User-friendly Website Structure
Is your website simply and logical structured? If not, then your visitors may have problems finding what they’re looking for?
And if visitors can’t find what they’re looking for then there’s a good chance the search engines won’t navigate your site properly either. And that’s not good news for your site’s visibility.
How User-friendly Is Your Site?
Sometimes people seem too intent on getting search engine rankings that they forget the whole point of their website’s existence – whether it’s to make money in a business, to promote a cause or anything else that they planned to use the website for in the first place. And if you forget the human users of your website then you may generate visitors but you will not gain the attention or the sales you desired.
So, before you consider search engines, have a think about the following:-
- Are all areas of the website easily accessible without too many clicks?
- How am I inviting the visitor to spend more time on my site and therefore increase the likelihood of them making an enquiry or placing an order?
- Can my users ‘get lost’ down a long stream of links without being able to find a way back?
I hate to say it, but in a world where people’s time is not cheaply held onto, you need to make things as effortless as possible and do whatever is reasonably necessary to hold their attention. Your visitor is the centre of attention, not you.
So here’s a few simple pointers:-
- Put links to the main areas of your website on all pages of your website, making sure visitors don’t get lost.
- Invite them in to the experience of your site, your cause or your business. Give them reason enough to be curious to load one or two more pages. A click-back from your homepage with no return is reason to rethink.
- Put the focus on your visitor – don’t talk about how great your company or cause is in the first paragraph. Consider what people actually came to find and give it to them
My final suggestion for this post is that testing your site on friends and family (i.e. other real people who are not you) is a good way to see how users interact with your website – get feedback, take it positively and give your visitors a happy experience on your website.
Now you’ve made it easier for your human visitors, you’ve almost certainly made it easier for search engines, but we will deal with that more in the next post. Happy website building!
