5 Ways to Simplify Your Website Navigation
The main reason we create a website is to ensure those in the world looking for us can find us quickly. Once they find us, we want to make it easy for them to find exactly what they looking for. Easy peasy is the goal, which is why it's important to simplify your website navigation.
Take a look at these 5 tips to help you do this easily.
1. Create a Website Map
This is something that I encourage my clients to build before they get started, and revisit every 3 - 6 months depending on how often they update their website.
The value of a website map is you can see clearly how your visitors will move through your website. With your website map you are in the position to eliminate unnecessary clicks and ensure your visitors are getting the most important information as quickly as possible. A common rule of thumb is two clicks or less.
2. Keep your main menu simple
I know you you may have a lot to share. Incredible resources, tips, tricks and so much more you want your website visitors to see. The trouble is, that if you give it all to them at once you are going to overwhelm them in a really big way. So keep it simple, and give them only what they need to get started.
For example, if you are an Interior Designer who provides services for commercial and residential, you wouldn't want to share every single thing you do.
This is too overwhelming and it is hard to know where you'd want to begin. By simplifying your menu, you will naturally help you visitors find exactly what they need.
For example, if you were to take the same menu and simplify it, you may have something like this...
3. Format Hyperlinks so they stand out from other text.
Most website builders will do this automatically for you, but I have found where some will choose to blend the hyperlinks in with the rest of the text. This only makes it difficult to locate or see, and hides the great resource you are sharing. So format those hyperlink colors to stand out quickly.
Hyperlink Text Hyperlink text that is blended in with the rest.
4. Display Buttons prominently.
Utilizing buttons throughout your website is a helpful way to make sure the most important information stands out and is easy to get to. Occasionally we forget this and focus more on clever design that the true purpose of the button.
Unless someone were to hover over the button above they are likely to miss it. Yes it looks clean, and simple and match match your design, but it doesn't stand out. Make sure that button is working for you by making it stand out prominently.
5. Use breadcrumbs.
Breadcrumbs will show your website visitors where they are on your website, and how they got there. These work really well for websites that have lots of pages, and a lengthy journey.
For example...
Home > About Us > Our Mission > Our Values
In this breadcrumb trail you can see that you are visiting a page focused on a businesses values and that you got there by visiting the about page and mission.