Effective Website Navigation
Effective Website Navigation
J writes: I’m in the process of building a web site for a music company that really never has done much with the web and now want to get started. I’m suggesting website navigation at top and down the left rail (collapsible), so folks can find things better, this may also help with multiple links to main content sections. Is this a good approach or should I pick between the top and the left?
J, the important thing is to make your website navigation standard throughout your site. Top navigation, side navigation or both, it doesn’t really matter, but keep it the same on every page of the site.
Footer Navigation
I would always suggest that you use text-based, rather than image-based navigation, as it makes it easier for search engine spiders to navigate from page to page on your website. On top of this, an image link does not have the advantage of having link text to pass keyword relevance from page to page. If you are going to use image based navigation, or javascript navigation, make sure that you include footer navigation on every page of the site. Footer navigation is always a good idea, whether you are using image based or text navigation, as it gives the spider more links to find and when the user gets to the bottom of the page they can use the footer links to move to another page on the site.
I wrote an article about effective website navigation a while back, but it’s still as relevant today as it was back then. You can find it here: Using website navigation effectively in your web site design
I hope this answers your question J. With regards to your other questions, I’ll answer them tomorrow, if I may.
