Does Your Website Have What It Takes?

The Key Factors that Determine the Flow of Your Website in the Digital Environment

By: Kimberly Grant

One thing consumers hate about the buying process is slow output and websites with hard-to-find information.  You always want to make the conversion process is as easy as possible for your customers.

What It Takes

In marketing, the “flow” of website is important.  Flow describes how easy it is for users to navigate your website.  If a user has to hunt for your “Contact Us” feature and go outside of your website to run a Google Search to find your information that’s bad.  In fact, it means your webmaster has their work cut out for them. 

As we know, the average attention span of any user is low.  If it takes longer than five seconds for a webpage to load, you’ve already lost your customer.  There are a lot of other factors involved in the flow of your website, as well.  Users should be able to fill out a form with ease.  Users should be able to find the products or services their looking for with ease.  And, users should be able to find out information on your brand with a simple click.  An example of getting information on a brand is my “About K. A. Grant” section.

Natural Laws of Flow

The three most important aspects of maintaining a good flow to your website are:

1. Consistency
2. Simplicity
3. Context

Consistent Flow

Your website should have a consistent theme and view.  The best way to achieve a visual consistency is to use a cascading style sheet (CSS).  CSS is basically the format (look and feel) of your website that is seen on all of your pages.  An example of this is my “Marketing Tips” and “Movie Review” sections.  Despite being about two different subjects, both pages have the same look and feel because they are blog posts.

Another form of consistency in your website is making sure that your menu options are easy to find and understand.  It is not a good idea to be too creative in your menu options.  You should use the same terms that most websites in your industry use.  A slightly creative, yet consistent example of website menu navigation can be found on the AMC Theatres website. 

Simple Flow

We all love having options.  But too many options on a website can be overwhelming for a user.  If you have a website that has a lot to offer, your best bet is to simplify the offerings by organizing them into groups.  For example, Amazon.com has a lot to offer their customers.  However, they have grouped their products into departments that include Books, Handmade, Food & Grocery, Electronics, and Movies; to name a few.

Simplicity is a key component to ensuring that your customers can navigate your website without confusion.  The simpler the options, the more likely you are to keep customers on your website.  Another great example of a retailer who has a lot to offer with a simple menu is Fiverr.com.  Fiverr is a consumer-to-consumer (C2C) website that caters to those who are looking to buy and sell creative services.  It’s completely digital-based and the website’s menu has a simple flow to cater to any and all creative needs.

Contextual Flow

Anything is easy to understand once it is placed in context.  Context is like providing an example for someone to get a better understanding of what you are saying.  One way that a website can provide context to users is to make sure the customer doesn’t get “lost”.  Have you ever clicked through a website and didn’t know how to get to the home page?  That’s a lack of context.

A great way to make sure your website flow is in context is to have a prominent link to the home page of the website.  Once the user links back to the home page, there should be a prominent menu option to continue navigating through the website.  Another way to keep a contextual flow on your website is to make sure that the page indicates where the user is located on the site.  For instance, if a user clicks on the “Weekly” section of Box Office Mojo.com, they will not be lost once they have viewed the information on the page.   

Flowing With the Best of Them

Now you know what it takes to get and keep a good flow to your website.  It’s time to put it in action.  Are there areas of improvement on your website?  A great way to test out the flow of your website is to have friends and family (if you’re on a budget) navigate through your site and provide feedback.  What did they like?  What don’t they like?  Once you adjust your flow, it will be easy sailing for your customers.

Like the flow of this post?  You can read my take on contextual marketing here.

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