Website Navigation Should Be Fun And Easy..., right?

We would love to title this article "Don't Put That There", however if we did so the article would not be found by the intended audience. Website navigation plays a critical role in the success or failure of a website. A poor navigation system can have a negative impact on your search engine ranking for particular keywords. It can also wreak havoc on your conversion efforts with search engine marketing.

Website Standards for Navigation Elements

There are many forms and approaches to navigating a website. Oftentimes your website visitors will not be drawn in directly to your home page. Some small business owners place way too much focus on the homepage elements. The debates regarding what should be at the top of the website are endless. Website navigation should be consistent throughout the entire website. Placing navigation elements in standard places will make your website easier to navigate thereby increasing conversions, pages visitation and lowering bounce rates.

So, where are the standard places for website navigation tools or elements for your website? Website visitors have come to expect to find navigation tools across the top, vertically on the left, or along the bottom of the page. Never confuse marketing and providing variations with positioning of your navigation tools. The primary objective of a navigation system is to help website visitors find your content. Here are a few examples of good top website navigation elements:

The example above is simple and descriptive.

The example above showcases various navigation styles.

The example above shows off  graphical styled menus with descriptive text.

Beyond the positioning of navigation elements for your website, you need to consider the labels or titles of your navigation links. Avoid generic labels. Labels such as "Services" or "Products" simply don't tell the entire story to a website visitor. Each industry will be different in terms of what descriptive text should be used in navigation labels. We often use Keyword Research Tools to help in our development efforts while constructing website navigation systems.

Drop Down Menus as Navigation Bars

It is also recommended steering clear of drop down menus where possible. Drop down menus tend to annoy website visitors. There have been a number of usability studies that can validate the negative impact drop down menus have on site visitors. The issue is primarily attributed to how fast our eyes and brains can process information. Worse yet drop down menus are often missed by website visitors. Sometimes, depending on the amount of content and sections on a website drop down menus can be useful. Any such presentations should make clear that the navigation menu has more layers. This is often done with the use of down arrows or automatic pop-up menus.

Website navigation Requires Order... Mentally

Some website owners go way overboard with the navigation menus. Just because you can have a vertical style menu does not mean you should take advantage of this area by overcrowding the list of navigation options. We recommend between 5 to 6 items because this tends to be within range of what our short term memory can manage. This does not mean you can not alter the navigation system with each page load but make the navigation items relevant to the page content.
In the second paragraph of this article, we advised as to where you may consider placing navigation elements. We must stress that items that appear first or last on any list tend to be the most effective. Studies have proven that our attention and retention lean more toward what we see in the beginning and at the end. The Psychological term is called "serial position effect" and is actually based on the principles of primacy and recency.

Where should the website navigation elements go?

Based on these facts important items should be at the beginning of navigation, and resourceful information or referencing content to be placed more toward the bottom. In some cases, we have also placed contact data in the top right corner below or near the top level horizontal navigation. Here are a few examples of great website navigational footers:

The example above shows off  an excellent navigational footer.

The example above is very clean and targets specific topics /pages.

The example above is straight to the point, typical but highly effective.

The example above provides shortcuts to content provided within the website.  This is an excellent approach to driving more page views.

The example above mimics the top navigation at the bottom of the page but also provides a quick method for capturing leads.

We can't have an article covering navigation elements for your website without covering and sharing our advice on buttons. Never use buttons in navigation systems.
Here are the top 5 reasons why not to use buttons in navigation elements on your website:

1. Buttons, which are typically graphical based, can not be indexed by search engines.

2. Buttons are harder to maintain. A button is typically an image designed in Photoshop. If you must use a button strongly consider styling this button using CSS.

3. Graphical buttons load more slowly when compared to links or CSS-styled buttons. Slow loading pages is bad for business and website visitors.

4. Buttons are less accessible to those site visitors that may be visually impaired.

5. With today's technology and options buttons are not necessary. There are several ways to accomplish displaying unique typefaces or color variations without implementing buttons.

Conclusion for Website Navigation

Website navigation should never be debated. The common mistakes made are expensive but highly avoidable. Mistakes in navigation impact your search ranking results and overall user-friendliness of your website. Labels must be descriptive and include keywords you desire to rank for. Keep the number of items under six. Use the top section of the website for the important elements and pages. Follow up with the bottom section containing resource information or even a duplication of some top level or sub-level items that may get overlooked. Once you have a plan deployed, do fact checks constantly, this plan against your website analytics.