17 July 2009
Imagine if every time you go to your favorite store to buy toothpaste, they have it in a different location. There is no women's clothing section, no area for household cleaners--everything is just shelved haphazardly. Your favorite store would not likely be your favorite for very long.
Your customers will feel that same frustration if they come to your Website and cannot find what they want. That is why building logical navigation and robust search features is crucial when you create a Website.
Menus and navigation bars are primary ways customers find information. When you begin thinking about how to build a Website, utilizing these Web building tools is critical. You can incorporate several menus on each page, as long as they are distinct and their purpose is clear. For example, you might have a menu on the left side of a Web site page linking to main product categories and a list at the top linking to general information on your company.
Let's say you have a category for "health care products" and "sporting goods." If you list each category separately in your menu, when the customer chooses "sporting goods," they will be taken to a page focused on that merchandise. The menu on the side will now list "outdoor wear" and "camping equipment." At any time, your customer can move forward through the links or go backward to the main topic.
If you create a Website employing a drop-down list, you give your customer even more browsing flexibility. With this feature, each of your categories will be listed along the top of your site. When the customer clicks on a category heading, a list of sub-categories "drops down." They can select from these sub-categories and then browse through specific choices.
The search feature is another indispensable tool to consider when thinking about how to build a Website. This feature allows your customers to directly access a desired item. A customer can type "Zesty-Z" into the search tool, hit "go," and add Zesty-Z toothpaste to his cart, without having to navigate through the menus.
Creating a professional looking and easy to navigate Web site ensures that your customers will never get lost.