Navigating website content is probably one of the biggest issues for visitors and website owners, which can make or break a website.
There are many elements within a website that can help visitors find the information they are looking for, but unfortunately this is one element of website design that is ignored far too often, and is sacrificed at the altar of sexy design!
What are the content navigation tools?
Most people will immediately think of the Navigation bar (or tabs if you are non-technical), but that is not the only way to help visitors to find information on a website.
As the navigation bar is important, we are going to start with that.
1. Navigation Bar
The Navigation bar is a key component of a website, as it is the tool that most people recognise.
However there are a different types of navigation bars for desk tops, but less options for mobiles (see Burger Bar below).
Simple Navigation Bar
This is the most common type, where main subject matter is displayed with direct links to each page, which contains the subject matter. The limitation of this approach is the number of keys, restricted by the width of a screen, which means the navigation bar can only contain a limited number of navigation keys (buttons). This means subject matter has to be well thought through, and in some cases landing pages are needed in order to take visitors to subcategories (see below).
Drop Down Menus
This is based on the Simple Navigation Bar, with some navigation buttons having “Drop Down” options. This means the navigation key itself does not take visitors to any page or a landing page, but reveals a drop down list allowing visitors to select links to sub-menu or sub-categories. This is a useful method, except where you have extensive subject matter, which means the drop-down list can become overly long.
Mega Menus
This is taking the concept of a Drop Down Menu further, which is specially useful for larger websites, or websites with complex content. Mega Menu opens an entire floating box, that allows visitors to see a full set of options under each main menu key. This makes it much easier to navigate and select subjects, specially where options are complex or varied. Check the example on our own website, and you can see why we have selected this method to help visitors navigate the myriad of services and options we offer.
Burger Bar
You have probably seen this on your mobiles. The ever present 3 horizontal bars (hence the Burger!), which opens up the options for choosing your desired pages. Due to the limited space on a mobile (or indeed tablets), options for this are limited. Burger bars can only open a Simple Navigation Bar with pseudo Drop Down Menus, so they tend to be very long and unruly! To overcome this, Landing Pages and Knitting your website content together, are the only way to solve this issue.
2. Landing Pages
These are very useful pages, where navigation keys sends visitors to a specific page. The landing page in turn summarises services/products/subjects that make up the options that the visitor could be looking for, using combination of images, text boxes, and links to the primary page of each sub-category or product.
This is particularly useful in the age of mobile and tablet usage, where many visitors are using smaller devices with smaller screens that can only display the dreaded “Burger Bar”.
3. Knitting the Content
This is achieved by using links within the text of a page, to guide visitors to pages with more information, hence “knitting” the links within the text. This is specially useful when you use CSS to highlight the text link with a different colour to your standard text colour, hence making the link stand out.
You see this method used extensively in News portals, Wikipedia, and academic websites. This not only enables your visitors to find supplementary or/and related information, but is particularly useful for mobile device users visiting the website.
4. Repetition
This is something many website owners shy away from, but this shyness to repeat makes no sense at all.
One of the premises of marketing is repetition of the same message in order to enforce the message you want to convey. This is just as valid in a website as it is when marketing products or services on other media.
Key information and messages should be repeated with links to pages that contain the information, so that pages do not end up in a cul-de-sac. Web pages should always have an alternative means of getting to related information other than the navigation bar, hence avoiding cul-de-sacs or dead-end pages.
5. Sidebars
Sidebars are made using fixed or dynamic content that create alternative links to related subjects. This is particularly important for blogs and e-commerce websites, as it allows visitors to find more on the subject matter or similar products, using categories, keywords, dates, or suggested products, etc.
Sidebars can also provide useful means of promoting offers or important messages, consistently across a website. This is especially useful as sidebars switch into a column in smaller screens and display at the end of your main text, providing further interest and reasons to stay around.
Summary
Helping visitors to find information easily around a website is key to improving your website’s stickiness (page view and average time per visitor), as well as helping you convert them into sale or leads. The more a visitor interacts with a website, the more likely they are to end up taking the “desired action”.