Increasing Site User Satisfaction Through Effective Navigation Planning and Implementation

By Steve Hawkins


Making a website successful starts with the basic foundation that you lay for it, and a part of this very foundation is the navigation that you lay out. Even though there are many different areas that you'll have to focus on to get the design of your site right, how you create the navigation plays an important role. Since you won't be there in person to guide your visitors through your website, it only makes sense to put in navigation that makes your site more predictable and easy to navigate. The article below explains three useful points that you should focus on to get the navigation of your site right.

A lot of sites, like blogs, come with a major part of navigation already done - but there is still more to it. Well, you have all the nav bars all over the pages, and then there is the anchor text which is a part of this topic, as well. There are so many new features available for navigation, and while you do not have to get real fancy you should take everything into consideration. If you have been around for some time, then you know about some of the incredible new techniques and capabilities with programming.

Website navigation isn't what it used to be a decade ago. Now it's more about giving a better user experience by creatively providing navigation options all over your site. Some people may mistype the URL of your website or they may just miss a part of it when copying and pasting, this is an opportunity that you shouldn't miss. Usually, visitors of a website land on a default 'Error Page' when they make a mistake with the URL, but this is also means that they may leave and never come back to your site. This is why you should create a custom error page where you've got links to the important pages on your website listed out in an organized manner. Doing this will help you keep your visitors instead of losing them because of an error.

In case you did not know this, your home page is not always the very first thing people see when they arrive. It is very common for this to happen, and that is true if you optimize your site for search.

This is why the navigation that you have on your other pages should be properly structured and synchronized with the homepage. You should work on giving your visitors the best possible user experience by helping them move around your site, regardless of where they first land. However, this doesn't mean you should make every page on your site as loud as your homepage - just focus on creating a balance and you'll do good.

Even though you know navigation is important, you should understand why and know how to make it the best it can be. Also be very sure that each link has anchor text that is totally clear and easy to understand. The penalty for failing to get these aspects correct is a high bounce rate and low search engine rankings. If your site has been struggling, then stop and check out your navigation and make sure it is up to par.




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