Intuitive navigation is important for the website; it is the mechanism which enables visitors move around your website and go to find the information they want. Navigation bar is located at top of the website, it is the most common place to find the navigation.
What is the importance of intuitive navigation?
Below are the benefits of intuitive navigation
- It allows visitors to move around the website from home page to other part of the website without any hassle.
- Visitors are able to find the information without difficulty or frustration.
- Prevent the visitors from visiting sites of your competitors.
- Increase website traffic and number of subscribers.
- Increase social media connection and more engagement in regards to think like blog comments.
- Higher search ranking for the page of your website.
Three main components of Intuitive navigation
Simple and easy design- Keep your website simple and easy. Your website should not contain too many pages that it is impossible to wade through all them. More people will use your website if it is easy to use.
Consistency- Consistency is essential for overall health of the website, navigation should remain consistent no matter where your visitor land on the website. If they find something wrong or complication in the website like where the navigation has changed, moved or disappeared altogether they might not figure out how it work. So it will be better if you keep the things easy and intuitive for the visitors.
Some examples of popular navigation conventions
- Clicking your logo leads back to home page of your website.
- Links are a different color than a regular text on your website
- Use common terms like contact, About Us and Services in clear and precise manner.
Efficiency- Internet users have very short attention span, It has revealed that, if the visitors cannot find what they are looking within 30 seconds then they will move on the next web page. Here, efficiency means provide the information in fewer number of steps. Technically Home page should be three clicks away from the about us page. For instance, if visitors are searching for team page, they should find it under “About us” not under “Resources.”
Types of Navigation– Intuitive navigation is the crucial for the website, people will move around your site without any hassle if the site is easy to navigate. Here are the key elements of solid website navigation plan.
Navigation Bar– Navigation bar is most important website element. Literally, it is located at the top of the website and many of them have similar elements like About Us, Product page and Home page. Make sure that your navigation bar has a clear structure and labels consistent with other website.
A Call -to –Action- Call to action stimulates potential and regular visitors to take action. Literally, CTA (call to action ) is short phase, which let your client know when and where to take action. “ Check out our deals”, “ subscribe us” and “Like us on Facebook” are some examples of call to action. To drive visitors to the website include at least one CTA.
Internal Links- Internal links are one of the smart strategy and important component of intuitive design, it sends visitors from one page on your site to another relevant page. Additionally, it has two advantages; first it will reduce bounce rate and second it will drive traffic to the website.
Sidebar- Sidebars display the content prominently and intuitively,perfectly placed sidebars in the website helps readers to find the desired information.
Search tool- Search tool is the extra way to find the crucial information, by searching the relevant keyword, visitors can quickly jump to the relevant page. When visitors are unable to find the desired information through traditional navigation, then search tool can be a better option to land on desired page.
How to track website navigation?
Google Analytic is a powerful tool to track the website navigation. This tool will give you precise information and help you understand exactly what your visitors are doing on your site. In case of an e commerce website Google Analytic will track all the data and help you identify which pages on your sites drives the most sales. Additionally, this tool will give some extra details like showing you where users are from, which type of internet browser they are using even it can track size of the monitor they are using.
How to improve navigation of the website?
Remove the complex graphics and animation- Large videos, infographics and flash component hampers speed of the website, affects quality of its on page SEO and overall search ranking. Slow loading website hampers navigation, remove all unnecessary and complicated stuffs from the site to improve navigation of the site.
Go for mobile- friendly responsive web design- Due to algorithm change in Google, mobile friendly responsive website come into existence. Google also penalizes the site without certain mobile friendly feature. If you don’t have yet redesigned your website to be easy and engaging to navigate on a mobile device, put the project on the front burner of the company.
Fix broken Link- Broken links are a hindrance to website success. Check all links on regular interval on the and replace any that don’t appear to work any longer.
Embrace social sharing button and practice- Include social sharing button on every appropriate website page this will improve navigation of website, ensuring that visitors like, Tweet and share the most relevant content.
Wrapping up- When it comes to building and managing a successful website, intuitive navigation is the important element that you need to focus on. Literally, web designer and web developer focus on the overall health of the website but avoids the navigation element. That’s the wrong approach, if you want to your website to be easily navigated, then contact best web design company.