Any visitor on your site should immediately be able to tell what page they are on, regardless of how they got there or where they landed.[Tweet This] If your site is well optimized, then every page is a landing page. This means visitors may land on a product, category, about us, or other page, just as much as they might land on the home page. It should be clear which page they are on at just a glance. Otherwise, visitors may be getting lost on your website.
How do you ensure that doesn’t happen?
There are many ways to ensure visitors are getting the visual clues they need to know where they are on your site. Content is the big one, but that often requires reading. So other, more immediate clues must be provided.
Proper use of page headings it the single best way to quickly let visitors know what page they landed on. If the heading at the top stands out, that will be one of the first things visitors see. That should let them know exactly where they landed and what they can expect from the page.
Other visual clues you can implement are navigational highlights and breadcrumbs, both of which can provided a clear indication of not only which page the visitor is on, but where that page resides in the site’s informational structure. Both are important for a visitor’s ability to navigate further into the site.
You also want to make sure that your home page differs visually from all other pages so when a visitor hits there, it’s clear that this isn’t just another information or product page. Clearly, you need to maintain the navigational theme on the home page, but the layout of the rest of the page should be designed as more of a hub to drive visitors to pages that have the information they need.