Designing an effective website is not just about slapping up some amazing graphics and watching the visitors get all happy - no, it's about giving your visitors an experience that pulls them back. Yes, you will need to get a lot of things right, and of course our topic of discussion concerns site navigation. Navigation is one of those things that people will not think about if it is good, but they will think about it if it is bad.
One of the first important things that you need to keep in mind is to create a strong foundation for your website so that it loads in less than 10 seconds. There are a number of things that will affect load time, and perhaps most of all is your images or graphics that you use. If you are wondering what this has to do with navigation, it is more of a usability point because obviously load time affects stay time or bounce rate. This is just one component of usability, but it is nevertheless a very important one.
Never neglect visitor convenience; for example the placement of additional or even redundant links at the end of content. Whenever in doubt - test it out; and that means tracking clicks on those links at the bottom to measure how effective they are. We believe this is something you must do on all of your longer pages otherwise you will be forcing people to scroll all the way up.
One factor that you need to ensure is that the navigation should be consistent throughout your website, regardless of where the visitor is. If you look at other sites, such as highly ranked sites in Google, then you will see examples of what you need to emulate. Always proceed with the thought of what you can do for your visitor, not what your visitor can do for you. Once you have your site theme and layout down, then that is what you have to stick with all throughout that site.
All site really should have a site map, and that includes static sites, too. Site maps are not hard to install on your site, and extremely easy for blogs, but you just must use them if you want to rank well because they will help you with on page SEO. If you're using WordPress for your website or blog then you can use a simple plugin to generate the sitemap for you. No excuse for not having one, so be sure you get one today and install it if you are not using them, currently. There are some refinements involved with good navigation, and for that you will need to do additional research and reading. This really has been a cursory introduction and is not meant to be comprehensive, so get busy at Google and find out all that you can do to help your site perform even better.
One of the first important things that you need to keep in mind is to create a strong foundation for your website so that it loads in less than 10 seconds. There are a number of things that will affect load time, and perhaps most of all is your images or graphics that you use. If you are wondering what this has to do with navigation, it is more of a usability point because obviously load time affects stay time or bounce rate. This is just one component of usability, but it is nevertheless a very important one.
Never neglect visitor convenience; for example the placement of additional or even redundant links at the end of content. Whenever in doubt - test it out; and that means tracking clicks on those links at the bottom to measure how effective they are. We believe this is something you must do on all of your longer pages otherwise you will be forcing people to scroll all the way up.
One factor that you need to ensure is that the navigation should be consistent throughout your website, regardless of where the visitor is. If you look at other sites, such as highly ranked sites in Google, then you will see examples of what you need to emulate. Always proceed with the thought of what you can do for your visitor, not what your visitor can do for you. Once you have your site theme and layout down, then that is what you have to stick with all throughout that site.
All site really should have a site map, and that includes static sites, too. Site maps are not hard to install on your site, and extremely easy for blogs, but you just must use them if you want to rank well because they will help you with on page SEO. If you're using WordPress for your website or blog then you can use a simple plugin to generate the sitemap for you. No excuse for not having one, so be sure you get one today and install it if you are not using them, currently. There are some refinements involved with good navigation, and for that you will need to do additional research and reading. This really has been a cursory introduction and is not meant to be comprehensive, so get busy at Google and find out all that you can do to help your site perform even better.
About the Author:
If you appreciate this information regarding website marketing, I am sure you will like as well additional works from the publisher in a variety of subject such as: Location Voiture Dijon, or some times : Meteo Cuba.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.