This Simple Website Tweak Can Bring a Ton of Conversions

What if one simple — but not so obvious — tweak to your web design could cause a spike in conversions?

User experience is important, and one of the biggest factors in that is navigation.

People don't have all day.

If they can't find what they're looking for fast, they'll bounce.

So intuitive, easy-to-find menus are a must-have for any website.

But your menu isn't just a way to find pages on your site.

It can also become a tool that drives conversions.

If you optimize your menu carefully to direct your audience wherever you want them to go, you might just find you're making more sales.

To do that, you need to figure out what you're trying to do.

You need goals for your menu before you can redesign it. In a recent post, Blog Tyrant offers some good ideas.

Coming up with some goals for your menu

Before you decide what to add to your menu it’s really important to come up with some goals.

And the goals you have for your menu will closely align with the goals you have for your blog and your blogging strategy as a whole.

If you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve on your site as a whole, there is no way your menu will be effective.

So what outcomes are we looking for in the menu?

• Getting people to make contact
  If you’re a physical business like a physiotherapist or a mechanic, then one of your menu’s primary functions will be to make it easy for people to ring and make an appointment. We’ll look at ways to do this below.
• Encouraging sign ups
  A blog will likely be focusing on mailing list sign ups and, as such, some of your menu real estate should be devoted to making it easy for people to subscribe.
• Making people aware of announcements
  If you’ve just spent months developing a new tool or creating a conference then you want to make sure that is present in a menu, especially if you’ve been advertising it around the web.
• Clarifying their place on site
  If you have an ultra-complicated website (think Amazon.com) then the menu should be devoted in parts to helping people understand where they are so that they don’t abandon. This might also work for a checkout process or some sort of timeline.
• Making a direct or indirect sale
  Making a sale will be a primary purpose of many menus and can be done by either directly promoting a product, or leading people to a landing page or additional content that will make the pitch.

When we decide on a goal for the menu based on our blog’s overall strategy, it will be much easier to create something that makes sense and converts well.

You can learn more about good menu design over at Blog Tyrant.