Consistent website experiences with intuitive navigation

Consistent Website Experiences with
Intuitive Navigation
Slide 1
Consistent Website Experiences
with Intuitive Navigation

Slide 2
1) Following the Prospect’s Path
2) Homepages Are Your Ultimate Brand Statement
3) Landing Pages, Not Crash Landings
4) Intuitive Navigation
5) Content Management Strategy
6) Testing and Optimization
Overview
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Consistent Website Experiences with Intuitive Navigation

Slide 3
 A useful exercise for any web designer is to trace the path
backwards from desired action to undecided target market.
 For higher education recruiters, the key demographic tends to be
tech-savvy teens, but this can be segmented further according to
various factors, such as your audience's age, level of education,
consumer and social media habits, and perceived preferences.
 The importance of a visually appealing website can't be
underestimated.
 Particularly for international students with potential language
barriers.
 Emerging best practice demands a mobile-first mindset for
student recruitment, recognizing that design must be
optimized for smart phones and tablets.
1. Following the Prospect’s Path

Slide 4
 A university's homepage is the hub of its web presence and
in attempting to appeal to a diverse range of visitors.
 The challenge is staying intuitive and uncluttered.
 A popular format is to feature a revolving slideshow, each
slide representing a story that appeals to various target
markets with engaging visuals and always prominent calls to
action, i.e. "Apply Now.”
 Well-placed navigation bars offer a minimal number of options to
high-value landing pages, such as About, Admissions, Academics,
and Student Life, and should be easily accessible anywhere on your
site.
2. Homepages Are Your Ultimate Brand
Statement

Slide 5
 Bring down your bounce rates with landing pages that
clearly present a manageable amount of focused content
(150-300 words is usually sufficient) in visually engaging
ways.
 Capture attention and engage motivation with a large, concise
headline, then get right to the point with a unified goal, message and
desired action.
 Your most important messaging and call to action must be
"above the fold" so users can quickly find what they're
seeking with a minimum of reading or scrolling.
 Creating a landing page for each segmented user-type eases
performance measurement with analytics while providing paths to
action undiluted by unnecessary distractions.
3. Landing Pages Not Crash Landings

Slide 6
 Developing efficient internal navigation is not always easy to
do well, but it is particularly important for higher education
websites with extensive information to convey.
 If visitors have to go back to your homepage every time to find the
content they're seeking, they aren't likely to stay on your site very
long.
 Many university websites feature a main navigation bar near
the top and even a second or third row of navigation options
to ensure visitors can quickly move through the site and
search for desired pages.
 Each top navigation bar features four to ten options, which may have
dropdown menus, and are constantly visible throughout the site.
4. Intuitive Navigation

Slide 7
 Centralizing and coordinating the web content authoring
process promotes a consistent and compelling experience
across the website.
 Without coherent content strategy and development, visitors are
often left with the impression that the university site is only a
disjointed collection of departments, lacking a shared identity,
common vision and commitment to students.
 Establishing publishing guidelines, policies and website
governance procedures with standardized branding, process
automation and a preformatted design framework ensures
greater efficiency and consistency on every page of the site.
5. Content Management Strategy

Slide 8
 Analyze from a prospect's perspective to eliminate
distracting elements, extraneous data and complex forms.
 Before making changes live, a good rule of thumb is to show an
objective volunteer the screen for five seconds, then ask what the
purpose of the page was.
 Validate decisions with A/B testing to compare alternate designs and
messaging, or with and without videos, testimonials and images.
 Google Analytics is an excellent tool for tracking website
performance, showing where traffic originated, most popular
landing pages and navigation patterns.
 Better design and navigation not only attracts more visitors
to your website and increases conversions, but also
improves organizational effectiveness and promotes the
image of a coordinated and effective institution.
6. Testing and Optimization

Slide 9
Questions?
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info@higher-education-marketing.com
Visit our Website: Higher Education Marketing
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