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Menu trends have changed a lot over the years. That’s because navigation is one of the most important aspects of web design. Ensuring that users can efficiently and intuitively navigate a website through menu best practices results in better user retention, more traffic, repeat business, positive digital word-of-mouth, and better SEO results. Easy-to-use menus are important to the user experience and search engine rankings. These four menu trends can help to bolster a website’s metrics by way of better user experience.

1. Sticky navigation menus. Back and forth searching is frustrating to website users, particularly on smaller device screens such as cell phones. Bouncing between content and menu navigation can cause high website bounce rates and can have a negative impact on metrics such as conversion. Sticky navigation keeps the menu readily available to the user at the top of the page no matter where they are on the site. This immediacy and convenience improve user retention, conversion, repeat traffic, and concurrently improve SEO results through positive user experiences.

2. Full-screen navigation. What better way to make navigation elements the hero than by making the menu the visual of the home page? Full-screen menus are intuitive for users and help business laser-focus on the most important elements of their site to better funnel users to desired locations and promote a higher conversion rate.

3. Vertical stack menus. With the amount of online use taking place on mobile devices, vertical menus are becoming more and more effective. Horizontal menus can prove problematic on small-screen devices, which can have a negative impact on site retention and conversion. Vertical stack menus, however, enable websites to maintain consistency in navigation options across all types of devices and makes points of navigation easier to view and access. Vertical stack menus promote better user engagement on mobile devices and encourage users to spend more time on a given site.

4. Cards style navigation. Cards style navigation is intuitive and visually compelling. Many websites are taking inspiration from platforms such as Pinterest and instituting a cards-design full page menu. Cards leverage the communication power of visuals and compartmentalize important information in the forefront of web designs for self-explanatory navigation and a more engaging interface. Cards style navigation helps to drive site retention and conversion and also provides social proof and an SEO boost by making content easy to share.

Avatar New York is an innovating, award-winning web design New York firm dedicated to providing clients with responsive websites that help grow brands and convert visitors to customers. With an expertise in web development, branding, cloud hosting, mobile app development, and CMS and e-commerce solutions, Avatar New York's top tier designers have the ability to create intelligent websites for any type of business.