Companies these days depend heavily on their websites to generate leads. A great website that not only looks good and loads faster but also is easy to navigate can do wonders for your customer engagement and SEO rank. The website analytics plays an important role in determining the SEO rank and lead generation metrics. Navigation plays an important role in determining the user-friendliness of the website. Website navigation typically involves the internal link architecture, that is, how the user can navigate among the various pages within the website. This is a critical element used for Search Engine Optimization to build the links relevant to the different contexts discussed within your website. Here are some of the best practices to consider for good website navigation:
Use Descriptive Menu
Descriptive menu options make a huge difference in SEO and user experience. Instead of putting the menu options as products, services etc if you can mention the main categories of the products or the department names that handle it, the users automatically find it easier to navigate.
Avoid Format-based Navigation
Instead of mentioning videos, images, audio podcasts, and logs, you can always mention the context instead. This has to happen during the website design stage so that a feasible solution for the entire design including the menu options and link placement.
Fewer links on the homepage
If you clutter your homepage with too many links and too much content, it becomes a major turnoff for many visitors. It is best practice to maintain a lean homepage which loads faster and remains uncluttered.
Group related menu items
If there are many menu items that drop down beyond the page, group them under related segments. The menu will look neater and render more useful and easy to navigate.
Use Responsive design
It is very important to use a responsive website development method since most of the users prefer to use their handheld devices that come with different screen size. Responsive design makes the website more user-friendly and increases user engagement.
Personalize Menu and options
Whether you have too many options on the menu or want to link every page to the menu, the best option is to personalize the menu and the options that appear. This way, the user will get to see only what he/she is interested in. The page also gets lighter.
Use Mega Menu if you have too much to link
Mega menu option works perfect for websites that have too many menu options to show. Categorization and mega menu options work best for e-commerce vendors and other such organizations that have many options to link on the homepage.
Hide the search bar by default
One interesting way to make the most of your menu options is to hide the search bar by default in the web design. You can show only the search icon and show the search bar only when the search icon is clicked. This lets you make the most of the menu and what’s displayed on the home page.
Easy website navigation ensures that the customers are able to navigate through the website more easily.