Introduction
A navigation system is something that you create while making your website that works to help guide your customers through your website and make it easy for them to find what they are looking for you.
Build Pages
Before you can create a navigation system for your website, you need to come up with different ideas for pages that you want to put on your website. Think of what your company is, service or product based, and then decide what pages you need. Some different pages that you might need to create are:
- Home Page
- This is the main page of your website and will be where you have most of the information about what you do and what you sell and lots of other aspects. It should be very important to make sure that this page shows your brand’s personality including the colors you use and different images.
- About Page
- This page should focus on the history of your brand along with what your brand is like currently. It should include how your business got started and why it was started. It should also include what you are trying to accomplish through your business.
- Main Services / Products Page
- This is where you will put what you are selling whether it be a product or a service. This page will have other pages hooked to it that will allow the customer to go into those pages and look into more detail about the products or service that they are wanting to purchase. On this page you will have a brief overview of your services and products along with.
- Individual Products / Services Page
- You will have lots of these pages, one for a group of related products or one for each service that you provide. This is where you will go in depth on the group of products or the one service that you provide. You can talk about the benefits of the product / service, how it was made, how to use it, everything that your customers are going to want to know about that product.
- Contact Page
- On this page you will have all of the different ways to contact you. This includes email, phone number, address, and all of the social media platforms that you are on. This will help with your customer service and will be a way for you to stay connected with your customers. It can also be a way to collect your customers’ contact information which will then allow you to market to them.
- Other Pages
- There are lots of other pages that your company may need. Make pages that are unique to your business and serve unique purposes. If you have lots of events, make an event page. If you have people that you want to put on a wall of fame, make a wall of fame page. There is no limit to the number of pages that you can have or the uniqueness of them so be creative and go wild.
Branding the Navigation Tab
One of the most important parts of the navigation system is how it looks because this will affect the way the user thinks of your brand. Your navigation tab should be something that you are able to express your brand’s personality through. Not only should you include colors, fonts, and other aspects of your brand, you also need to make sure that your navigation bar / tab is very visible and easy to see that it is a way to navigate your site. You want to act like all of the visitors to your site barely know how to run a computer. In other words make it impossible to not see the navigation tab and realize what it is for.
Organizing your pages
The way your pages are arranged is another very important aspect. You want your pages to be organized in a way that it is easy to find what you are looking for. You don’t want to organize them too much so that pages are under pages, but you also need to organize them more than just slapping them into the navigation bar. Organize your pages like a pyramid. Have the main topic at the top and work your way down into the finer more detailed aspects of that topic. For example, if you have a clothing line with-in your business, have a main tab that says “Clothing” and then below that put your shirts tab, and pants tab, etc. You can organize any aspect of your pages like this and some pages may not even need to be under a higher subject. How this is set up is completely up to you. There isn’t a right way to do it.
Navigation Using Buttons Throughout Your Site
Every website should have a navigation bar at the top of the website along with buttons or links throughout all of the pages that are internal links or hyperlinks. These links or buttons can be placed in blocks of texts, below images, or any other spots that you might want them. They should say exactly where they are going to take the customer or even an action word. Not only do the buttons help with customer experience, they also help with SEO purposes. When your site is indexed or crawled by a google bot, it goes through all the links on your website. When you put links or buttons that are internal links, it causes the bot to constantly be crawling your site. This helps to make sure that changes you make are seen quickly by the bot and will then cause you to rank higher. Buttons are a great way to increase your customer experience and make it easier to navigate your website.
Conclusion
It is crucial for your website to have an efficient navigation system. When you do, it allows your customers to stay on your website longer and also helps with other SEO purposes. You want to make your navigation bar very visible and easy to use, making sure that the pages are organized and all the links work. Everything with the navigation system is editable and can be a way to express your company’s personality. There is no correct way to do it. Make it yours.