Your website is the most important marketing tool your business has. When your website design is not user-friendly, it can affect your business.
Website design services find that this lack of functionality may be due to a poorly chosen navigation bar. If users cannot navigate your site, it is useless to them and you as well.
Navigation bars designed by experienced website design companies play a more important role on your website than you may realize.
What Do Navigation Bars Function?
Obviously, the navigation bar on your website allows users to get from one page to the other to find and do what they originally planned. When website design includes a poorly designed nav bar, using the site can be difficult. Beyond the obvious, website design companies point out that poor choice of navigation bars can affect your business in the following ways:
- Conversions - When users can effectively use a website's nav bar to find the information they seek, this is a positive user experience. In comparison, sites with bad navigation see reduced conversions, frustrated users, click-offs, and lost business.
- SEO - Website design services know how poor navigation can affect SEO. Confusing, hard-to-use navigation can reduce time spent on a site and increase the percentage of bouncebacks. Poorly mapped navigation can reduce how well a site can be crawled which affects how search engines interpret pages and serve them to searchers.
Choosing the Best Navigation Bar
Because no website design is the same, there is no single navigation bar that is right for every site. Choosing a suitable one for your website involves knowing how navigation works and how visitors expect to use the site. Using the wrong type could negatively impact site performance.
Website design companies may use the following navigation bars or develop custom navigation that is both creative and useful:
- Top Bar Navigation - Top navigation positioning is the most common user-friendly navigation used by webside design services. They include either dropdown tabs or flyout tabs that link to subcategories. Because users will most likely look for navigation at the top of the page, this is the preferred option for most websites.
- Side Navigation - Vertical navigation to the left of a page that is fairly simple and easy to use is the second place users will look for navigation. Right side navigation is not the usual place people will look. Side navigation is not as prevalent now due to the rise of mobile device usage and responsive design.
- Hamburger Menu Navigation - Hamburger navigation menus are dropdown menus positioned in the upper corner of a website. They appear as an icon with three stacked lines that represent the layers of a hamburger. When tapped, a navigation menu drops down. It is the top navigation bar menu of mobile design; most users now look for them on mobile websites.
- Bottom and Floating Navigation - Other options for mobile-friendly design include fixed bottom navigation bars and floating bars that stay on the screen as the page scrolls beneath it.
The type of navigation bar chosen for your website design can affect both the site’s effectiveness and your business. Website design companies emphasize the importance of a good nav bar and work hard to choose the right one. Ensure that your site is user-friendly by working with experienced website design services to choose the right navigation bar!
