In this part of his series on strategic internet marketing in B2B, Sanjay Sauldie looks at the navigation of a website. Navigation is an important sticking point for search engines and for people. The internet marketing expert shows you how to create an optimal navigation structure for your website in 7 steps.
Step 1: How to get good navigation
Do you know Post-Its? Yes, those little yellow pieces of paper that you can stick almost anywhere. Make sure you have enough of them and start brainstorming all the topics you want to include on your website by writing them down randomly. If you like, get your team or good friends involved. This work has to be done once, because the more ideas flow in, the more time you save later and you don't have to restructure. Collect all the topics and headings now and write them on the yellow slips of paper, one topic per slip.
Step 2: The law of 7 decisions
My customers love to take a large table and lay out a large sheet of paper. On this sheet, please draw a table with 7 columns. Perceptual psychologists have found that users consider up to 7 alternatives acceptable when making decisions, anything more than that creates stress. Company websites with more than 7 headings (links) in the main navigation have a particularly difficult time being recognised by the target group.
Now distribute the stick-its in these columns according to headings and subtopics. Play a little and let someone else join in. It's fun and at the same time you make sure that it's not just your logic (as an expert, you are thematically biased, your visitor perhaps not!) that prevails.
Once you have distributed all the pieces of paper, look at your work and keep sorting until you are really satisfied. Please take your time to do this. It's worth it, even if your website then has to be reorganised. But don't think about that just yet.
Step 3: Naming the main categories
Do you know websites whose main sections make you ponder? You will often find websites on the net, even of renowned companies, where you cannot navigate easily. Click here. Self-explanatory?
Make sure that your rubrics support two essential features:
- Clear labelling for people so that they can find their way around easily.
- Try to include keywords in the main navigation.
Search engines rate text that appears in the navigation higher. Google recognises in the source text which text is a link and gives the words in the link text up to three times as much weight as normal text. The navigation is therefore an ideal place to place your main search terms.
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