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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.
Web Site Address: http://www.internet-tips.net
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Daily Tips: mailto:internet-tips@GetResponse.com |
