Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [128]
Chapter 12: Week 9: Create Effective Navigation
Chapter 13: Week 10: Design for Accessibility
Chapter 14: Week 11: Identify Technical Roadblocks
Chapter 15: Week 12: Remember the Important Details
Chapter 12
Week 9: Create Effective Navigation
The information architecture of a website is a critical component in assisting visitors and developing more in-depth search engine optimization techniques. Visitors rely on both the navigation and the structure of the information presented on the website in order to find the information they want. Search engines tend to reward sites that have a consistent information hierarchy that develops a specific context to the page, the surrounding section, and the site as a whole. If your site’s navigation is confusing, visitors will be confused, your conversions will suffer, and your success in the search engines could be limited.
Chapter Contents
Monday: Consider the Home Page as Direction Rather Than a Destination
Tuesday: Categorize Subjects with Card Sorting and Tree Testing
Wednesday: Support Navigation with Information
Thursday: Lead with Links, Labels, and Alternative Navigation Techniques
Friday: Develop Using Wireframes
Monday: Consider the Home Page as Direction Rather Than a Destination
Website development has come a long way since the early days. Usually, a business would go to a web agency and ask for a new site, and within days the business would be reviewing three options for the new home page. That style of development had a number of problems, because it put the power completely in the hands of the artists’ interpretation of the information on the website. (But of course, when you don’t do more than the typical navigation options of About Us, Product, Services, and Contact Us, I guess you don’t need much.) What I mean is that the focus of the information was limited to the understanding of the business by the agency and its artists and would not typically exceed that point. Maybe some research was done into the market and the business and a value proposition established, but the process was typically driven by the aesthetic of the design rather than developing information structures focused on the business goals.
Fortunately, the design process has become more about understanding the visitor’s interactions with the information, measured according to the business goals. The design process has become one of designing “informationally” and creating the aesthetic to enable interaction with the information.
One of the main contributors to the previous way of thinking was the view that the home page was a destination in itself. To visitors, the home page is anything but a destination, and when these two views collide, the business loses. Visitors want to know where to go and how to get there, and they expect the home page to provide that direction. If the information isn’t available, then they leave and go to the next search result or available link.
The Dangers of the Home Page as a Destination
When a business thinks of its home page in terms of a destination, an almost egotistical view arises that this should be a source of entertainment, which led to the insidious “splash page” theory of home page development. With the advent of Flash in the early 2000s, businesses flocked to have animation and mini-commercials running on their home pages. With lots of animation, and maybe even a dash of sound, it was a recipe for visitor abandonment. Rarely did an analysis of visitor behavior show that anyone was willing to watch and wait for the commercial to end. Coincidently, Skip Intro tended to be the most utilized link on the page.
Even today, it is common to run across a home page that focuses more on a celebration that you navigated to its URL than a helpful guide to the information contained