Good Website navigation helps site visitors become buyers more quickly and easily - whether it’s making a purchase, becoming a member, signing up for an e-newsletter or requesting a free report. You should design your site the way people think, so that it is consistent with the way they want to interact with your site. Remember these three cardinal rules: keep it simple, make it intuitive and be consistent.

It’s all about designing your information architecture around the searching patterns and psychology of your visitors - not coming up with something that looks great, but frustrates visitors and drives them away from your site. When you make it easy for your visitors to find what the information they want on your site, quickly and intuitively, more of them will convert to buyers, members, applicants, etc. And that’s the whole point, isn’t it?

Studies show that people search for and gather information in fairly predictable ways. So, keep the following in mind when designing your Website:

• To optimize your site, you need to recognize users are task-oriented, or “goal-driven.” They pursue what they are looking for rather single-mindedly, and even when they are browsing, they browse within a narrow field.
• Users rarely look at logos, mission statements, slogans, or any other elements they consider fluff.
• If a page does not appear relevant to the user’s current goal, then the user will ruthlessly click the “Back” button after two or three seconds.
• If users don’t understand a certain design element, they don’t spend time learning it.
• Most users hate distractions, such as flashing gifs, and hate un-requested intrusions, such as pop-ups.

Your site navigation should orientate visitors by letting them know where they are, where to go next and how to get back. So be sure to design your Website to work for visitors, instead of against them to receive the best possible results.

Tracy Barbour, M.S.M., CeM, is a certified emarketing professional with 20 years of online and traditional marketing, advertising and copywriting experience. Tracy, who holds a master’s degree in business management and bachelor’s in journalism, enjoys helping businesses leverage Internet technology to broaden their reach, reduce their costs and increase their profits. She is a published author who specializes in writing about the Internet, traditional marketing, public relations, business, banking, personal finance, insurance, real estate and technology. Tracy is also principal of RightResponse eMarketing, which operates several consumer-oriented Websites such as http://www.WebsiteOptimizationTricks.com

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