IA and the prospect to lead cycle
Navigation, Information Architecture (IA) and site maps helps users understand where they are on the site, and helps them quickly get to where they want to go. Users will not continue to use a site that is difficult to use. Because of this, navigation and IA is a core requirement to align with the online prospect to lead cycle.
It’s very important that the navigational elements are consistent across the entire site. This allows users to have a visual indicator of where they are on the site, and determine where they want to go. It’s of utmost importance that users know what the links are, and they are not confused with other elements of the site. Stay consistent. Often users end up minesweeping for links (moving the mouse to what they think is a link to ensure that it is a link). That scores up a deficient site in user’s eyes.
Users that arrive on site through searches have to have an easy way to understand the site IA and navigate around their destination to refine their information. The easiest way to alleviate this is to have breadcrumb navigation.
As far as the prospect to lead, it’s important that the site’s IA mirror the user’s trigger events or personas. This will allow immediate identification of needed information, and you can define a site segmentation consistent with that trigger event. Once the user is on that path, you can pull the content pages that are applicable to that segmentation. Move that prospect to lead cycle up each time that user visits the site.
For example, if the user goes to the third step of a prospect to lead cycle of 20 steps, the next time the user visits the home page, highlight the fourth step in the process.
Remember, your site needs to be designed to help your prospects. The IA needs to be task-based in most cases. Help them find what they want to find, and you’ll have returning visitors, and then leads. In most cases sites mirror a company’s organizational structure, and not the hierarchy of prospect needs.
Gather the requirements from your prospects, not your staff.