Asking the question “Is your website easy to navigate” is vital to any online business, especially a website that is dependent on sales. Below are 5 ways to know if your website is easy to navigate or not.
1. Are Your Navigation Labels Clear to Your Customers?
The key part of this question is the “your customers” part. You can think that your navigation labels make sense but the reality could be much different. Ultimately the only way to know for sure is with feedback and testing.
The other big part of navigation labels is making sure that they are large enough and contrast well on desktops and tablets to be easily used. But when on mobile, you need to make sure that they read well there and that both sets of labels are user friendly.
2. Is Your Website Consistent and Easy to Use?
Consistent and easy to use go hand in hand because so much of our day to day web usage is subconscious. When was the last time you thought about what you were doing online or how frustrated you became when you had to think about navigating a website. We’ve gotten used to ease of use.
3. Can Visitors Find What They Need Without Asking for Help?
Have you been in a store and couldn’t find what you’re looking for or even the section that would hold the thing you’re looking for? The other day, my wife and I were in a well known clothing store. We were there for one main thing, a new swimsuit for one of our children. We had to walk through over half the store before we even found the section. This was annoying and frustrating, to say the least. We ended up roaming around some as it wasn’t the end of the world but it shouldn’t be that hard to find what you are looking for.
The same goes for your website. You want your visitors to find what they are looking for within a couple of clicks, no more. If they have to hunt through your site, that thing better be top tier and rare, because otherwise, they’ll go find it somewhere else.
4. Are Important Links and Actions Easy to Spot?
I think websites can often be a hard thing to do right because of how easy it is to be in the forest but not recognize the trees around you.
What I mean by this is that it seems like an easy thing: getting a website online, especially with templates available these days. But you are fostering a journey for your clients. Without the crucial signage/directions within your site, people will get lost and frustrated. This is where making sure that important links and actions are easy to spot but that they also make sense. If you want people to call you but only have “learn more” buttons on your site, you aren’t leading them to call you, you are suggesting they find out more info on the site instead. Sometimes that’s ok but in general, if sales need to be over the phone, then it needs to be easy for the customer/client to call you. In the same fashion, if you want to make sure that you know something about the client before they call, then that’s where a real onboarding process needs to happen because you know that an open ended call leads to a bunch of questions that if you can, you want them to fill out a form first.
These are processes that we can help you work through to make sure that your site is working for you in a way that makes sense. If you are a small shop that works better a certain way, than your site should foster that. If you’re larger and have the customer service already in place, then we’ll help you plan accordingly.
5. Does Your Website Work Seamlessly on All Devices?
For your site to be mobile-friendly is one thing, while having a site that is mobile-savvy, is another. We aim for your sites to be mobile-savvy. What does mobile-savvy mean? It means that your site works amazing on mobile. Your mind loves the way some apps/mobile sites work while others drive you nuts.
Most sites account for desktops but can lose out on large monitor views. Many sites account for a small range of phones but maybe only in vertical mode. If the phone is turned, it falls apart. To account for all these views takes strategy and a focus that works mobile out to create mobile-savvy websites. That’s our goal with websites we build for our customers.
How do I fix my website navigation? We get to work!
If you see some of these issues on your own site, this is where Ambit can help. We would help you go page by page and figure out how we’ll help you gameplan a way out.
