Search Engine Marketing Articles
Good site navigation
I can’t emphasise enough the importance of good site navigation. Like having good content on your site, good navigation has benefits for you users and for the search engines (and therefore your ranking in the search engines).
If you don’t bother reading the rest of the article,
then take this away with you:
Every page in your site should be no more than 3 clicks away from
your homepage.
Obviously your navigation structure will differ depending on the type of site that you run, but there are main principles that any web designer can follow to create an effective navigation structure.
Main site navigation
Visitors should be able to access the main pages of your site from any page. This means have a link to every page that is easily accessible (ie, a bar at the side, top and / or the bottom).
The side bar is useful as when visitors arrive at your site, they can quickly have a look at all the main sections of your site. The side bar also tends to stand out more than the bar at the top or the bottom.
The top bar is second to the side bar as a lot of visitors may use this over the side bar (because it’s there at the top with your logo and site title).
The bottom bar is essential as it the place visitors will be when they finish the reading fantastic content you have written. You don’t want to make them scroll all the way back up to the top do you? That’s the web equivalent of making a customer walk to the back of the store to pay for goods – it’ll just piss people off and they will not come back.
Your site could have the best content in the world, but if people can’t find it or navigate their way around it then what’s the point?
Directory Structure
Content based sites (ie not just links directories) can have a directory structure to them as well.
By breaking your site down into sections, it will make it easier for people to find what they are looking for. However, it is possible to go too far with this. It is really worth having 50 different categories for 50 different articles?
Simply put – no.
If users have to trawl through page after page to find what they want, they’ll just get bored and leave. Chances are that there’s another site out their offering the same stuff you are.
The trick is to make the information easy to find without drowning your user in a complicated navigation structure.
For smaller sites, the best bet is to split the site into relative categories. That is, an articles section, a reviews section, the discussion forum, about us page, contacts page, and so on.
For larger sites, these categories should be further split down in to subject areas (cars, films, music, whatever).
A general rule of thumb is that if your user has to scroll down more than two and half screen lengths, then the page needs to be split up (this is for category pages that only contain a list of links – your content pages are a different story).
Your relative category sections (articles, reviews, contacts, etc) will be the links that you include in your navigation bars. Remember to include a link back to your homepage at the beginning of all navigation bars (ie at the top of vertical bars and at the left of horizontal bars).
Navigation structure and Search Engines
As discussed in other articles, search engines are out to provide relevant results for their users, so naturally they will take navigation structure into account somewhere along the line.
There is a lot of speculation as to how this works, but at the end of the day, no-one really knows. And quite rightly so, as there are a number of unscrupulous webmasters and search engine optimisers out there that would take advantage of this knowledge, which is worse for you, the reputable webmaster and worse for the user.
Design your site for your users – make it easy to use and accessible and you will be fine in the eyes of the search engines.
Navigation Structure and Accessibility
Your site as a whole must be accessible by everyone
who wants to use it.
When designing your site you must remember that not everyone uses bog
standard browsers to surf the web.
For one, a lot of people view websites with graphics disabled, and although they will view the ALT text in graphics, it doesn’t look too good.
Also, anyone viewing your site who is in some way visually impaired may be using a different technology to surf the web (screen viewer, Braille reader), which may not interpret graphics well.
By using text links instead of graphical links, you can ensure that your site’s design remains consistent to all those who view it (and it also holds the benefits of keeping your file size to a minimum).
Site search
Having a site search box is not essential for most sites, only larger sites.
It does offer a fallback if you do have a large navigation structure – if visitors can’t find what they want they may leave, but if you have a site search box then they will try that first on most occasions.
Drop down box as a navigation aid
Having a drop down box prominently displayed on your pages that has links to your main relative categories is a useful aid for visitors to your site.
It should not be considered as a replacement for a navigation bar though!
Your best bet would be to not mirror your navigation structure in the drop down box. Having it as a “more useful articles on this subject” aid, would be much more beneficial to your users.
Main points to remember when designing your site’s navigation
There should be no learning curve.
Your navigation should be so easy that any surfer, using any browser, with any level of knowledge or experience should be able to find what they want. Text navigation rules over graphical navigation (only in terms of your main navigation structure – using graphical adverts to promote other areas of your site is perfectly acceptable). Test run your site before it is launched.
Find the most non-techie person you know (usually your mum!) and ask them to have a look around the site. If they say that they found it difficult or confusing to use, then you have some work to do! Work with them to develop a site that can be used by anyone. Clicking on your banner or logo should take you back to your homepage.
Having “related articles” or “useful information” links at the bottom of your pages will encourage your visitors to look at parts of your site they might not have considered before. I said it at the beginning of the article, and I’ll say it again:
Every page in your site should be no more than
3 clicks away from your homepage.
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More SEM Articles
- Business networking tips
- Choosing a domain name
- Content exchanges
- Content feeds
- Creative marketing ideas
- Good site navigation
- Internally promoting your pages
- Offline website marketing
- The circle of life on the Internet
- Writing content for websites
