware of all these factors that matter in creating smooth website navigation.
#2. Keep Your Menu Order Strategically
Keeping your menu order strategically brings you more benefits for website navigation. For instance, when people have a list of stuff to buy from, they are more likely to choose the first two items, two from the end, or sometimes one or two from the middle of the list.
This is how the serial position effect works. It shows buyers notice the products from the beginning, end, or sometimes from the middle and take the rest of the items on the list lightly. You should leverage the pluses of this in your navigation design.
Place the essential links either at the beginning or the end of the list so that you can optimize the chances of driving the visitors to the links that matter the most from your business perspective.
#3. Ensure Your Main Navigation Bar is Easy to Find
People don’t want to waste their precious time with complex options when they have an easy one, so keep the main navigation bar convenient to find. The main menu of your website should draw the user’s attention. Make sure your website’s main menu (the header, sidebar, top left, top right) must be predictable.
These are small but quite complex things that most designers ignore. Unusual and creative menu positioning must be apparent to your users. To improve the visibility of your main menu, a good colour and contrast policy will undoubtedly come in handy.
All it requires to make this happen is to connect with the best website design company and ensure they have expertise in good hands-on creating websites with smooth navigation.
#4. Limited Number of Menu Options
The abundance of choices can be a cause of abandonment; hence, keep the navigation simple. Users don’t prefer digesting the entire structure of your website, so the simpler your menu, the better your navigation will be.
It can be simpler for you if your website isn’t a marketplace or an online supermarket. Don’t overwhelm your users by offering plenty of options. Only 7 to 8 options in your primary menu are plenty, so don’t use more options. It’ll prevent you from puzzling your audience. These options should reflect your main pages.
#5. Consistency in Navigation Matters
Keeping the navigation consistent is a must. Consistency for both how and where it exists on your site is predominant. It enables your visitor to find relevant information in less time by making it easy to use and enhancing its visibility.
In contrast, if your navigation continuously changes from page to page, your visitors might not be able to stay on-site and reorient themselves. This can invite a severe consequence or be the cause of a deteriorating retention rate on your site. However, if a change is crucial, it can be done but avoid being continuous.
#6. Differentiate Menus for Different Audiences
Personalizing your menus as per the users’ requirements is the best way to go. By differentiating your menus for different categories of users, you can curtail the clutter and save valuable space.
For instance, you can separate it for property owners and buyers, teachers and students, and several others. When users select their menu, they’ll get more targeted navigation, and this is what saves space and enhances usability.
#7. Add Mega Footer
Footers limited to contact, information, and social links are no longer worthwhile. Now websites prefer mega footers offering links to the most important pages. When you have a site having a complex hierarchy, it gets users tired quickly by making them expand the sub-menu upon sub-menu. To resolve it, the mega footers are the efficient way to go.
Mega footers offer navigation links to the important pages existing on your site. It enables users to directly jump to the related site and the information they are looking for. Implementing a mega footer on your site will have a constructive impact as it reduces the bounce rate and boosts the conversion rate.
#8. Put Accurate Navigation Titles
Visitors should have a clear idea of what they are going to find on the page even before clicking a navigational link. Irrespective of whether it’s an external or internal link, it must make the visitor aware at a glance. Use an accurate title to describe the linked page to make visitors aware of what they will get after clicking it.
Don’t put cryptic or misleading navigation titles as they tend to confuse and annoy visitors, sometimes till the site is abandoned. Ensure all the links you put, whether textual or in an image, perfectly portray the concerning page so that the visitors can find it easy to go.
#9. Make Sure Your Search Feature Works Well
Ensure your search feature performs well as it’s a prominent navigation element that helps users reach their goals. When users search for anything, they are more likely to be a conversion. Besides that, if your search feature possesses additional usability features such as alternate spellings, suggestions of similar items, stem search, and more, it’ll be a plus.
#10. Put ALT Text for Every Clickable Image
Making sure all the images have an ALT text is another great practice that helps you improve website navigation. This is crucial for every shot, but more than that, for those images that link to other pages.
Images must have an ALT text describing their reasons for being there. Ensure you have included the ALT attribute with descriptive text. Putting an ALT text informs every visitor what the link or image is all about, irrespective of how they view the website.
#11. Make It Convenient to Move from One Page to Another
Make it easy and frictionless for users to be able to move from one page to another page. Include the links to other pages on your website and make these pages reachable. Don’t forget to ponder over the information architecture flow when designing the menu bar.
Choosing a navigation map that offers a crystal clear way to go is better. Navigation icons work as a quick way for users to find what they are on the lookout for with no complexity.
Boost Your Website Navigation Today!
To get visitors through the buyer journey and improve conversion, you need an effective website with easy navigation. Being conscious about the business goals and aligning them to the navigation strategy is the need of the hour for businesses that can bring them invincible success and growth.
Final Thoughts
You must have understood the significance of website navigation in this article. You may also explore more online pages to clear your doubts. Consider following the best practices that enable you to provide an unparalleled navigation experience to your users. We hope you find this article helpful.
Thank you for helping me out. I am preparing for an interview of a web designer in web design company. This points will going to help me out if employer ask anything about website navigation.