A site’s navigation structure is extremely important in providing a rich, friendly user experience. Well designed and implemented navigation assists in the process of helping visitors identify sections and pages of the website that interest them and then in moving them in that direction. If you’re able to implement a solidly developed navigation system on your site you’ll also be providing strong visual cues to the depth of content you have available. This alone can be an immediate first-impression indicator of trust.

When a site’s navigation is intelligent, focused and intuitive, visitors have to think less and are able to more immediately find what they are looking for with minimal guesswork or backtracking. This, in turn, will most often translate into better overall conversion rates.

Navigation usability issues

The single most important aspect of the navigation is that it is usable to the visitors. If it’s convoluted, confusing or broken in various ways, your users will simply abandon your site having not been able to find what they came for.

Site wide navigation, including top, bottom and side navigation, should be as user-friendly as possible, ensuring that what is “expected” is implemented just as much as much what should be obvious. The navigational elements used should reflect a logical flow of topics, subtopics and subject matter within the site and enhance the users ability to find key areas.

• Site indicators: Provide immediate indication as to what site the visitor is on (yours!). Typically, company logos are placed in the top left-hand corner of every page.
• Logo link: Site logo should always link back to home page. Users routinely click the logo as a means to return to the site’s starting page.
• Nav bar location: Location of main navigation should be near the top and/or left side of the page. Avoid using right-side-only or bottom-only navigation.
• Home Page link: Each page must contain an obvious (different from the logo) link back to the home page. Keep this in a consistent location.
• Contact information: Access to a “contact us” page and/or specific contact information should be available in an obvious location on every page throughout the site.
• Ease of use: Navigation must maintain simplicity of use. Avoid using hard to navigate drop-down or -out menus. If used, never allow navigation to go more than two sub-menus deep.
• Page indication: Visitors should know what page they are on and where they are in relation to the rest of the site. Breadcrumbs and navigation highlights can provide these visual indicators.
• Visited page indication: Let visitors know which pages they have visited recently. While this is more difficult to achieve with main site navigation blocks, it can easily be accomplished by using alternate coloring of visited text links.
• Site access: Navigation must provide intuitive and obvious links to other main sections and areas of the website.
• Site search function: For deep sites, search functions can assist with finding relevant information quickly. If used, the search box is best located top right of all site pages or in another consistent location.
• Login access: Sites with shopping carts, accounts or member only access must provide a login link and/or page. This should be available on every page.
• Logout access: Once logged in, user must be able to logout at any point. Maintain a logout link or button in an obvious location on every page one user has been logged in.

Navigation functionality issues

The functionality of your website navigation can make or break a site’s overall performance. Fully and properly functioning navigation makes it easy for visitors to quickly find what areas of the site they came for while broken navigation quickly sends visitors scurrying for the exit.

Poorly implemented navigation structures cause confusion to site visitors and are prohibitive in getting them to the information they want and taking the action you desire. Expertly implemented navigation allows both users to find your sites information without having to “hunt” to the point of frustration. Good navigation will also help search engines travel from page to page to reach your most important information quickly and effectively.

• Consistent navigation: Keeping your navigation consistent, both in form and in placement, decreases visitor confusion and increases ability to find relevant information more quickly.
• Categorical divisions: Navigation must present clear navigational categories for important areas of the website. Main site sections should be separated visually from other areas/pages of the site.
• Clickable links: All elements in navigation must be active clickable links. When using drop down menus the main category heading must also be linked.
• Navigation accuracy: Visitors should have a general idea of what they should find before clicking any navigational link. Link text must accurately describe the corresponding page linked to.
• Image alt text: Every navigational image links should contain accurate alt text. Text links verbiage must accurately describe corresponding page.
• Search results: Search feature must adequately compensate for misspellings, similar products and related items. Never leave a search result as “no products found.”

Navigation semantics

The words used in the navigation are important indicators to your site visitors and should correspond tightly to the topic of the page being linked to. When any navigation linked is clicked users must be taken to a page that fulfills their expectations. Cryptic or misleading navigation text confuses and annoys visitors, possibly to the point of site abandonment. Make sure all link verbiage, whether textual or in an image, accurately portrays the corresponding pages.

Navigational Testing

A good way to test the effectiveness of your site’s navigation is to go to competitor’s site and browse around. Take notes on what you like and don’t like. Jot down any problems you run across as well as anything that stands out as being exceptional. Once you’ve done this, then go back to your site and perform the same navigation and note-taking process.

Once you’ve completed your navigation test runs compare notes between your site and your competitors’. I’m sure you’ll find areas where your navigation is better than your competitors but most certainly you’ll have uncovered areas where your navigation is inferior.

Don’t rely solely on your own experience. Find some family, friends, or co-workers who are both familiar and unfamiliar with your industry and have them go through the same process above. If you need to save time, have them just navigate your site and take notes on that alone. Undoubtedly your users find issues that you hadn’t even thought of. These notes will probably be a better indicator of your site’s navigation success than your own, as they will better reflect your site’s users.

Source: http://www.polepositionmarketing.com/emp/20-ways-to-navigate-to-higher-conversions/

Website navigation

Site wide navigation, including top, bottom and side navigation, should be as user-friendly as possible, ensuring that your visitors find what they expect when they click a navigation link. Check to make sure your navigation shows a logical flow of topics, subtopics and subject matter within the site and it enhances the user’s ability to find key information.

Content

The content of your website is your #1 sales tool. Content weighs heavily both in terms of how users interact with your website as well as how visitors are able to determine what you offer and what each page of your website is about. Always write for your visitors. Give them the information they need in a way that spurs them to action.

Website Design

How the site is developed, along with the underlying coding structure, plays a significant role on whether your site meets the usability requirements of your audience. Check to make sure the overall design looks clean and doesn’t feel cluttered. Colors and fonts should be easy on the eyes and should enhance rather than distract from the visitors experience.

Home Page

Your home page is the single most crucial page of your site. It is essentially your store front. Your home page should identify your site and direct your visitors to the most important information, the information they are most likely coming to your site for. Keep it clean and focused and drive your visitors quickly to the sections that are more apt for selling.

About Us Page

Visitors that find their way to your About Us page tend to have a higher conversion rate than those that don’t. This is where the visitor gets to know you and your company. Make sure the page contains information on company history, biographies of managers and your mission statement.

Contact Us Page

The Contact Us page could be considered the absolutely most important page on your site. Even if the rest of your site succeeds in the goals, if visitors fail to find the information they need to contact you then you will bring their shopping experience to a screeching halt. Always have multiple contact options and be sure web forms are working properly. Having a phone number listed is also extremely important.

Product Pages

Product pages maintain considerable strategic importance for ecommerce websites. Your visitors enter your product pages not only with an intention to buy something (the most desired end action) but to also learn, research and compare what you have against a competitor. Your product pages must provide enough information to help you visitors make the best decision possible. Be sure that calls to action, such as “add to cart” are readily available along with relevant pricing and shipping info.

Shopping Cart

While shopping car abandonment cannot be completely eliminated, it can be dramatically reduced. It is a failure of the shopping cart page itself that leads visitors to abandon their items which they do, in fact, wish to have. Make sure your shopping cart navigation buttons (update cart, checkout, etc.) are easily found. If you have multiple steps in the check out process, outline those steps and be sure to answer any questions regarding security and shipping.

Forms and Errors

If your web forms don’t function properly or it’s difficult to correct information input errors then you can lose a lot of visitors from frustration alone. Be sure to make inputting data easy by labeling fields properly, keep required information to a minimum and make sure errors are easy to understand and correct.

On -Site Search

Implementing a search function improperly is often a greater source of frustration than not having one altogether. My rule of thumb is if you can’t deliver perfect results 80% of the time then you’re probably better off not having an on-site search. Pay attention to the location of the search bar, place it where it is typically expected, and test, test and test some more to ensure that the results are as expected. Misspell products and search for products you know you don’t carry just to make sure you can deliver relevant results for products you do carry.

Help and FAQ Pages

Building up your Help and FAQ pages can greatly enhance your visitor’s experience with your website, giving them much needed information and possibly saving them a phone call. Keep these pages focused on providing information that isn’t available anywhere else and make sure they are easy to find and easy to read.

Login and My Account Pages

Sites that require users to log in to access certain information and/or purchase products add an additional layer of potential complication to the usability process. Think carefully before requiring visitors to login. Do you really need that? If not, don’t force it. Be sure to provide the benefits of creating an account and link to pages that outline your security assurances.

Privacy and Security Issues

Your website’s privacy information and security settings can be significant hurdles when it comes to gaining trust with your visitors. Be sure you provide links to these pages where best suited and applicable. Be sure to provide as much information you can that gives assurances that their information is safe.

Site Maps

Site maps provide a dual purpose: They provide search engine spiders easy access to all of your site pages and they provide site visitors easy access to all of your site pages. The best advice is to make sure all your site map files stay current and are easy to find.

Audience Engagement

Customer engagement goes beyond just getting the customer’s attention, you must keep their attention. This can be done by providing your visitors near immediate gratification. Your content needs to get their attention, tell them what they need to purchase and link out to other important pages that can help them make the purchase decision.

Customer Satisfaction

Above all things you need to make sure your website provides strong customer satisfaction. You can do this by making sure information is easy to find, eliminate broken links and keep pages and images relatively small so they don’t take long to load.

Point of Purchase

Since the “purchase” is the ultimate conversion, it is imperative that you remove as many obstacles from the customer’s research-to-buy cycle as possible. Make sure your products are available or otherwise noted. Adding product reviews and up-sell opportunities can lend to increased sales.

Visitor Trust

Your ability to convince your visitors that yours is a trustworthy business is one of the key components to getting visitors to convert into customers. Always providing prompt and complete responses to visitor inquiries. It’s also valuable to provide multiple delivery options, discounts and allow your customers to provide feedback.

General Issues

The selling process-from initial interest to the very last checkout page-must be able to grab shopper’s attention and proceed to drive them through to the finalization of the sale. In other words, once you have them, you don’t want to lose them. Keep your content organized and clutter-free, make sure the site looks good across the most popular browsers and make sure that you follow up after the sale.

Overall Accessibility

As more and more users gain access to the web, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that your website is accessible to all, not just a few. Be sure your website is constructed in a way that it is accessible to mobile phones, text based browsers and screen readers.

The one thing to understand about usability is that nothing is set in stone. You can go point by point of any usability guide and still get it wrong. You can overcome that by testing. Whenever a change is made test the results. Make sure it has the intended effect and you get the results you want. If it doesn’t help, change it back and try something else. Over time you’ll incrementally improve overall site usability and find conversion rates climbing as each successful change is implemented.

Source: http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/the-19hour-website-analysis-in-20-minute.php

There’s a bit of marketing in there from Verisign, of course. They’ve worked with the browser vendors to work on this solution, and if you want your web site to show as “green“, you have to sign up for Verisign’s Extended Validation service. (I don’t know of any other certificate authorities who offer this service–yet.) But it appears that it may be well worth the additional cost.

Here are some numbers to back it up:

• 84% of online shoppers believe that online businesses do not do enough to protect them.
• 65% of online shoppers abandoned a purchase for security concerns.
• 24% of shoppers do not purchase online at all due to security concerns.

(Sources: Forrester Research, 2005, TNS Research, 2006)

Tec-Ed consumer research did a study in January 2007 to test whether the “green bar theory” really works and here’s what they found:

• 100% of participants notice whether or not a site shows the green EV bar
• 93% of participants prefer to shop on sites that show the green bar
• 97% are likely to share their credit card information on sites with the green EV bar, as opposed
  to only 63% with non-EV sites
• 77% of participants report that they would hesitate to shop at a site that previously showed the
  green EV bar and no longer does so