Why its crucial that your web design company designs easy to use navigation

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Introduction

Your on your way into the city centre of Cardiff, South Wales, that’s because your web design agency wants to show you your new CMS website- they have been busy little bees and now it’s time to show the website that they have been working on for many months.

And your impressed, your new CMS website looks the part, it has the intro video and shows you the Managing Director walking around your offices, while they sip on a cup of latte and meet all of your staff that are situated around your offices in Cardiff Bay.

So, you drive away happy- that’s to say your website designers have pulled it out of the bag, and you now have a website that looks ace- or have you?

That’s because sooner rather than later you start to get these sort of e-mails “we can’t get passed the homepage- why’s your main menu disappeared”.

“Hi, we just wanted to know how to get your company’s address, we can not get onto the company’s contact us page”

So, what’s happening?

Well, we will tell you, it sounds like a glitch with your main menu, that’s to say all that coding that is supporting say the intro video of your business, and all those features that have been used to design the homepage, well they look great- but there might be a coding error.

This means that the website is not responsive, so when someone looks at your website say on a smartphone, they do not see the menu, so what happens?

Well you get one very high bounce rate, and you get a very high bounce rate and this shows in your businesses Google Analytics account, and soon after this your rankings start to fall, so this is why its so crucial to make sure you hire a web developer or an web design agency can build a high-quality website for your business.

This means that so many web design company’s these days compete on price, that’s to say at the start the website may look great, but if the CMS (Content Management System) does not receive updates, then the website may develop glitches.

Also, with some CMS the main menu can sometimes be difficult to use, that’s to say all the coding, the Javascript, the PHP and the CSS may be correct, there’s no glitches, yet the main menu may still be difficult to use,  that’s to say your business may sell many products, yet if the products are too broadly grouped, say over 100 products are in each category, then this may mean that the shopper is unwilling to sort through thousands of products, or hundreds, and this may cause your business to have a high bounce rate.

Easy to use

It’s all well and good hiring a web developer, and you stating “I want a really minimalist website, I want the menu reduced so it only appears when the customer hovers over that section of the website- but what if some customers cannot find the menu, and this means your businesses bounce rate increases?

So, we often think its far better to have a fixed main menu, a menu that’s easy to use, and a menu that will transport the shopper to the right page easily, otherwise if you put design over practically, well you could be losing customers, as they may not be able to find the products or services they want, and therefore swiftly leave your company’s website.

 

So what do we think contributes to making the main menu easy to use?

·        You must have a mobile friendly version of the website

·        The mobile version must be easy to use

·        Opt for a drop-down menu if possible

·        Ensure that the website loads quickly, ask your web design company about obtaining an AMP version of the website

 

Who wants minimalistic?

Sometimes a business here in Cardiff will offer a lot of different services, for example an architect may offer a lot of different services, for example they may want to work with residential, commercial and industrial company’s- and offer different services to each, which would obviously mean a lot of pages, and this could mean that the main menu starts to look a bit cluttered.

So sometimes some website designers may say, well, let’s just condense everything down to a few pages- this way you will be obtaining a minimalistic website, yet sometimes this can be negative for the business in two ways.

One the customer may not find the service they want, that’s because the services have been condensed into just a few pages, so the description may well be very short, so the customer may not deem that business as a business that offers what they want.

Secondly by getting rid of pages, say on your WordPress website, well your businesses seo could be negatively affected. So for example unless each service has its own page, then each service will not have its own meta titles, meta descriptions, title, H1-H6 tag.

So, its really important that each service has its own page, plus the menu to get the customers to those pages must be easy to use.

 

So what’s the solution?

Well, in terms of choosing a menu, we would not recommend condensing pages just to a few pages so the  menu looks less cluttered- no we would always recommend to our clients that they have as many pages as the business needs, and to then use the right main menu to support this, so for example, a main menu that has drop down boxes, that is fixed often works well.

However, with that said, every business is different, so if you are unsure as to which menu you require, you can always meet our web developers.

 

Breadcrumbs

Okay, so I want men’s socks, size nine, in blue stripes, no actually I want dark socks, that will match my suit, hang on how do you go back to dark socks?

Well, this is where breadcrumbs should have been used, that’s to say the website designers should have used bread crumbs, this is so that with a few clicks the shopper can go back to the last page or another page on your website easily.

So for example, lets say you run a law practice, you might see the service you want, lets say employment law advice, then read about the various solicitors, then you want to go back to the service you want, yet with breadcrumbs you can easily go back to the page that you want.

 

Return to the homepage

Okay, so this is really basic, but your website should always make it easy for the shopper to go back to the homepage of the website, and what do we mean by this?

Well, often the company’s logo will act as the link to the homepage, but if it doesn’t, and the shopper buys say a pair of trainers, the decides that they also want to purchase say a skipping rope, if they cannot get back to the homepage, and then use the main menu, well they may find it hard to navigate around your businesses website, which may mean that they leave the website, abandon the shopping cart, and then you could miss a sale, this is why its so important that your website design company gets the navigation right for your business.

 

Responsive

Your website should be responsive, plus the web design agency must make sure that the website works correctly on smartphones, and tablets, if it doesn’t, then you could be losing sales possibly, that’s because the shopper may leave your company’s website, then purchase from a website that makes it much easier for them to purchase an item.

 

Testing

Some web designers will offer really cheap prices, but if the website is not properly tested, that’s before it goes live, well the website could have 404 errors, or glitches, which means that the menu may not work, and certain pages do not neither, this is why its so important that the web design business does testing, but also, the business must also do regular testing.

For instance, a WordPress website that does not get regular updates may have a plugin that’s outdated, that plugin could then act as a way a hacker could hack the website, then through the plugin the website could be hacked, so this is why the website should be updated.

 

Don’t overwhelm the customer

Let’s say your business sells 2000 products, it’s a fine art for the web design company to create a menu that groups products, so that the customer can get to a product quickly, yet not make the product group so large they are looking at 300 products at a time, so that they have so much choice that they leave the website.

So its important not to overwhelm the customer, to get the menu right, that’s so when someone clicks say on “mens shoes” another menu then appears, called a sub-menu, which may state “formal mens shoes, “casual shoes” or “running trainers”, this way the customers getting to the product they want more quickly, which may mean that your business is more likely to make a purchase, rather than leaving the website because its too difficult to use, and are therefore more likely to start looking at the different shoes you offer.

Bounce rate

If your web designers do make changes to the main menu, then why not do split testing, or A/ B testing, this is so that you can monitor if your businesses bounce rate increases, or decreases as a result of the web developer changing the menu.

 

How our web developers can help:

We are a digital marketing agency in Cardiff, South Wales- if you need a new WordPress, Joomla website, SEO or help with your content marketing, they why not call our web design agency in Cardiff today?


 

What does “AMP” mean and how could this help my business?

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We all expect a fast service when we make a purchase from any company these days- whether that’s purchasing a burger at the local drive thru restaurant or let’s say queuing to buy a new dress at a shop- we all expect to be able to buy something and to do this quickly.

And this is exactly the same online, that’s to say if a business doesn’t offer a fast service, well, that business may just be losing customers.

For example, if a web design agency was to build a website that’s slow then following could occur:

 

·        Increase the businesses bounce rate

·        Negatively impact the businesses SEO

 

And the reason for this is because a lot of SEO websites now state that if a shopper is made to wait for anymore than 3 seconds for a page to load, well they could lose that customer.

So, this is why website developers are looking to make company websites even faster, and one way to do this is thru what’s called “AMP”, which stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages.

This is why many Cardiff web design agencies like Top Space are now offering to build a CMS website, but also for the web designers to also build an AMP version of the website.

AMP simply stands for accelerated mobile pages, and if you haven’t got the time to read the whole of this article, then the condensed version of this blog post has been bullet pointed for you below:

 

·        AMP can be used to create ultra fast websites

·        Ideal for loading company websites onto a smartphone more quickly where there may well be a weak mobile network

·        HTML and CSS can be used to build an AMP website which is ultra lightweight, by that we mean that the website can load quickly

·        A lot of web design company’s such as Top Space are now offering to build AMP websites

 

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

So, you want your website designers to build a website that has a lot of text or to put a lot of information of your company’s homepage, it also has a long self-loading video, and this has to be placed on the homepage of your website.

The video then gives a guided tour of your offices which are in Cardiff Bay, and you also meet staff in the video on your homepage, that’s a great way of showing people what your business can offer, where your business is based, and also a chance to meet your staff, so win, win right?

Plus, if this is placed onto your websites homepage, then this will make the website more modern, right?

Well, not exactly, that’s because a lot of businesses are now moving away from company websites that might take a long time to load.

That’s to say if the design is too complicated, then this may cause a slow company website, which may mean that the company’s bounce rate increases.

Fast website hosting and AMP websites

So for example, you may have hired a web design company, and they have stated that they will provide your company with “fast hosting”– but what does that exactly mean?

Well, sometimes it can mean that your website will load quickly, on the other hand it doesn’t really mean much at all- that’s because some hosting companies say they are fast, when in reality you may see your beard growing as the website loads- so in reality they are not that fast at all.

So often what’s needed is a web design agency here in Cardiff, like Top Space that can design a website that’s built to load quickly (AMP), plus also the business to choose hosting that is ultra-fast.

 

AMP stands for accelerated mobile pages and this means that your website is then designed so that it loads more quickly but when you couple this with ultra fast hosting, well its like your turbo-charging your company’s website – Kevin Jones  web design manager

 

That’s to say the coding, the Javascript, the HTML and the CSS will all load much faster if the hosting is fast, but combined to that, you should pick a Cardiff web designer that knows how to build a fast website.

 

And will this effect the design of the website?

Well, yes, that’s because a page that’s AMP normally looks very basic, as its not intended to look super impressive, the main focus is on speed.

So, think formula one, the company’s that build formula one cars are concentrating on speed, plus reducing weight, well the same concept can be applied to building an AMP website.

The website is built for speed, so the website developer and website designer will get rid of elements that mean it will take ages for the website to load.

For example, if the homepage has too much text, then the web designer may recommend design changes are made to speed the company’s website up.

So, for example, you know we mentioned earlier about an auto loading video on the homepage, well, this is a good example of what can slow a businesses website down and cause a high bounce rate, so if the website developers were to build a HTML AMP version of the homepage, they would remove this element.

Faster websites

So in a nutshell, what does AMP offer?

Well, that’s a really easy one for us to answer, AMP if implemented correctly by a website design company can help to speed up your website.

This can mean that a shopper may stay on your e-commerce website for longer- and why is that?

Well, lets say a shopper in Cardiff, South Wales is looking to purchase a used car online, and that shopper is happy to travel anywhere in the U.K for that brand of car.

Now, one website has thousands of cars that are for sale, but the website is slow on the smartphone that the shopper is using, so they leave that website, and so do many other shoppers, which means that the business obtains a high bounce rate.

However, business number two, well that company has hired a web design agency here in Cardiff in order to build an ultra fast website, that’s to say every bit of HTML and the CSS has been designed so that the website is fast, and this means that shoppers on average spend longer browsing all the various cars that are for sale.

This means that when the business compares key stats, such as time spent on site, bounce rate and number of organic visitors, the website has a stronger website, so the SEO improves, so now you can see why its so important to have a CMS website that is fast.

Lower bounce rate

One of the other main benefits of owning an AMP website, is that AMP could lower a company’s bounce rate.

And how could it do that?

Well, let’s say you sell running trainers, and your website loads quickly, then the person may buy from you rather than another business, where the other businesses website was taking too long to load onto the smartphone. So just as we mentioned in the example of used cars, its important to lower your company’s bounce rate.

A business here in Cardiff may lower there bounce rate in many different ways, for example hiring a web designer to do split testing or A/B testing, that’s to make gradual design improvements, such as re-designing the main menu, this is so the main menu is improved, the company and the web designers may then use A/B testing to see if the design improvements have resulted in more sales, plus lowering the bounce rate or not?

So that person who’s on the train looking to purchase a new pair of running trainers, well, they are most likely going to want to use a website that’s fast, and one way a business can obtain a fast website is to use AMP.

Why you will often need a website developer

Some companies may think that AMP can be switched on, that’s by merely altering a setting in the CMS settings, however often AMP needs a lot more work.

That’s to say often a web developer is required.

Light Weight Web Pages

The whole point of AMP is to make a light weight page, so this means that an AMP website may look very basic, yet the main purpose is to make the website load more quickly.

AMP HTML

Why should my business invest in an AMP website?

“40% of people abandon a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load”

If a company wants to decrease its bounce rate then it may use AMP as one of the methods to try and reduce the businesses bounce rate.

How our web design agency can help:

Do you run a business here in Cardiff? Well, if your business requires a new WordPress website, or help with your company’s seo, then why not call us?