Is Your Site Easy to Navigate? Six Ways to Put an End to Dead Ends

Site navigation is one of the more important pieces to successful website management. Unfortunately, there are far more ways to do it wrong than right. If users can't navigate or even struggle to find what they're looking for, they'll move on with the click of the "Back" button - one of those nasty navigation buttons that works all too well. Site navigation doesn't have to be complex, even if you have a great deal of content across lots of categories. With a few simple best practices in place, you can dramatically improve how your site visitors are able to find information and continue interacting with our site.

1. Search bar

Probably the most under-discussed and under-rated feature that every site should take advantage of is a search bar. This allows users to quickly type in product names or anything else they may be looking for specifically. Make sure you check your own search results on occassion to be sure that the feature works and is easy for users to work with. Also, put your search bar in a prominent place in or near the banner of your website. The search bar sometimes gets lost along a sidebar, which can be frustrating for users who just want to find information quickly.

2. Horizontal navigation tools

A common mistake in navigation design is to put the primary links only in a vertical menu in a sidebar. A navigation best practice for modern sites is to use a horizontal menu bar at or near the top of the page. You don't have to put every link to your site in the navigation bar. The key is to provide quick, consistent access to the main pages on your site. If you have an "About Us" page, make sure that this link is always in the nav menu. If you have sub-pages, you can list these links within the "About Us" page, for example, or in a drop-down menu.

3. Common naming

Avoid odd naming of links to primary pages. While this might seem interesting, it confuses some website users and all search engines. For example, avoid calling the "About Us" page something like "Our Info". This could mean your contact information, your address, your "About Us" page - "Our Info" could means lots of things. But we all know what an "About Us" page is. So stick with the standards on this one so that your visitors can find what they need right when they need it.

4. Use arrows for drop-down menus

If you use drop-down menus in the horizontal navigation bar, include a visual cue like a downward facing arrow for these menus so users know a drop-down menu is present. It's annoying when you go to click on an "About Us" menu item and it springs open to reveal several sub-pages, but it's too late - you've already clicked it and now the site is taking you somewhere else. The same goes for sub-sub-menus. You know, the drop-down menus that then open up into another set of options? Yeah, those. From a navigation standpoint, these are fine, but make sure the menu has an arrow that points to the right so users know another menu is about to open.

5. Breadcrumbs

If your site includes multiple categories or a progressive experience (such as filling out a multipage form or a shopping cart), provide breadcrumbs along the top but below the main navigation window. This allows users to tell where they are at in the heirarchy of your site and can quickly jump back a few steps without starting over.

6. Logo goes home

And for those visitors that need to zip back to your home page, make sure the logo links back to your home page. This is just a common practice, but studies are showing that this logo link is used far more often than realized. A common example is after a user has placed an item in their cart, they want to start over and find another item. While many users tend to just go to the search bar or use the breadcrumbs, another prominent set uses the logo link to get back to the home page and start over.

Conclusion

Site navigation is very important and these few, simple best practices can make navigating your site all the more easy. Often it just takes a few small changes to make a big improvement, so get out there, review your site's navigation, and make it easier for your visitors to find what they're looking for.

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McDonald’s "Pay With Lovin’" Campaign: A Cautionary Tale of Good PR Gone Wrong

During this year’s Super Bowl, McDonald’s ran a very interesting commercial, not about a special new sandwich or other changes to the fast-food giant’s menu, but about how customers may be able to pay for the items on that menu. Dubbed “Pay With Lovin”, this new promotion allows select customers to pay for their order with kindness of some kind. As shown in the ad, you can make a call to a family member and tell them that you love them, give someone a compliment, or even do a little dance in exchange for your Big Mac and fries. The ad itself is actually very well done and touching, and the entire campaign is an interesting change from a company that is certainly not seen in a favorable light by many consumers (McDonald’s is always at or near the top of “Worst Fast-Food Restaurant” surveys and lists). In this article, we will take a look at why this new promotion from McDonald’s is a good move for the company and what we may be able to learn from this campaign.

The perception of McDonald's

When someone says “McDonald’s” to you, what do you immediately think of? If your answer is “cheap, low-quality food”, then you are not alone. Right or wrong, McDonald’s has long been known by many for inexpensive, mediocre food. The company’s decisions over the years, like their “value menu” of very low cost items, has certainly contributed to this perception. Today, restaurants like Chipotle and Panera continue to grow in popularity by offering customers quick service, but with better quality (and more expensive) meal options than the traditional fast-food restaurants offer. These restaurants, often known as “Fast-Casual”, have taken business away from McDonalds while further cementing their place as the go-to location for that aforementioned “cheap food.” So how does McDonald’s start to move away from this negative perception of their brand – they begin by changing the conversation.

Changing the conversation

McDonald’s latest promotion has nothing to do with their food or their prices, the two things for which they are most commonly known in negative light. This “Pay With Lovin” campaign is all about fun and good feelings. It is part contest, part giveaway, and part customer appreciation event all rolled into one.  The campaign itself is a very interesting experiment. Between February 2nd and the 14th, each participating McDonald’s location will have 100 total “prizes”, with a select number of customers selected by random each day. Those random customers will be given the opportunity to “Pay With Lovin” and use a fun expression of kindness instead of money when they are ordering their meal. There is excitement to this promotion as customers wonder if they will be chosen for this “Pay With Lovin” opportunity. It also provides McDonalds with a great way to connect with those customers in a way that they have never done before. In an article on Inc.com, McDonald’s Chief Marketing officer, Deborah Wahl, says, “We’re on a journey of transformation and a key part of that journey is how we engage with our customers.” McDonalds realizes that to change the negative perception of their brand, they need to change the conversation, and they are starting that change by interacting with their customers in a fun way that is designed to make people feel good.

People are talking

Another great aspect of this promotion is that people are talking about McDonalds – and it is not in a negative way! The company has given customers something to get excited about and something to share with others. That moment of delight when a customer is informed that they can “Pay With Lovin”, and the fun that happens from that event, is something people can enjoy and then share on social media by telling others about the experience. This will further spread the good cheer and the positive vibes for a brand that has seen far too few of those in recent years. The fact that people are being nice and kind as part of this campaign just adds to the positive vibes of the promotion, and while I am sure there will be the occasional sourpuss who will refuse to engage in this idea (you can’t please everyone, no matter how hard you try), the majority of customers who are told their order is free if they simply spread some love will be happy to do so!

What’s next?

So changing the conversation is a great start for McDonalds, but what comes next? This promotion, as innovative as it is, is a short term initiative. Once this campaign is over, McDonald’s will be back to being known as that cheap, low quality fast food restaurant unless they make some additional moves in their business. If they want to truly change the conversation in the long term, they need to build on what they have started here – but at least they have found a place to start.

What can we learn?

So what marketing lessons can we take away from McDonald’s “Pay With Lovin” campaign?

1. If people are speaking negatively about your brand, finding a way to change the conversation is a good start to changing perception.
2. If you want to change the conversation, start with your existing customers and change how they talk and think about your company.
3. Engaging customers in ways that are fun and unique will get people excited and talking, which encourages them to tell others about their experience. The more people they tell, the quicker the conversation around your brand moves towards the positive.
4. A campaign like this is a great start, but if you have larger problems, you still need to fix those issues or risk falling back exactly to where you were before your campaign began.

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