Are You Losing Website Visitors Because of Navigation?

Example of a clear navigation bar on a website

One of the most important elements that we consider when designing a website is the navigation. How easy is it for your site visitors to find the information that they are looking for? Can they navigate through your website without having to go back to your homepage to see the list of pages on the site? Navigating through a website can be simple or complex depending on how many pages your site has or how much information needs to be organized.

One of our clients, City Tree Christian School, has a site where we included the main navigation menu in the left sidebar. This is typically where you want your navigation to be located, if not at the top of the site right below the logo or header. These are the areas where people are used to looking for navigation. Remember that you only have a few seconds to capture a site visitor’s attention, so if they have to scroll down to hunt for your navigation bar, then they might end up leaving your site.

The City Tree site also has a navigation right beneath the header with the most important information that new visitors are looking for such as content about the school, admissions process, the program, and the school calender.

City Tree has a moderate amount of information on its site, but if your site contains a great deal of information, consider including a drop-down menu within the navigation that has sub-topics. The last thing you want to do is overwhelm site visitors with too many choices on the main navigation bar.

We like Barry Feldman’s analogy that your website is a vessel and you are the skipper. Your goal is to help navigate your guests through the waters without a shipwreck. The important thing to remember is to make sure that there is a navigation bar on every page of your site.

So, how do you know if the navigation bar is working for your site? One thing you can do is survey your customers and ask if information they are looking for is easy to find. You can also have your webmaster look through your site’s analytics to see how long visitors are staying on your site and what page(s) they are looking at before they leave your site. If people are leaving only after viewing your site for a few seconds, then they might have trouble finding the information that they are looking for.

Is your site ready for a redesign so that people can navigate through the site more easily? We do offer special discounts for schools and universities. Contact us at info@corporatewebimage.com or call (951)764-6677.

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