9 Website Navigation Changes that Boosted User Engagement

In the quest to enhance website navigation for better user engagement and SEO, we’ve gathered insights from a diverse group of professionals, including a Freelance Web and UX Designer and an Operations Manager. From a streamlined menu that enhances user experience to a redesigned menu improving content accessibility, explore the transformative strategies in these nine expert contributions.

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Streamlined Menu Enhances User Experience

In one of our client projects, we made a game-changing tweak to the website’s navigation by streamlining the main menu and grouping items into broader, user-friendly categories, all while highlighting a standout call-to-action (CTA) button. This small but mighty change cut down on clutter and confusion, making the site a breeze to navigate. The result? Visitors found exactly what they needed in a snap, which meant they stuck around longer and engaged more.

On the SEO front, this clearer navigation allowed search engines to crawl and index the site more effectively. By aligning the menu with key SEO strategies, we boosted the site’s visibility and soared up the search rankings.

This strategic move proved to be a win-win, enhancing both user engagement and SEO performance. Our site didn’t just attract more visitors—it turned them into leads at a higher rate. Let me tell you, a well-thought-out navigation can truly transform your website, making it not only more user-friendly but also a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal.

Orsolya Veres, Freelance Web and UX Designer, Design You Need

Prioritize Key Collections in Navigation

A specific change I make to navigation for my SEO clients is making sure that the most important product collections or services that a brand offers are in the main navigation. This makes it easier for both Google and potential customers to find what they are looking for and should lead to increased rankings, better traffic, and more conversions.

Noah Kain, Owner, Noah Kain Consulting

Simplify Navigation and URL Structure

I always try to make an intuitive website menu and organize the content into clear categories, such as “Services,” “About Us,” “Booking Form,” “Patient Resources,” “Before and After,” and “Contact Us.” By streamlining these categories, I’m reducing the number of clicks needed to reach specific services, which significantly decreases the site’s bounce rate and increases the average session duration. This structural optimization makes the website not only more user-friendly but also more attractive to search engines.

This change facilitates better indexing by search engines, as the clearer navigation helps search engine crawlers understand the site’s layout and content hierarchy more effectively. In most cases, I’m observing an improvement in search engine rankings for key service-related terms and an increase in organic traffic.

Ihor Lavrenenko, SEO Specialist, Dental SEO Expert

Highlight Popular Content on Homepage

Adding a “Most Popular Adventures” section to our homepage was a game-changer. It’s like when you walk into a party and see your favorite snacks laid out right in front of you—you’re going to stick around, right? That’s what happened with our visitors. They saw the cool stuff immediately, dove in, and hung around to explore more.

This tweak made our site way more inviting. People were clicking through like never before, spending more time with us, and really getting into what we offer. It’s pretty cool to see a simple change make such a big splash.

Our SEO got better too. With folks hanging around longer, our search rankings started climbing. Just goes to show that sometimes it’s the little things that make a huge difference.

Swena Kalra, Chief Marketing Officer, Scott & Yanling Media Inc.

Refreshed Navigation Boosts Engagement and SEO

We recently gave our website navigation a refresh, making it simpler and easier to navigate. This means visitors can find what they’re looking for faster, with fewer clicks!

The result? A big jump in user engagement. People are spending more time on our site (session time is up 30%!) and the bounce rate has dropped by 20%.

These improvements not only enhanced the user experience but also positively impacted our SEO rankings. Search engines now recognize our site as more user-friendly, which has led to better visibility in search results.

Brandon Longo, Founder, Organic Checkout

Refine Internal Linking Strategy

If you’re looking to improve both user engagement and SEO on your website, consider refining your internal linking strategy. Use descriptive anchor text for your internal links to clearly indicate the content of the destination pages.

This not only helps users navigate your site more effectively but also strengthens the clarity of your content structure for search engines. This simple change can make your site more intuitive and boost your search engine visibility, enhancing the overall user experience.

Marco Genaro Palma, Freelance CMO and SEO Consultant, SEO Coach

Breadcrumb Navigation Aids User and SEO

In an effort to enhance both user engagement and our SEO performance, we introduced breadcrumb navigation to our website. Breadcrumbs are navigational aids that show users their current location in the website’s hierarchy and offer links back to each preceding page, up to the homepage. 

Before this update, users often felt lost within the depths of our content-rich website, particularly when jumping in from search engine results or social media links. By implementing breadcrumbs, we provided a clear path for users to follow or backtrack, enhancing their overall navigation experience and encouraging them to explore additional content.

The introduction of breadcrumb navigation also had a direct impact on our website’s SEO. These navigational links not only help users understand the layout of the site but also allow search engines to understand the structure of our site more clearly. This clarity is communicated back to search engines, which enhances the site’s contextual understanding and can boost the SEO performance of related pages. 

Additionally, breadcrumbs can appear in Google search results, adding to the user-friendly appearance of our listings and often improving click-through rates from the search engine results page. This straightforward change was instrumental in decreasing bounce rates and increasing both page views per session and total session duration.

Sahil Kakkar, CEO and Founder, RankWatch

Main Navigation Links Boost SEO and Engagement

Having an optimized navigation makes it easy for Google to crawl your website, helping with indexing and improving both user engagement and SEO efforts. Our team started linking priority pages in our main navigation to build their link equity and make them more accessible. Some of these pages are listed as a main link, and others as sub-links, which helps improve organization. 

For example, we have an “Our Work” tab which includes a link to our “Commercial Work” page and sub-links to “Office Design” and “Restaurant Design” to help customers find these pages easily or recognize that we offer what they need. If you are wondering which pages should be added to your main navigation, check out your GA4 profile to see which pages are driving a lot of traffic.

Sarah Kuchar-Parkinson, Creative Director, Kuchar

Redesigned Menu Improves Content Accessibility

We’ve redesigned our menu by listing only the most important and relevant categories to our website. By simplifying and streamlining our navigation, users are able to find what they’re looking for more easily and quickly. This has resulted in a decrease in bounce rate and an increase in page views and time on page, indicating that users are more engaged with our content.

Tom Molnar, Operations Manager, Fit Design

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