If you have a Youtube channel about gardening, and then you suddenly upload a video about cars, then it is likely that people will move away from your channel.
The same principle applies to websites.
If your website is about a certain topic or theme, then you can connect with your target audience by showing relevant articles, videos and pictures.
Most website owners already group posts pertaining to the same topic into categories.
There are 3 other areas that you can tweak either to show relevant information or to encourage people to perform your desired call to action:
- the sidebar
- the fat footer
- the menubar
The sidebar
The sidebar is the area where you place your widgets. They are located either to the left or to the right of your main content area (where your articles appear).
Most websites have the same widgets on their sidebar, no matter which page or post is being viewed. You can actually customize this area to show only the widgets that you need for that page/post.
An example of that would be James Schramko’s Superfastbusiness website.
If you click on the Internet Marketing Widget on the homepage, it will take you to the category page for internet marketing, and the widget on the sidebar shows links about internet marketing.
If you click on the Traffic & SEO widget on the homepage, it will take you to the category page for SEO, and again, the sidebar shows links about SEO and traffic services.
The Fat Footer
The fat footer is the area right above your footer links. Some websites have 3-4 vertical widgets there for their Recent Posts, Recent Tweets and other info. Some websites have only one. In this example, it is being used to increase newsletter sign ups.
The Menubar
Did you know that you could have a second menubar?
The main menubar is the one that is on the homepage, and on all the rest of your pages. Most websites do not need a second menubar, especially if they only use a few post categories, but if you have a SUB categories, then you can enhance navigation by having a second menubar, and controlling which 2nd menubar displays on which category page.
Another good use of a custom 2nd menubar is if you have different sales pages without sidebars on the same website, and you want to show information that is relevant only to the product that your visitors are checking out.
Use your website to your maximum advantage by continuously testing what works and by making improvements. You can enhance customer experience and increase conversion by using these 3 areas to display your desired call to action.
When you want us to improve your website, we’d be happy to do it using our hourly packages.
