Some Tips to Optimize the Navigation on Your Website
Website navigation will make or break the visitors’ experience. Trying to navigate the website without any logical and well-defined structure will be like getting dropped in the middle of a complex maze without any map or frame of reference. It is frustrating, overwhelming, and not exactly the user experience that I want. But, creating a good navigation system will not be a very simple job. That is why at SERP GO we will look at top ways to help the users to find the way. They will turn the negative experience into the best one.
We’ll take a look at how to optimize your website’s navigation for SEO success
Optimize Your Mobile Site’s Navigation
Having mobile-responsive navigation is very important for any kind of eCommerce site. Consumers expect the user experience of the website to be very good, in case not better than the desktop experience. Give your site visitors a responsive and optimized navigation bar as well as you are assured to see a huge improvement in the mobile conversion rate.
Replace Drop-Down Menus
Whenever any options in the drop-down menu appear to be very complex, unfamiliar, and extensive, then you must consider replacing this with a detailed web page. The usability research shows the drop-down menus will be annoying; and, you will have to sacrifice some of the valuable info in order to make things fit into it and this can be done by professional web design services. Even Apple has used a particular strategy to help its customers to navigate the support menu. Instead of cramming all support options in the drop-down menu, the company opted to create the whole page, which has every product category that they provide. Accompanying visuals will make finding the correct option one easy task.
Put them in the right order
Selecting which web pages to include in the main navigation is the first step of the streamlining process. With this list in your hand, you will need to determine what order can bring in the best results. In order, to do that, you must consider the Serial Position Effect, which states that the users are likely to keep in mind the first & last items in the series and will forget the items in middle. That is why many website navigation designs list their home page first & contact page last —they are two very important pages on the website, thus they are generally placed where the viewers can see them. For everything in the middle, you will have to rely on good old-fashioned information to help to determine the best order.
Ensure it is responsive
Because your menu appears good on a desktop version of the website does not mean that it is perfect. Suppose it is not mobile-responsive, still, you have a little work to do — and over half of all the website visits come from the people who are making use of smartphones, and they have to find their way over your website more quickly than an average desktop browser. Keep in mind that the phone screens are quite smaller, thus while it comes to mobile site navigation design, you will have to make each pixel count. For doing this, most of the designers opt for a ubiquitous hamburger menu instead of the horizontal navigation bar that we are used to seeing over desktops.
To keep the hamburger menu simple and clean, a limit on drop-downs of your menu includes. So, he generally suggests having just one level of the drop-downs, although it is better in case you may get none. You also can leave off the Home button & link the logo to the home page —it has become the common practice that your users may expect anyway.