Navigation

When visitors come to your site, they want to find what they are looking for easily and quickly. Any more than a couple of clicks and they will go somewhere else. Laying out your site carefully in the first place is key.

But things change. As you analyse your site you may want to give some sections more prominence or add sections you find visitors are interested in. Or your business may change meaning you need to add delete or change sections.

So the ability to modify the shape of your site without breaking it and still allowing the Search Engines to find the vital information they need to index your site is key.

The importance of your navigation structure cannot be over-emphasised. Without some sort of navigation, a site loses all sense of structure and organisation. There are many ways of presenting your navigation: in a bar down one side of the screen, along the top and bottom, or in a frame that stays with you throughout your visit to a site. It is important to allow access to the rest of your site from anywhere. Ideally, you should be able to go to any page in a maximum of two or three clicks, with your main pages accessible in one.

A navigation bar can give readers immediate knowledge of the depth of your site. Just glancing over your navigation links should give them an idea of what's on offer and what's here that they definitely want to see. Having a fully-featured navigation bar assures the reader that there's lots to see and do, and encourages them to explore a little bit.