We’ve all experienced the frustration of not being able to find the fitting rooms in a clothes shop, or the fire from not being able to spot your specialist plant-based milk after ten minutes of walking down the dairy aisle (perhaps not all), or the fury when the satnav doesn’t know the new road layout and we spend an additional hour trying to reach our final destination. We like to know what we are doing and where we are going, because if we don’t, there is the fear of looking stupid or feeling failed by whatever power was supposed to show us the way. It is the same when we arrive at a website with an expectation to quickly gather the information that we need, or purchase the product we wanted, and then, happily, contentedly, go on about our life.
So important is the ease of making our way around a website, the potential success for a business’s online platform rests on it. Complication leads to frustration, and frustration is the gateway to greater bounce rates and fewer conversions. As a web design agency, we always build clients’ websites with easy navigation and smart website design. With our experience to help us, we want to answer these two questions: what does easy navigation mean? How does it work?
Easy, Breezy Navigation
You may have the best products or services in the world, but that means nothing if people can’t find them on your website. When we refer to easy navigation, we are talking about the way visitors are able to go through the pages of your website and find exactly what they are looking for. Optimising the user journey – that is the time from finding your website to making the sale or booking (one would hope) - comes down to easy navigation with targeted content design. By streamlining the user journey, smart website design enables a positive user experience, reduced bounce rate and greater conversion rate.
Common-Sense Led Content
Engage, inform, direct; your written content has a huge job to do. Without overloading the reader with chunks of text filled with jargon, you must tell the user who you are and what you can do to help them. Too much text and your audience will likely get lost in it and leave for your competitor’s site; too little and your audience will wonder what they are doing there, and again, probably leave.
Content is far from only about the words, it incorporates images, Call-To-Actions and the succession of each component on the page – not to mention the number of pages and their order on the website. A skilled web designer knows that your content should hold the hand of and signpost to your users, guiding them thoughtfully through your website and letting them know exactly where they can go to find what they’re looking for. As well as keeping your users happy, it keeps the search engines happy too. You can learn more about the importance of SEO practices in our blog.
Targeted Call-To-Actions
Call-To-Actions (CTAs) are imperative to boosting the conversion rate on your website. Simply put, they make the user’s life easier. Placed logically throughout the website, they signal to the user that they have something to do. It all comes down to human psychology and the innate desire to do as we are told. Choosing the correct font, button size and colour, and wording is all part of the web design process from which we can capitalise on the impact of CTAs.
Limit Navigation Bar Options
Think about shopping in the sales. You arrive in your favourite department store and it is packed with sections of jumbled jumpers, tangled t-shirts, dresses that have dropped from their hangers, the odd sock or scarf strewn over the shop floor. You don’t know where to begin. You don’t know if you want to begin. You might even think about leaving for a better organised shop. In theory, the sale and all of its options sounds great; in reality, it is a stressful mess. The same applies to your website.
It is important not the throw too many options at your user. A qualified and competent web designer will be able to build a succinct navigation bar keeping the user coolheaded and confident on your website.
There are many components which must come together to navigate your website to online success. Whether you require an Ecommerce website or an informative brochure site, easy website navigation is essential for a positive user experience, securing a sale, and earning those return visits. If you are looking to optimise your web design to increase that conversion rate, or you are in need of an entirely new website, get in touch for a free consultation.
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