Search

Home > Digital Media Branding Podcast > How To Fix 5 Common Web Navigation Mistakes
Podcast: Digital Media Branding Podcast
Episode:

How To Fix 5 Common Web Navigation Mistakes

Category: Technology
Duration: 00:10:11
Publish Date: 2013-12-10 11:39:00
Description: How To Fix 5 Common Website Navigation Mistakes. We'll go over how to ensure that your website's navigation links are indexed by Google and Bing. Hello I’m your host Carlos Quintero from MediaOnQ.com thank you for joining me today. MediaOnQ.com is a Full Service Digital Media Branding & Marketing Agency based out of Fargo, ND. We want to share with you 5 of the most common website navigation mistakes that we come across and give you the solution as to how to fix them. Before we get started I’d like to invite you to visit our YouTube channel where we have gear, software production and postproduction videos to help fast track your own video marketing efforts. Let’s get started with the 5 most common website navigation mistakes and fixes. Although we work with a wide variety of industries, we come across the same type of mistakes over and over again.  So we hope that this podcast can help you identify these recurring problems and want to give you the tools to get them fixed so that you website can get back to work and make your company money. The online entity of a company starts with their website right. And every website should have 4 main objectives. #1 Increase Brand Loyalty #2 Increase Traffic #3 Decrease Bounce Rates #4 Increase Conversions These 4 objectives become even more important if you own or operate a web based only business. So today we’ll focus on the navigation which should create a comfortable sense or atmosphere for your website visitors. With that, let’s start going over the 5 Most Common Web Navigation Mistakes and their Fixes. #1: Non-Standard Navigation There are times where creativity gets in the way of smart decision making.  Website visitors are accustomed to finding the navigation bar at the top of the web page or on the left column. And we get to work with clients who’s creative team got a little bit too creative. You don’t ever want to force your visitors to wander around your site looking for the navigation. When website visitors feel lost or unsure as to where they are they simply leave. This then severely affects your conversion and your bounce rates. Of course, we appreciate creativity and unique designs so I am not dismissing it at all here. I am simply suggesting and recommending that you treat the navigation of these unique designs wisely. If you absolutely have to have your own version of this out of the norm navigation then make sure that you take the time to educate your website visitors with direct and clear explanations. You may have seen or noticed examples of what I mean when Google changes layouts in Gmail or YouTube. Or when you download a new app for your smartphone, you get a tour of the app that shows you where things are. From my experience, I would say that if you’re going the nontraditional route, they you have to go through the site tour type of steps to help your visitors out. If you forgo that step you are in high risk of allowing your visitors to become distracted by having to search for the navigation which will ensure that they completely miss or avoid your site’s content. #2 : Universal Names for Menu Items It may seem obvious, but the names of your navigation items should clearly identify what they are linking to. As an example, Products or Services are common menu items names.  Some companies have one or the other and many have both. You’ll want to select the term that best represents your web page’s content. Menu items are intended to communicate with your website visitor, so it is our job to make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for. What I am getting at here is that using your creativity when naming your menu items will most produce negative effects. The website’s menu and structure should be optimized for search as well as speak in plain language to your target audience. Here is an important point that I would like to bring up. While we don’t see Flash navigation any more, we do see quite a bit of jQuery, Spry or JavaScript navigation. Unfortunately, in most cases jQuery or JavaScript based navigation does not get indexed by Google or Bing. That can cost you in the search rankings. The solution is to ensure that the navigation uses pure CSS. If you need help assessing what type of navigation your site uses, email me at studio@mediaonq.com and I’ll take a look and let you know. And if you have your own web designer or webmaster. Have them verify that your navigation is pure CSS as that will help your website and impact your business. #3: Drop-Down Menu Drop-down menus and Fly-Out menus continue to be popular with many businesses.  They offer a quick and convenient way to drill down to the content of your website making most or all sections available from any page. My personal preference is to have a single level of drop-down lists or fly-outs. If there is no way around it two levels of drop-downs or fly-outs would be the absolute max. If you require more than that, consider restructuring your content. One problem that we’ve fixed or corrected for some clients is when the drop-down is so mouse sensitive that you have to try and catch the sub-menu items. Just so you know, that is the quickest way to annoy your website visitors so avoid or if your website has that issue get it fixed quickly. #4 : Overcrowded Menus Menu Overcrowding…most of us have see this right? It seems to be a symptom that comes up most often when the web design company takes direction rather than provides direction. With some rare exceptions, there is no need to have more than 8 main menu items in your navigation. When you overcrowd your menu, you take away attention away from the most valuable links in your navigation bar. Overcrowding navigation menus can distract your visitors or worse, confuse them. For each item that you remove from an overcrowded menu, you are making the other menu items more noticeable. Concise navigation is not only important for the user experience but it is also important for SEO. Overloading any webpage with links, can have adverse SEO effects so that should be a consideration as you review your current navigation’s structure. #5 : Inappropriate Menu Order The order of your menu items matters. We read left to right, so the most important item should be on the left. Psychological research shows that it is much easier to remember the first and last item of a list. The phenomenon known as the serial position curve shows that people focus better on the beginning of any list, which is the primacy effect and on the end of the list which is the recency effect. This is one of the main reasons why we place the Contact Us items as the last item in the navigation bar. We just covered 5 of the most common website navigation mistakes and their fixes. Your site’s navigation should speak to your target audience in plain, clear and concise language. You navigation bar should not exceed 8 main items. And you should place the most important items at the start and end of your list, with all the secondary items in the middle. Avoid crazy drop-down or hypersensitive navigation menus. Keep the navigation menus at the top or the left side of your pages. And make sure that your navigation menu is made with pure CSS to help ensure that it is indexed by Google and Bing. Do you have any comments on website navigation? What’s your preference on navigation type or placement? Are there any other items that should have made it on this list? I’d like to hear from you. Please send your feedback to studio@mediaonq.com and let me know if I may share your comments on a future podcast episode. Don’t forget to visit our YouTube channel for tips and techniques to help fast-track or launch your video marketing efforts. You can link directly from MediaOnQ.com and I’ll also include the link in today’s show notes. I hope that you found this information helpful and that it can help you enhance your company’s website. Join me next time where we’ll continue to explore digital media branding and marketing techniques to help you compete in today’s web economy. Until next time, I’m Carlos Quintero from MediaOnQ. Thank you for listening.
Total Play: 0

Users also like

100+ Episodes
Pardon My Fr .. 100+     9
5 Episodes