Website navigation: how to design a menu that works

Your navigation menu is the map of your website. Get it right and visitors move confidently toward becoming customers; get it wrong and they get lost and leave. Clarity beats cleverness every time.

Keep it simple

• •A short list of clear, plain labels (not clever names).
• •The most important pages first.
• •A visible, obvious call to action (like 'Get a quote').

Make it work on mobile

Most visitors are on a phone, so the mobile menu has to be easy to open and tap. Test it on a real device — if it's fiddly for you, it's costing you visitors.

Help people who are lost

Breadcrumbs, a clear footer, and a logical structure give people a way to reorient. Nobody should ever hit a dead end on your site.