Website Navigation Best Practices
With close to two billion websites on the internet, your readers have access to a plethora of content that competes for their attention. What will ensure your target audience sticks around once they’ve landed on your page? Good website navigation.
Even with great content or a well-stocked shop of in-demand products, your website won’t keep eyes on the page or drive customer conversions if your navigation is lacking. When it comes to website navigation best practices, your site needs to be laid out in an intuitive, user-friendly way. Getting lost is never fun, especially when you’re searching for something—be it a product you desire to purchase or a blog post with information you want to consume.
We can essentially liken website navigation to a city map. If the roads twist and turn, there are no clear signs, the visitor will feel lost and not want to stick around for long. In fact, visitors usually decide whether or not to stick around in just a handful of seconds—or less. If you want to increase time on site—and build returning visitors over time—the roads should be clear and marked—a.k.a your website’s main menu. The navigation paths should be predictable and seamless, funneling visitors toward a business-minded goal—jumping from article to article if you run a blog, adding products to their cart and eventually purchasing if you’re an e-commerce site.
Your website architecture should tap into the habits that visitors instinctively make, in ways that align with your strategy. Below, we’ve outlined six website navigation best practices to make your site better for your visitors and your business.
PLAN YOUR NAVIGATION
In the early stages of designing your website, we recommend creating a sitemap. Using a spreadsheet or Word doc, a sitemap lists out the hierarchy of a website menu. Unlike other areas, website layout is one where you want to stick to the basics and not try to reinvent the wheel. Simple layouts generally do better as they’re user-friendly and easy to understand. Using your preferred application (Word, Excel etc.) map out the layout of your website navigation menu. This step will help you organize your layout simply and visualize the flow.
USE STICKY NAVIGATION
If your readers are scrolling down your webpage and have no easy way to get back to the homepage or home bar, it can be frustrating. Eliminate this obstacle for your users by implementing sticky navigation that stays fixed while a user scrolls the page. Sticky navigation essentially locks the home navigation bar on the page so that you can always easily jump to another area of the website without having to scroll all the way back to the top.
KEEP MENUS SIMPLE
When your audience views your navigation menu, it shouldn’t confuse or overwhelm them. Your menu should have no more than seven elements to keep navigation simple for your reader. Streamline the navigation bar by thinking through the information your target audience will most likely be looking for when they’re on your website.
USE CLEAR HEADERS
The headers you choose should be thought through just as carefully as the site’s layout design. If your headers don’t make sense, aren’t intuitive, or are overcomplicated, your reader is likely to leave your page. Use simple, easy-to-understand, and descriptive terms. It should be clear exactly what you are referring to and should not confuse your reader.
LINK YOUR LOGO
If you’re not linking your logo back to your homepage, you’re not doing your website justice. It has become engrained in audiences that the logo will take them back to the homepage. If your website isn’t following this standard, you’re likely to frustrate your user. No matter the page your audience is on, they should be able to click on the logo in the header and be brought back to the homepage.
BE MOBILE-FRIENDLY
80 percent of users today use their mobile devices to search the internet, so your website navigation needs to be just as easy and user-friendly on a phone or tablet as it is on a laptop. We’ve all been on websites that distort, confuse, or don’t translate well on mobile devices, yielding in a poor user experience that doesn’t make you want to stick around. Make sure your navigation works just as clearly on mobile to ensure you’re providing your users with a great experience no matter the device.