Improve the Navigation
People who visit your website won’t look around if your navigation bar confuses them. If they leave your site without exploring other pages, your bounce rate will increase.
A high bounce rate can hurt your digital advertising quality score and organic search engine rankings. In other words, your ROI will drop.
Avoid putting too many pages in the navigation bar, which could overwhelm visitors. Instead, create links to the most important parent pages. For example:
- Home
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Service/Product pages
- Blog
Add a sidebar to these parent pages to create hierarchy instead of linking to every page in the navigation bar. Make sure your logo links to the homepage for easy access as well.
You can also use dropdowns, collapsible menus, in-page links, or icons paired with text to simplify navigational choices. Make sure to use alt text for the images and icons you use. Choose fonts that are easy to read to make navigating easier.
While applying each of these user-friendly website tips, it’s important to consider your desktop and mobile visitors. A responsive website ensures your content is easy to view on all devices.
Don’t make visitors scroll too much to find navigational options. For mobile users, put the navigation bar or button at the bottom of the page.
Organize Your Content
Before designing your website, determine what content will appear on each page.
Web design and content flourish when they’re developed in tandem. Too much text can make your design messy. Too many design elements will cause important headers and call-to-action language to disappear.
Instead, create a cohesive balance between the two.
For example, you can pair imagery and data by creating well-organized infographics. Break your large blocks of text into smaller paragraphs featuring shorter sentences to improve readability. When you can, use numbered or bulleted lists instead.
Use headers and subheaders to organize your ideas. These text changes will make it easier for people to skim and digest your content.
If people can’t find what they need immediately, they might leave.
Make sure to consider the typography on your website too. Simple typography will make it easier for visitors to find and consume information. Stick to basic, legible fonts that are easy to read on all devices.