The importance of an effective navigation.

The importance of an effective navigation.

The aim of a website’s navigation is simply to allow users to get to the content they require. Navigation of links on your site plays a big role in determining the stickiness of your site.

An effective navigation allows visitors to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. Designing an effective navigation can also help to direct visitors to other offerings on your site. It is also necessary that the search engine robots can read the navigational links in order to spider (or index) your site.

Creating an effective navigation

Site navigation can be of various types depending on the type of site. For example, a news site will provide navigation to the latest news on the cover pages. Because of the sheer amount of pages of news articles, it is impossible to link to each item that appeared in its lifespan.

The goal of an effective navigation is guided by the 3 click rule (all pages on the website can be reached within 3 clicks from the homepage).

1. Categorize content, products or services: Create smaller categories for organizing the content, products or services. The categorization may be logical, alphabetical or as applicable. The categories can be arranged in a tree structure with several subcategories. Hence it can be several levels deep. Create a navigation panel specific to each category and place it in the left or top panels so that the user can view all links within that category without scrolling. This navigation panel will change when the user moves from one category to another.

2. Centralize navigation menu: Centralize the navigation menu on a separate navigation file. Using server side include code, add that navigation file to each page that belongs to the category. This will reduce maintenance worries if the navigation menu is changed or updated. Only one navigation file has to be updated instead of each of the web pages.

3. Provide link to home page: Provide a link to the home page from each page so that the user can return to the main page if lost. This can be achieved by creating a ‘Home’ link. In addition, add a link to the home page on the logo image.

4. Use breadcrumb trail: A breadcrumb trail provides a quick way for the user to know what section or branch this web page is in. A breadcrumb is useful if the website has a lot of categories and each category is few levels deep. A good example will be a directory such as Yahoo or DMOZ.

5. Create consistent top and bottom menus: It is essential to provide a top navigation menu (as the top bar) which is consistent in look and feel for all the pages in the website. This menu should contain links to each category, the home page, contact or support page, faq page (if centralized faq), etc. This helps the user to move around categories or to contact support from any location.

Similarly, a consistent footer can contain links to contact information, advertising info, privacy policy, membership agreement etc.

6. Include links to related items: Related links placed at the bottom or right side allows visitors to navigate to similar or related items or content directly. Provide clear and descriptive information about the related link so the user knows what to expect on that page.

7. Include a search box: A search box can often solve the most complex navigation problems. A search box is very helpful for large websites. If your site has one, include the search box in every page at the same location. There are some free site search providers such as Google.com or FreeFind.com.

Any design and graphics help please visit Clippingimages.com.

-Credits: websiteGear.com