Logos are an essential part of your branding which in turn causes it to be a crucial part of your online presence; this much is certain. Because of this, there are certain standards that must be upheld when you’re taking your logo and implementing it into your site’s design. You might notice is pattern to do scrolling through sites yourself. Logo placements and functionalities, they all tend to be continuous when you visit websites. For the most part, this is all for good reason.
Utilizing these standards and expectations can go as far as ensuring that more people stay on your site and may even raise your conversion rate. Additionally, many alternatives to these standards are presented as a way of taking advantage of them.
Logo Linking
Clicking on the logo is a traditional way of providing users with the way to return to the homepage. It is a popular user habit, and catering to it can avoid risking your bounce rate. That being said, this does not mean that there is no room for innovation. If you’re looking to raise your conversion rate, link your logo to your landing page or contact page. After all, if a site visitor trying to return to the homepage it shows that they are interested enough to stay on your site but haven’t quite found what they are looking for.
If you are planning to use this method, keep in mind that is is very tricky to try to stray from user expectations. Measure the results of how this goes for your site and base your changed upon the results. Additionally, ensure that you provide a clear way for the user to return to the homepage, not doing so can be harmful to your site.
Logo Placement
Where you decide to put your logo can, in fact, hurt your site; despite what many think. When you visit website it is, to many, considered unusual when the logo is not placed at the top left corner of the page. There are many cases in which user expectations should be handled carefully so as to not damage your user experience. While sticking to repetitive standards can become boring and there are some experimental designs you should handle with care. This happens to be one of them.
You might be surprised to hear, but placing your logo anywhere other than the top left corner can hurt your sites performance.
After conducting some research, NN Group revealed that aligning your logos at the center makes it 6 time more difficult for users to return to the home page when compared to left aligned logos. Which serves to remind many designers that while users don’t have to be catered in all aspects of design, sometime traditional practices are do have positive results.
There is always room for innovation.
In order to ensure that your skills are always sharp, challenging industry standards with fresh ideas is always good. However, as you’re are attempting to add unique qualities to your designs, keep in mind a few key rules. Never restrict the user; in almost all cases this will harm your conversion rate. Instead, come up with ways that will excite your audience to further navigate and explore your site. Finding these aspects to your design mean you have to be vary of the thin line that separates the two. The results of these combinations can become game changing.
