Web surfers many a times stumble upon an essential button on each and every web page. That is the back button. It is very important one as it facilitates easy and quick navigation between web pages. But most designers care a fig for the back button when they are creating web pages.

In most websites, it is very common to see ‘back to start’, ‘back to home’ or merely ‘back’ links. But the thing of concern is these links are built without any logic and do not provide any concrete information regarding the position of a customer in a particular website before he/she clicks on the back button. The functionality must be in the line of a web browser back button. So the functioning of the back button on a web page needs to be improved.

Most people leave a particular website as quickly as they enter into it. If there is slim possibility of getting their desired information on the page, visitors simply hit the back button and go to their previous location. To prevent this, web designers resort to chrome-less windows, i.e. without a back button. They even make things worse by shutting down the original window and opening the site in a new window which has no controls at all. But in this way, the things won’t improve. Rather it reduces the usability of your site, because the most common method of moving around web pages is nowhere in the sight. You can not stop visitors from getting out of your site. Once they find their way, they will not come back for ever. So instead of blocking the way of visitors, you should focus your attention on taking advantage of the back button.

Try to place your best offers, products and services near the back button of the web page. Though, most visitors hardly look around while clicking on the back button, still there is a good chance of getting their attention.

Some of the factors must be kept in mind while designing your navigation system. The navigation mechanism must be easy to understand. It must be free from ambiguity. A particular type design must be consistently followed throughout the website. People will be frustrated if they come across newer and newer things on different web pages.

Your overall navigation system must be closely linked with the purpose of the site. There must be several options of doing a particular thing. If one navigation path is not right, the user must have other choices. The visual messages you want to transmit to your visitors must be clear. As mentioned earlier, always think about your visitors’ objectives and behavior patterns.

Another aspect of an effective navigation system is how you organize your information. Information architecture reflects the structure of your website. Some of the elements you will find on a business website are: products, about us, investor relations and support. Once you are sure about the site structure, the next task is to decide on how to organize it. You might have all your information in one directory and then establish links to all your major pages from the home page. The second option is to arrange your sub-pages into separate sub-directories.

Tags: Web Page Back Button and Links