When creating a landing page, there are many design aspects you need to consider. One of the most important things you’ll need to think about is the navigation on the site. Are you going to have top, side, or bottom navigation? Is it even necessary to have navigation on a landing page at all?
The Big Decision
Image via Flickr by Colin Kinner
Before you can decide where to put the navigation, you need to first decide if you’re going to have navigation links at all. There are pros and cons to navigation on your landing page. For example, if you don’t have a way for people to get around other parts of your site, you may end up losing customers. However, if you want them to stay on the page they are on, including navigation will lead them away. Making the decision about whether or not to use this on your landing page greatly relies on the type of page you have, and your product or service.
More Page Options
Image via Flickr by Carol Pyles
Consider the benefits of allowing visitors to explore more. After they come to your landing page, you can easily direct them to more information about the product or service you’re selling. This allows them to get a better understanding of what they’re looking at. In addition, having a navigation bar helps ensure that customers are on your site longer. While they may not stay on the original landing page as long, they’re likely to look around. This will help your bounce rate and could also help you conversions.
Get Rid of Confusion
Image via Flickr by jakeliefer
You may decide that for your site, you don’t need your customers wandering around. All of the needed information is available on the landing page, and therefore it would be silly to have them clicking around everywhere. In addition, extra navigation could cause confusion and frustration on the part of the visitor. If you want people to stay on the landing page and fill out the email capture without all the extras, try getting rid of your navigation.
Necessary Links
Image via Flickr by Paladin Zhang
There are some links that you’ll want on your site. For example, it’s important to have a “Contact Us” or “About Us” section. These allow the customer to find out more information about your company and ensures that they’re able to get in contact with you in case of a problem.
Navigation Positioning
There are a few options for positioning of the navigation bar, if you decide to have one. The most common are top and side navigation. If you have top navigation, your visitors will be able to quickly and easily see other pages on your site. Side navigation allows them to first see what you’re offering, and frees up some crucial space on the page. Another option is to have all navigation links at the bottom of the site.
When deciding on navigation, make sure that what you choose fits with the rest of the design. Out of place or overbearing navigation links are distracting and will increase your bounce rate. The best thing to do is test all variations of your navigation and see which performs the best!
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By Jon Correll
Would have been a much better article if you gave some GOOD visual examples of landing pages with good and bad navigation elements on them.
Hi KuroiEggs – I agree with you. Some of our other posts will show specific screenshots, but this article was just hoping to bring up the topic. We’ll be sure to include more visual examples in future posts. Thanks for the feedback!