|
Website design is not only a nice wrapping but also well-thought out structure and web site navigation system. It is hard to find necessary information on the site if it lacks easy-to-use navigation therefore visitors leave such sites. How to avoid quite a number of various mistakes in web site navigation system?
From the point of view of the search engines the value of a page is determined by the number of links that refer to the page. Therefore the most important pages of your site should be referred to by the maximum number of links. However, you should avoid excessive navigation when each link of the site turns into a link farm in chase of top rankings on the search engine results page. What is the optimal number of links? For different types of sites vertical menu may contain from 20 to 40 links, and each informative page – 5-10 links. Besides, text of every link should correspond to the subject of the page referred to by this link.
The following mistakes also may have a negative influence on efficiency and profitability of a website (especially of a site for business – a corporate one):
- web site navigation system is too deep or complicated;
- web site navigation system loads slower than content of a web page;
- navigation elements are arranged in a non-conventional way;
- navigation system is excessive;
- navigation system is insufficient;
- hyperlinks have no visual distinction from the main text;
- names of the menu items are too long;
- names of the menu items do not correspond to the content of the pages they refer to;
- site navigation system is unavailable to the visitor if he has disabled images in the settings of his web browser;
- site navigation is unavailable to the visitor is he hasn't installed additional modules or plug-ins for his browser beforehand.
For instance, non-conventional arrangement of links can attract the visitors to the site design, but it distracts them from the products or services you offer. And too long names of the menu items prevents the visitors from perceiving information. And if they change the font size in the browser settings (make it larger), too long text of hyperlinks in the menu items may lead to the “collapse” of website design.
If the visitor cannot make full use of graphic navigation system for some reason (he has disabled graphics in his browser or hasn't installed required plug-ins and extensions), it will be a tremendous mistake to forget about alternative text (alt text) which is rendered when the image cannot be rendered. If the visitor sees a blank square instead of the navigation item, he will hardly try to guess what is means and will just leave such site.
The lion's share of the visitors come to websites from the search engines. It means that most of them will start their journey around the site not from the main page, but from one of internal pages. Thus it is important to keep in mind that visitors should always understand where they are at the moment and how to get to other site pages or to the main page.
How to avoid mistakes during development of web site navigation system?
In order to understand what difficulties a potential visitor may face when he browses your site you should put yourself in his place. This process is called usability testing. A special group of usability testing engineers text web site navigation system according to quite a number of criteria. This results serve as a basis for optimization of the navigation system with further correction of all mistakes and removal of all drawbacks.
In the course of time even a very well-thought-out web site navigation system may simply become outdated. For example, a site which has been developed more than five years ago has “grown up” during this long period of time: the number of articles, categories, and sections has increased. A big amount of new content does not fit into the already existing navigation system, and you have to carry out redesign of web site navigation system.
If you have found mistakes in the navigation system of your website which are similar to those described above, if you want the visitors of your site to feel comfortable, you can order redesign of the navigation system of your site in WebStudio2U! Our web design studio grantees efficient performance for a reasonable price.
TAGS
web site navigation system,
navigation system,
site navigation system,
redesign,
navigation mistakes,
web design studio,
webstudio2u,
navigation |
website design 
