Be careful to use key words that are simple and clear for your visitors. Web site visitors don’t really read — they scan. Usually, they look for highlighted text and other noticeable keywords that give them quick clues to 1) “What’s on this page” and 2) “What can I do from here?”
The trick is to choose keywords that a user will notice and that will be instantly meaningful. But be careful: words that have multiple meanings can trip up your site visitors. Bottom line is: be sure to use words in the way that your visitors expect — and if in doubt, rewrite.
Consider a woodworking site, whose navigation includes “shop.” Will the user expect it to mean online shopping or about the workshop? If I’m looking to buy, I’d click that link — and if I ended up at a page about the workshop, maybe I’d go back and start over. Or, maybe I wouldn’t, if the phone rang at that moment.
There’s an easy fix for this scenario. Adding a small cart icon or a dollar sign to the nav button (or using “shopping”) would probably clear things up. Or, substituting “woodshop” or “workshop” would provide clarity in the other direction.
