Clearer, fewer nav tabs: +15.68% completed orders
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsReworking the homepage navigation, with clearer tab names, one new tab and three tabs removed, lifted completed orders by 15.68%.
Harvard Business Services, a Delaware company formation agent, ran this A/B test on about 32,000 visitors, and it was published as a VWO case study.
Several nav changes shipped together, so the gain belongs to the package, not to any one tab.
- Completed orders: +15.68%, the main goal.
- Visits to the compare prices page: +66.26%.
- Visits to the how to incorporate page: +382.45%. The team saw many visitors go from this page straight to purchase.
- All changes were tested as one variant, so the separate effect of each rename or removal is unknown.
The change
Tabs renamed and trimmed, with a new 'How to Incorporate' tab in the main nav.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The homepage navigation had 10 tabs, including 'Compare', 'Get Started Now', 'Blog', 'About Us' and 'Contact Us'. A 'How to Incorporate' page existed only as a side link.
Variant
'Compare' became 'Compare Prices' and 'Get Started Now' became 'Form a Company Now'. A 'How to Incorporate' tab was added, and the Blog, About Us and Contact Us tabs were removed.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- 'Compare Prices' tells visitors what they will see. Price was a main way the company stood out from competitors.
- 'Form a Company Now' names the task visitors came to do, so the next step feels clear.
- A visible guide to incorporating helped first-time buyers learn the process before paying.
- Fewer tabs meant fewer side paths away from buying.
Caveats: Bundled test: several nav changes went live at once, so no single change can be credited. Sample was about 32,000 visitors and the test date was not shared.
Who ran it
Harvard Business Services ran this test for Delaware company formation agent and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Harvard Business Services →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we rename vague nav tabs to say what they lead to, add a how-it-works tab and drop low-value tabs, then more visitors will buy because the path to purchase is clearer.
- Primary metric
- Completed orders
- Guardrails
- Contact and support requests
- Visits to key info pages
- Bounce rate
- Who should test it
- Service businesses selling a process buyers don't fully understand, such as filings, setups or applications. Removing Contact or About tabs may hurt where buyers need to talk to someone or check trust before buying.
Questions
Does removing navigation tabs increase conversions?
It can when the removed tabs pull people away from buying.
Here, cutting three tabs was part of a package that raised orders, but its own effect wasn't measured.
Do clearer tab names matter?
They can. Specific labels like 'Compare Prices' tell visitors what's behind the click, and that page's visits rose 66% in this test.
Should I add educational pages to my main navigation?
If buyers need to understand a process before paying, yes, it's worth testing.
The 'How to Incorporate' tab drew nearly five times the visits and many of those visitors went on to buy.