Winery Web Site Navigation

Here's the navigation from a winery Web site I recently visited, for a high-end Napa Cabernet Sauvignon:

• Acquire
• Wines
• Winemaker
• Vineyard
• Pedigree
• Mailing List
• Contact
• Trade

There's nothing terribly wrong with it (aside from its position on the page).   The question is, "Could it be better?"

The purpose of navigation is to help your visitors get where they need to be on your site, regardless of where they start (remember, visitors from search engines may land anywhere on your site).  As I've said before, visitors come with a goal and a Back button.  You want to make sure they reach their goal, whatever it is.

Back when I created the original idea for The Winery Web Site Report (a custom, printed report), I believed that there were four primary types of visitors to your site, based on their goal in visiting:

1. people who want to buy your wine right now (possibly as a gift).
2. people who want more information about your wines
3. people who want to sell your wines (the trade)
4. people who want to write about your wines (the media)

I think this remains true today (although I've learned there are some important nuances to consider). 

The problem with most navigation is that people don't seek to improve it based on measuring what people do (another reason to make analytics your first priority).  Navigation (should) appear consistently (same items, same place) on every page of your site (with the possible exception of checkout, since that's a process you don't want to interrupt).  Typically, navigation is a horizontal bar below the page header, or a vertical list in the left-hand margin.

Here are the things that absolutely need to appear on every page of your site.

• Winery Name and Logo - every page should make it clear what site the visitor has reached.  Having the logo be a link to the home page is a standard convention.  
• Address and E-Mail - the address may be your street address, or it could be "Diamond Mountain, Napa, California."  Regardless, it should probably link to a Google Map (unless you don't want visitors).
• (Toll-Free) Phone Number - make it easy for people to talk to you, whether to ask a question or order.  Remember, people use the Web like the Yellow Pages.  Don't make them hunt around your site for contact information.  Toll-free service is cheap - use it.  And track whether people called via your Web site.
• Buy Now - this provides clear direction for people who came to buy.  This link should take the user to a simple list of all the wines you have available for sale.  If you don't sell online, that's fine.  Tell people where/how they can buy your wines.   You've got a potential customer in hand - don't lose them.
• Our Wines - this link is clear to visitors who may want to buy, but want more information about your wines first.
• Trade - information for this item is less important than the preceding two, but should be visible.  Generally, smaller type and a position off the main navigation bar are best, but don't hide it below the fold.
• Media - as for the trade, this is not a primary item for most people, but important to its intended audience.
• More Info - Yes, it's a catch-call.  Yes, I'd like a more elegant name for it.  This is intended to give visitors who have a goal other than { buy, wine info, trade, media } a clear place to go.  Here is where you describe and link to the "next most important" items on your site.  This is the one place that a drop-down menu might be appropriate.
• Sign Up - every page should allow you to capture the visitor's e-mail address for future contact.

Your name, logo and contact information are really part of the header on each page.  The links for Trade and Media are "de-emphasized".  The Sign Up is a (ideally) small box in the left or right column (topic for a future post).  As a result, we've really only got three items on our navigation menu.

Buy Now

Our Wines

More Info

In addition to the essentials above, here are some navigation items to consider (and test) as part of your navigation menu:

• Visit Us - if you want people to come to the winery, or you are known as a great place to visit (V. Sattui does this well), then it probably deserves consideration as a navigation item.
• Give Wine - if a lot of the wine you sell is sold as gifts (or you'd like to increase the amount), consider giving site visitors clear directions.  Don't just assume that people will check the "gift-wrap" box during checkout.  Again, even if they can't do it online, explain what you can do, and who to call.  I always point out that wine.com makes "giving wine" part of their primary navigation for a reason.
• Blog - if you have one, be sure to link to it.  A common omission.
• Events - for some wineries, one of the main sources of foot traffic are events.  Like Visit Us, if it's likely that a visitor to your Web site is looking for event information, consider adding it to your primary navigation.
• Wine Club - if club sales are important, and you actively promote your club, then it's likely that people will be looking for it, and should be able to find it easily.
• Shopping Cart - if someone places an item in their cart, it's good to enhance the visibility of the fact.  Many sites use the right column for this.  You might also have a cart icon which changes depending on its state.  This is a "low emphasis" navigation item, and not a candidate for the primary menu.
•     - like an 800-number, these 16x16 "social media" icons make it easier for people to connect with you.  These are small items which, like Trade and Media don't require prime navigation real estate.

Look at your analytics to find the top 5 search phrases that deliver traffic to your Web pages.  Ask yourself: If I came looking for this, would I know from the navigation elements where to click to move closer to my goal?  If the answer is "No," consider changing your page navigation.  The goal is for a visitor to look at the navigation and easily decide on their next click.  While More Info may not be elegant, it is certainly clear.

Of course, don't go off the deep end.  Five clear primary navigation items is about right.  Seven is right out.  I'm not a fan of drop-down menus in general, as you end up playing hide-and-seek.  And I  absolutely hate dislike cutesy menu item names.  "Acquire" is probably OK, given the high-end nature of the wine in question, but I still think "Buy Now" is about as clear, direct, and imperative as you can get.

As you can see, not all navigation elements are equal (e.g. trade and media, your blog, the shopping cart).  A good designer can help you give the proper visual emphasis to each element (e.g. smaller, lighter text for less-important items, proper placement of items on page).

"What about the ubiquitous About Us menu item?" you ask.  Frankly, that's not what people are most likely to be searching for.  It may be interesting, and you may want to link to it from your home page, but it's not primary navigation.

What do you think?  I'd love some comments from people who actually test the effectiveness of their site navigation!  And feel free to link to examples of great (and not-so-great) winery Web site navigation.

Comments

[Tyson Caly]

One of your best posts yet! Great suggestions Mike.

[Fabius]

Brilliant post! Excellent! I've been surfing the net for weeks looking for this type of information. (Yes, I'm in the process of designing a webpage!) Thanks you.

[Andrew Kamphuis]

You have an interesting explanation for using both an 'Our Wines' and 'Buy Now' link on a navigation bar.

I personally find it frustrating when I'm on a site and I'm on the 'Our Wines' page and it doesn't have a button to 'Buy Now' or if I'm on the 'Buy Now' and I can't redily get more information about a wine. For that reason I have recommended to clients to combine those two pages into a single page that has both the wine description and a buy button (although we haven't done a whole lot of testing around two seperate pages vs one page, or even two navigation links to the same page).

I'd be interested in exploring this more.

[Mike Duffy]

@Andrew: No argument about the "Buy" button. But frequently, the presentation of each wine overwhelms someone trying to find a particular wine and just buy it. For example,

http://www.twistedoak.com/Get-Twisted-Wines/All-the-Vino

is great for someone who came to the site to buy "The Spaniard," as it is easy to find. It's a pretty good model for the destination of a "Buy Now" navigation link.

Basically, someone who selects "Buy Now" has told you what they want to do. Whatever page you present should make that as easy as possible.

On the other hand, someone who selects "Our Wines" is looking for information. Do you make reds, whites, sparklers, ...? The landing page for this item should be (I think) informational, and guide the visitor.
It's also a place to feature your best-sellers, as a way of saying "this is what other people like."

But you make a great point: TEST! Which means making changes and seeing what happens. Which means having a Web site you can change easily.

[Larry Chandler]

I think it's confusing to the user to have "Our Wines" and "Buy Wines" as separate nav items. Since some sites use one, the other or both, no one is quite sure exactly where to go to find the wines to buy.

One site had only one and that included a brief description of the wine with a buy now button. But prominent was a "More About This Wine" "More About This Variety" "More About This Region" wine buttons for each wine so people could delve deeper if they so chose but could buy quickly since that is probably why they came to your site in the first place.

[Mike Duffy]

Well, it doesn't actually matter what Larry, Andrew or I think about "Buy Now" and "Our Wines." The point is to TEST it and see what improves sales and visitor experience.

Unfortunately, few wineries test, and even fewer (if any) share their results.

[Julia Brown]

Great info, I am currently looking at updating our winery website. I am finding it hard to balance the online shopping component with the information (brand building part). Do you have any recommendations on this?

[Mike Duffy]

Hi, Julia.

What do you see as the problem in balancing the two?

It should be 3-clicks-or-less to put something in your shopping cart. Ideally, specific information that your visitor is seeking is as easy to find (i.e. 3 clicks or less).

Remember, your visitors come with a goal already in mind (buy, give, browse for info, trade information, media information). The hardest is people who come with an "information" goal. What kind of information are they looking for? My guesses are:

- where can I buy this wine locally (retail, restaurant)
- is this wine ready to drink (or past its prime)
- where is your winery?
- what are your hours/can I visit?
- event information
- sales/specials/featured wines
- newsletter
- ....?

This is where it's good to actually talk with people who use your site, although your Web analytics can give you ideas about what people are searching for.

Just some thoughts. Let me know what you think.