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Speedy and Intuitive Navigation is Critical for a Successful Website
| Guest post by: MIchael Daley |
Article Overview: Logical, speedy, intuitive navigation is important to keep viewers lingering on your web site and coming back in the future. Here are some important website navigation terms to know.
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Free Download - What Kind of Financing is Right for Your Business? By MIchael Daley |
Speedy and Intuitive Navigation is Critical for a Successful Website
The purpose of every website is to stimulate action from the reader. In many cases it is to sell something. The reader can possibly order online, call for an appointment, or come to your shop with a coupon. Yet not every website is developed to sell something. But it does have a distinct purpose and should inspire a desired action from your reader.
Before developing a website you should sit down and think about what it will do for you and the reader. Will it sell a product? Will it sell a service? Will it provide useful content as its main purpose? Will it offer users a sense of community? You may offer both products and services and deliver useful content and provide a community - the question is - do your visitors understand clearly what it is that you have to offer them?
Navigation is critical when developing and planning your site. The layout lets viewers easily determine how to get from page to page and from product to order form. If it is difficult to navigate, then it will discourage visitors from returning and it will frustrate them. Just like in a brick and mortar store, you may never get a second chance to make a good impression on the web.
One way to start the navigation thought process is to think like your viewer. If possible, consult with users during the development of your website. Go and take a look at the competition. How easy is it to navigate their site? Are load times quick? Can I understand all the pictures and graphics? Is the menu intuitive? Do all the links work?
Here are terms to help you build a website that makes navigation a customer friendly process:
Toolbar/Menu- Typically a horizontal navigational bar running across the top of a web page enable the user to easily jump directly to specific departments or pages.
Icons- Small pictures or vignettes that designate and link to different areas on your site. This is an easy way to add interest and simplify navigation when used sparingly. Choose icon images carefully so that users will intuitively know what they mean.
Search engine- A search tool that enables viewers to pull up specific documents or products by key words or phrases.
Pop-up/Drop-Down menus- Allows viewers to choose from multiple options. Lists the items they want to view or purchase.
Frames- A design format that allows multiple pages (each with distinct URLs) to be viewed on a single screen. However, some viewers dislike frames because they divide the viewing areas and limit some of their navigational control.
"Most Popular Areas" listing- Shows new visitors what your top viewed pages are.
Glossary- Offers a brief explanation of terms found on your site.
Site Map- A fully expanded listing of the features in hierarchical order.
Image Maps- Large clickable graphics and pictures, sometimes making up the entire home page, that allows users to "click and go" to certain areas of the site. Sometimes image maps have very slow load times which can be customer unfriendly.
If your visitors grasp what you're talking about and see links that help them move with ease around your website, then they will stay longer and come back more frequently. So for your website to be profitable, and that's what being in business is all about, the viewer must be comfortable with getting information and taking action. The value of customer friendly site navigation then becomes quite evident.
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Related Forum Posts
Re: what position to request?
- Hi Michael,
Great suggestion from David, or you could try something around a design consultancy,
How about Website Design Consultant, Design and Development Manager, Website Support and Development Manager or maybe Internet Business Development Consultant.
Ultimately whatever you are comfortable with and good luck for the future,
Mal.
Re: What's 1 word to describe what your business will be in 2012
- Successful.
What makes you keep coming back for more?
- I am researching on personal preferences that keeps the visitors coming back to a web site. What would be great is if people would list out their preferences of what keeps them interested to keep visiting a website in order or importance.
For me it is:-
1. Content – Value, Depth and Recency of Information provided
2. User Friendliness – Easy Navigation, Simple graphic design etc.
3. Service – download time, contactability etc.
Books for Women Entrepreneurs
- There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here.
It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new.
In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment!
1. The Old Girl's Network
2. Mother's Work
3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women
4. Pitch Like A Girl
5. Workplace Warrior
6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer
7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery
8. She Wins, You Win
9. Napoleon On Project Management
10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do
11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years
12. The One Minute Millionaire
13. Talking From 9 to 5
14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions
15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success
16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded
17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful
18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End
19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide
20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen
21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business
22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker
23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business
24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises
25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy
26. The Promotable Woman
27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it
28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home
29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women
Re: How can I promote my site?
- There are various useful techniques for promoting a website. In SEO the techniques could be "white hat" and "black hat" techniques. White hat techniques includes following techniques to promote website as per the search engine rules.
- Search Engine Friendly Tags
- Website submission to Search Engines
- Website Submission to Social Sites (Like twitter, Facebook)
- Articles Promotion & Press Release Promotion
- Quality Directories promotion
- Contribution to Blogs, Forums
Black hat techniques can reduce website strength in the search engine and can treat site as spam that could be following.
- Keywords Stuffing.
- Hidden Links
- Maximum Links of unknown sites.
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