When you design a website for your ecommerce business, blog, service, or portfolio, there is one thing you are always fighting against. This is the tendency of visitors to click away. And if that sounds like the most obvious thing under the sun, you haven’t thought about it enough.
People don’t only click away from websites because they get bored or they can’t find what they need. In fact, this clicking away typically happens within a couple of second. So when creating a website, you really need to make an instant impression.
For most people, this usually means getting the right aesthetics and creating a website that looks good. Sacramento web designer Peak Design stress that aesthetics is essential to make that first impression, but actually more important might be the functionality of the website, how it is interacted with, and where all the links lead.
What we are talking about here is website structure, and it is absolutely essential if you’re going to see any clients or customers.
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What is Site Structure?
A website’s structure can be thought of as the network of links which lead between different pages on the site. This needs to be optimized if visitors are going to find what they’re looking for.
Moreover, just as the visual first impression is particularly important, a visitor to your site will not want to waste an inordinate amount of time clicking through links. In fact, if the very first link on the homepage doesn’t instantly take them in the right direction, they are likely to click away.
This is why a website’s structure is so important. The alternative is a mess of jumbled pages and links, which only frustrate visitors – though not for long.
Good Website Structure
What makes for a good website structure then? Luckily, it doesn’t vary too much depending on what type of website you’re dealing with. Good website design is always about making things easy to find. There are several ways to do that, however.
For some web designs, the optimal navigation process can vary, but these are the exceptions and not the rule.
For example, any fairly specialist service – like a law firm instead of an ecommerce site – can be a bit more complex and still be okay. You can also assume a slightly longer attention span on the part of the visitor.
Seeking a legal representation requires a fair amount of concentration and research on the part of the person seeking it, and so you can include more auxiliary pages and FAQs with these types of websites. However, that concentration will not last forever,so you still need to spark interest.
Important Web Design Elements
So much will depend on precisely what you’re hoping to achieve. In nearly all cases though, the following elements should certainly be represented in your website design:
Navigation
We have already spoken about this at length, but it’s worth giving an extra tip here. Generallyspeaking, all pages should be no more than three clicks away from the homepage.
Web Friendly
This is the process of ensuring your websitelooks great on multiple browsers and on smartphone displays. Naturally. How this is formatted can be quite complex though, so you might need to hire a professional.
Interaction
It’s important to hold the attention of visitor on every page that they land on. This can be prompts to contact you, chat boxes, etc. Anything which makes the visitor take some action promotes interaction. However, do not overdo itbecause this also has the potential to be very annoying.
Good web design boils down, in the end, to only two elements – a great look and ease of use.