Webmaster 101

Navigation is the system through which visitors move across the various pages of your website, therefore it is critical for you to get it right on the first instance itself (placement and visibility of links on a website). For your site to have a good navigation system all you need to makes sure is you follow five simple steps mentioned in this blog.

1. Make sure you have a navigation bar or a navigation panel containing the most important links of your site or links to parent pages of your site and then place the navigation bar in the same location on all the pages of your site.
2. In addition to the links to all parent pages place the most important links on the main page as well. Provide easy access (shortcuts) to places where you want your visitors to go directly without scanning and filtering through various pages.
3. Ensure cross browser compatibility, don’t make use of features which are specific to a browser as your visitors will most probably not want to change the browser they are using just for your site unless you are developing a site for eBay Apple Sony or the likes… most popular sites today have an alternate site which is basic and loads fast as well.
4. If you have a dynamic site, adding a site search feature would make your site a lot more usable than other sites even if you have comparatively lesser information on the same subject.
5. Lastly, have a link to the sitemap page of your website among the most important links of your site (navigation panel). Sitemap is not only helpful for your visitors but also very useful for search engine placement.

Filed under: Website Design