Our web site (Internet Tips and Secrets -
http://www.internet-tips.net/ ) runs an awards program which gets as many as fifty
submissions a week. That means we visit each of those fifty sites
each and every week to determine if they measure up to the criteria
for the awards. Do you know that at least half of those sites make
our job as award masters very easy because their navigation is so
poor we cannot easily determine how to get from page to page?
Nothing will chase away visitors as effectively as poor navigation.
If you don't have a clear, easy-to-understand and easy-to-find
navigation system, you practically guarantee that your visitors will
never leave the home page of your site.
You should begin planning your navigation system early in the design
phase of your site. It is critically important to have defined how
your visitors get around before you write a single line of code. Why?
Because of the static nature of HTML, it become extremely difficult
to change after your site gets fairly significant. It is even
difficult to change if you use fancy JavaScript, Java or server-side
systems.
What should a good navigation system address?
Navigation must be visible - Your visitors must be able to find your
menu or other system immediately upon glancing at your site. This is
one of the most critical rules of all. Your visitors will not spend
much time looking around to figure out how to get deeper into your
site. The web is too big - they will simply surf elsewhere.
Your navigation must be consistent - You must present the same exact
navigation scheme on every single page of your web site. This will
serve to pull your visitors in deeper and deeper ... once they get
used to your scheme they will use it without thinking. If you keep
changing it from page to page, you just give people one more reason
to leave your site.
Navigation must work without graphics - Many people surf the web
without graphics enabled. Why? Because when you are on a dialup, it's
faster by far. I used to do this before I had DSL - I turned off
graphics until I found the page I wanted, then I turned the graphics
on. This implies that if your navigation scheme is entirely graphics
oriented, then you will lose a small percentage of your audience.
Many people include a second navigation scheme at the bottom of each
page of their web site. This has become a de-facto standard, and just
about anyone who surfs with graphics off knows to look down to the
last few lines of a page to find the menus.
Don't use frames - I know it is tempting, since making a menu system
seems to be the perfect application for frames. I would advise
avoiding this temptation. Frames are becoming more and more frowned
upon by surfers and webmasters alike. Why? Search engines don't tend
to like them very much and it confuses surfers since the URL is the
URL of the frame page and not the page which they are looking at.
Navigation should tell your visitors where they are - The best
navigation systems not only allow visitors to get around a site, they
inform them as to their location within the site. Just look at how
Yahoo works as you will see. At the top of each page your location is
shown like so: "Home > Arts > Art History >", which tells the visitor
he's looking at "Art History" in the directory "Art" under the "Home"
directory. He can click on any of these to go higher in the list at
any time.
Some pages should be referenced on every page of your site - You
should have a "Home" button on every single page. It's also wise to
include a way to sign the guestbook and contact the webmaster on
every page as well. I also like to include a link to the privacy
policy, copyright notice and legal information at the bottom of every
page.
Avoid fancy navigation systems - I prefer the Yahoo approach of
straight HTML links myself, and I tend to surf longer on sites which
include these kinds of navigation systems. JavaScript and Java menus
look very good but if your visitors surf with these features disabled
they will not have access to your menus. And given the security
scares lately, many people are turning these features off or limiting
their use.
Avoid ActiveX and VBScript altogether - I love ActiveX and VBScript
on an intranet. This is because on an intranet it is possible to
guarantee that everyone who will access the site uses Internet
Explorer. However, you cannot ensure this on the web, so my
recommendation is to avoid these entirely. In addition, the security
scheme of ActiveX is so weak that it's common for many people,
especially corporate sites, to completely disallow ActiveX controls
downloaded from the internet. (Why is ActiveX security weak? Because
it depends upon the user to make a decision as to the security of the
ActiveX control. I know that when I am presented with a box
saying "do I trust xyz control?", I don't usually have any idea. How
would I know if the code is trustworthy? My tendency is to just say
no.)
To sum it all up, if you want your visitors to explore your site,
then you have to make it easy for them. The easier and more
straightforward you make your navigation, the deeper people will tend
to surf.
About the Author
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets. This
website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet
profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
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