A customer tells you they could not find your phone number. Another says they had no idea you did that kind of work, and it is right there on your services page. Or you check your reports, see people arriving, and watch them leave without calling or filling out a form. It is easy to blame the photos, the price or the traffic. Website navigation mistakes are a more likely place to look, because a visitor who cannot find the right service or the next step in a few seconds has no reason to keep hunting. The good news is that you can find the failing spot with a ten-minute test, and the fix is often a small one. What follows is the test, the mistakes it tends to expose, what each fix involves, and how to tell a quick repair from a bigger project.
Key Takeaways
On a phone, ask someone who has never seen your site to find your phone number and one specific service, without any help from you.
A vague label, a buried service, a hidden phone number or a broken mobile menu each has its own repair.
W3C/WAI asks for keyboard-operable menus, visible focus, consistent placement and real links with meaningful names.
Repeated failures across several pages and devices are the sign that a larger restructure is worth paying for.
What should you check first when customers cannot find something?
Start with a person, not a report. Hand your phone to someone who has never used your site, a neighbor, a friend, a staff member who did not help build it, and give them two tasks. This matches the quick test Nielsen Norman Group describes for watching real people use a site. Say nothing about where things are.
- Open the home page in a private browser window so the phone does not fill in anything from your past visits.
- Ask them to find your phone number. Time it, and note the words they look for.
- Ask them to find one specific service that a customer would hire you for, described as a need ("someone to fix a leaking roof"), not as your menu label.
- Watch, do not help. Note whether they open the menu, scroll, use search, tap the logo or press the back button.
- Repeat on two inner pages, not only the home page. Visitors from search often land deep in the site.
- Check the menu with a keyboard on a computer. Press Tab to reach the menu, open any submenus, move through the links and close the menu again, and confirm you can always see where the focus is.
Write down where each person hesitated and which word they tried first. One person's hesitation is a question worth asking. The same stumble from three people is a finding. The test also gives you the exact vocabulary customers use, which is the best source for relabeling your menu.
Which menu mistakes cost you customers, and how do you fix each one?
The list below runs in a practical order, starting with the problems that stop a visitor fastest. It follows the order a visitor runs into each problem. Work down it using what your test showed you.
Services that are buried or missing
If someone looking for "gutter repair" has to open three levels of menu, or the service only appears in a paragraph on the About page, they may conclude you do not offer it. The fix is to give each important service a clear link, group related services under one hub page, and link the individual pages from there. Our post on what to put on a service page covers what each of those pages needs once visitors reach it.
Labels that use your language, not theirs
Nielsen Norman Group documents a university example where a vague label hid the main menu and made the majors people came for hard to find. Internal terms and clever names cause the same trouble for a small business: "Solutions", "Our Approach" or a made-up product name tells a visitor nothing. Replace each with the words your test participants used, such as "Roof Repair" or "Pricing".
A phone number or contact path that takes hunting
Google's guidance on optimizing landing pages says to make mobile pages quick, easy to contact and simple to use, and to make the action you want, such as a call or an inquiry, easy to take. Put a tap-to-call number and a Contact link where a phone user sees them without scrolling or opening a menu. Our post on what a contact page should include covers the page behind that link.
A mobile menu that hides or breaks
Baymard's research on mobile menus describes collapsed menus, hamburger icons that people overlook, unclear parent categories and trouble reaching deeper levels. A three-line icon is only a button. The menu behind it still needs clear labels, complete links, a visible open or closed state and an easy way to close it. W3C/WAI's menus tutorial also expects the button to have an accessible name and to report whether the menu is expanded. If your own phone test shows the menu opening but missing pages, that is a repair to the mobile template, not a reason to rewrite your content. Our checklist on whether your site is mobile-friendly helps you spot the rest.
Dropdowns that only work with a mouse
Fly-out menus that open on hover can be impossible on a touch screen and unreachable from a keyboard. The W3C/WAI tutorial recommends recognizable menu patterns and keyboard-operable fly-outs with visible focus and a logical order. If your keyboard check in the test stopped at the first dropdown, this is the cause. Rebuilding the interaction is usually a medium job, since it needs testing with keyboard, touch and a screen reader.
A menu that changes from page to page
WCAG Success Criterion 3.2.3 asks that navigation repeated on several pages appear in the same relative order each time. A header that reorders itself or renames a link on the pricing page makes visitors relearn the site. Standardize the order, labels and placement across every template.
Links Google cannot follow, and pages with no next step
Google Search Central says it generally crawls an internal link when it is an HTML anchor element with an href attribute, and that descriptive link text helps people and Google understand the destination. Every important page should have at least one link from another page on your site. That does not mean every page belongs in the top menu: footers, breadcrumbs, related-service links and links inside page text all count. A dead end with no next step, such as a service page that never points to a contact route, is also a menu problem. See internal links for a small business site for the page-by-page plan, and fixing broken links and 404 errors for the repairs.
Search standing in for a clear menu
Nielsen Norman Group advises against making search the primary way around a site unless search is what the site is for. A search box helps as a second route; it cannot rescue a menu that hides your main services.
| What your test shows | Repair | Rough job size (estimate) |
|---|---|---|
| Service is buried | Add a clear link, group services under a hub page | Small to medium |
| Label is vague | Swap in the customer's own word | Small |
| Phone or contact is hidden | Add a visible tap-to-call number and Contact link | Small |
| Mobile menu fails | Repair the button, open and close behavior, touch targets and link coverage | Medium |
| Dropdown fails on keyboard or touch | Rebuild the interaction and test it | Medium |
| Menu changes between pages | Standardize order, labels and placement | Small to medium |
| Broken or non-crawlable links | Fix URLs and use standard links with an href | Small to medium |
| Too many unrelated items | Group by customer need; move secondary links to the footer or page text | Medium |
Treat the job sizes as rough guides. The real size depends on your platform, how many page templates you have, and whether the menu is custom-coded. Confirm the scope with whoever builds the fix after they look at your actual site.
How many items should your menu have?
There is no single correct count in guidance from W3C, Google, Nielsen Norman Group, Baymard or GOV.UK. What matters is whether people can find what they came for. Group items by what a customer needs, give each group a plain label, and then run the two-task test again. If the same task still fails, the problem is the label or the location, not the number of items. Our post on what belongs on a small business homepage shows how the home page and the menu work together.
What can your analytics tell you about where visitors get lost?
Analytics is a second opinion after the phone test. In Google Analytics 4, open Reports, then Engagement, then Pages and screens to see which pages people view. Then build a Path exploration report, which shows what people viewed after your home page, where they loop back, and which pages come before or after a key event such as a form submission.
Read these paths as clues about where to look, not as verdicts. GA4 records what visitors did, but it cannot tell you why they left. Someone may leave right after finding your phone number, or after deciding the service is not what they need. A high exit rate on one page is a reason to run your two tasks starting from that page. Our post on what a good bounce rate looks like goes through the number itself, and heatmaps and session recordings show you actual taps and scrolls if you want to watch the behavior.
Is a quick repair enough, or do you need a redesign?
A small repair is often enough. A renamed menu item, a link to a service that was missing, a visible phone number, a repaired mobile button or a corrected broken URL can each fix the task your test caught. If those fixes solve both tasks for the next three people you test, spending money on a new site is not the next step.
A larger project is justified when the problem is structural. Signs include services that overlap and cannot be told apart, no usable hierarchy, mobile and desktop menus that differ in what they show, templates with menu controls that keyboard users cannot reach, or a site that you cannot update because every label change needs a developer. The Home Office design manual on clear signposting and consistent order is a fair standard to hold a restructure to.
If you do hire help, bring your test notes, your GA4 paths, the affected addresses and the devices where it failed. That gives a designer a concrete problem to fix, and it lets them recommend a repair or a rebuild based on evidence. If the failures trace back to what visitors do after they find the right page, our post on what a good website conversion rate is helps you tell the two apart.
Can your visitors find their way around?
Pick an answer to begin.
1. What is the best first step when customers say they cannot find something on your site?
2. Does Google generally follow an internal link built as an HTML anchor with an href attribute?
3. Your phone test shows the menu opens but leaves out two of your services. What kind of fix is that?
Frequently Asked Questions About website navigation mistakes
Why are customers leaving my website?
They may be unable to find a service, your phone number, the next step or a usable mobile menu. Test those tasks with someone unfamiliar with the site before you assign a cause.
How do I know if my menu is confusing?
Ask someone who has never used your site to find your phone number and one service, without help. Watch the path they take and where they stop.
How many items should be in my menu?
No standards body gives one correct number. Group items by what customers need, and test whether people can find the important pages.
Should my phone number be in the main menu?
It should be easy to find and tap on a phone. A visible header number, a Contact link or a clear call to action can all do that.
Does my menu affect SEO?
Internal links help Google find pages and understand how they relate. Google says to use standard anchor links with descriptive text, and to link every important page from at least one other page.
Can a hamburger icon fix a phone menu?
Only if the button and the opened menu are understandable, complete, operable by touch and keyboard, and report whether they are open or closed.
The Bottom Line
Customers leave when a basic task is hard: finding the right service, finding how to reach you, understanding a label or using the menu on a phone. The fastest way to learn which one is failing is to give a stranger two tasks on a phone and watch. From there, match the failure to its repair, whether that is a clearer label, a visible phone number, a fixed mobile button, keyboard-friendly dropdowns, or links built as real anchors.
A clear menu helps every visitor, including people who use a keyboard or a screen reader, and it gives Google a cleaner path through your pages. Small repairs made early are cheaper than a redesign made after months of lost inquiries, and repeated test failures across pages and devices tell you when a bigger restructure is justified.
If you would rather hand it off, we can review your menu against the test results and tell you whether a targeted repair or a rebuild fits, through our web design service. Web Leveling builds fast sites you own outright, and we work with small and medium businesses across the country and overseas. Send us your test notes through the contact form and we will take it from there.
Terms
Menu and site structure words in this post
Tap a term to see what it means.
Anchor link. A standard HTML link with an href attribute that points to another page, which Google can follow.
Breadcrumbs. A trail of links, usually near the top of a page, that shows where the page sits on the site.
Hamburger menu. A three-line icon that opens a hidden menu, most often on phones.
Path exploration. A GA4 report that shows what pages people viewed before or after a chosen page or event.
Key event. An action GA4 is set to count as important, such as a submitted contact form.
Accessible name. The text a screen reader announces for a button or link, such as "Menu".
