5 Link Mistakes You Should Be Avoiding

A well-designed website is attractive, easy-to-use and functional. When creating a website for your company, it is important to have a good system for links. How the links on your website are displayed and organized will determine how easy it is for users to navigate your website and get the information they need. When in doubt, it’s always better to keep things simple and easy to understand. Here are five important mistakes to avoid:

1. Dedicated Home Buttons

It is common knowledge that clicking the company’s logo will take you to the homepage. A text link for the home page becomes clutter at this point. A home link also draws users away from other important website content. The goal should be to keep users engaged and focused.

2. Arranging Navigation Links in a Random Order

Website navigation links should follow a logical order. There should be “learning” links, and then there should be “action” links. The user gathers information with “learning” links. “Learning” links should be on the left side. “Action” links will take you to pages such as the contact us page — these links should be on the right side. You should organize again by importance within these two categories.

3. Drop Down Links

Drop down links can be annoying to the person looking for information on the website. With this type of navigation, you are only able to see the other links if you hover, which can be problematic especially to mobile users. One thing you could do instead of a drop down menu is to add a separate navigation to the secondary pages. This ensures that you are not hiding content. Another option is to combine the content of a few pages into one.

4. Too Many Navigation Choices

With fewer menu items, users can focus on what’s important. Every time you remove a menu item, the remaining items become more prominent. The navigation generally shouldn’t exceed five links. You can combine the content of a few pages into one to resolve this problem. For example, the content from the FAQ’s page can combine with the about page in some cases.

5. Footers That List Every Navigation Link (Again)

Having a complete list of the pages on your website in the footer is redundant. All the main links should be accessible through the main navigation. In the past, websites have included all of the links in the footer so that you didn’t have to scroll to the top to go to a different page. This problem is easily resolved by including a navigation bar that sticks to the top of the page as you scroll down. The only links that should be in the footer are ones that are still needed, but not as important to the user. Examples include links to the privacy policy or terms and conditions pages.
Your goal is to create a system of links that is both easy to understand and doesn’t add any clutter to the website. By getting rid of non-essential items and putting links in logical places, you make it easier for users to find what they are looking for. If you need help growing your web traffic or designing a new website, contact us today so we can create something amazing for your business that will bring results!