People who visit your website are likely to have visited five websites earlier in the day before reaching yours, and will more than likely visit five more before bedtime.  They will view the web as one medium and they don’t want to relearn navigation skills on each new website they visit.  In short, they won’t thank you for “different”, or “quirky” or “unique experience” type websites.  So help them and avoid self indulgent designs.

When a marketing manager is developing an offline marketing campaign for their brand, product or service, they will be seeking to scream uniqueness, difference and advantage in a very noisy world.  They will use the most innovative, creative ideas they can to influence colour, content, style, typography, photography and imagery displayed on their communications with their audiences.  They desperately wish to promote their product above the rest, to stand above the crowd and to show their uniqueness.

So why not do the same with the web?

There is a key difference between the media and it is to do with mindset of the viewer.  With traditional forms of marketing, your target audience is in a reactive mindset – you are trying to grab their attention.  On the web your visitors are in a proactive mindset – you have their full attention (albeit for a short time) and you must fulfil their needs.  If someone is on your website, it is because another form of marketing has worked and they will be there for a very definite purpose.  They are in effect saying “I know enough of your company to be interested in finding out more.  Now I would like to know more on X.”  The time for selling by quirkiness, or grabbing their attention by dramatic graphics is gone.  Now is the time for giving the visitor what they want – compelling content to help fulfil their requirements.  Now is the time for the discipline which is at the heart of the web, selling with content.

Consider another publishing medium – news print.  If you examine the front page of all the major broadsheet newspapers, they are designed virtually identically.  The logo is at the top centre of the page, headline news and sport is down the left, the key photograph is in the middle, dissecting the front page fold, key stories are at the top of the page, adverts are at the bottom right.  Newspaper brands are not diminished because they haven’t implemented cutting edge design.  Rather newspaper designs are all similar because research and best practice clearly indicates that the designs they implement are optimal for helping their readers get the most from the paper.  Crucially this doesn’t mean that there is no room for creativity for the paper – rather it means that the paper must have compelling photography and content to interest the reader to read further.

This is identical to the web.

Lean on the findings from research and best practice to follow some simple guidelines:

• Ensure that navigation is consistent on every page of your website.

• Use names that are standard.  Standard conventions include home, about us, contact us, products & services.

• It should appear on the top left of the site where users expect it.

• It is common, and recommended that this is complemented with text only and site map options directly underneath.

• If you are a bank and you have a personal loan product called “PL Express”, call your link “personal loans” and explain all about PL Express in the copy of the page.

How do we know that this approach to web publishing is successful?  Because experience and case studies show it works.  Early adopters who have focussed their internet decision making on commercial realities above all else such as Amazon, Dell, HP, IBM and Microsoft all adopt this approach on their websites.  There is evidence of standardisation and convergence everywhere.  These companies put their faith in the quality of their content to sell their products.

So on the web trust your content.  Invest time not in getting a unique design, but in producing unique, compelling content.  Don’t naval gaze.  Rather, put yourself in the shoes of your online visitors, and make their route to gripping, crucial content quick and easy.