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?