Designing your site's navigation can be quite a tricky task at first. You need to research the number of categories you'll account for, where your visitors are most likely to click, the colour schemes that will best satisfy users, and many other aspects. With so many variables, navigation design can seem like a situation in which there's no right answer. Today, we'll discuss the task of designing navigation -- and hopefully give you a head start in creating a navigation system that works the best for your users.

While developing my own site, I sat down one evening and drew a few possible designs on paper. In my opinion, this is the best way to plan a site -- don't even switch your computer on until you've completed this stage! The process I followed was to design my navigation first and develop the site around this, using the navigation as the main point of focus.

There are, of course, many ways to create the navigation system for your site, from simple text-driven toolbars, to state-of-the-art Flash animated interfaces. The most important decision you'll face is to choose a scheme that's right for the nature of your site, and its users. Remember, this may not be an easy task. Ask around for ideas, draw up some trial navigation systems, and have your friends, family, colleagues, or anyone else you know tell you what they like the best, and which of your designs they find the most effective. Usability testing with target audience members is, of course, ideal -- and it's not impossible to achieve on a budget! See SitePoint's usability section for more.

Top Ten Navigation Tips:

It is sometimes necessary to spoon feed your visitors with information. Make careful decisions as to where your navigation is placed, and make it stand out. Then your users won't sit there aimlessly clicking the mouse as they search in vain for some kind of direction.

2. Keep it high

Broadsheet newspaper editors place their most important information --- latest headlines, significant content, etc --- 'above the fold', meaning in the top half of the newspaper itself. Consider your pages from the same perspective, and keep the significant information, including the navigation, as high up as possible. Not only will this mean the navigation will load first in the user's browser, but it also 'hits' the user faster. However, read Tip 3 for a word of warning on this point!

3. Below the Banners

Heard of snow blindness? Well, there's a 'condition' known among Web users as 'banner blindness'. Often, users naturally ignore content placed above any banner ads on your site -- they simply consider this space for further advertisement. Although it might be tempting, don't place any navigation elements above your banner ads.

4. Consistency is Key

I cannot stress this enough. On each and every page of your site, whether it's your forums, your links page, or anywhere else, locate your navigation in the same place, with the same styles, and don't change anything! This way, your users know exactly where to look for it.

5. Don't be Adventurous

It's always good to see your site stand out from the crowd, but please, when it comes to navigation, try and blend in with the rest of the flock. This way, regular Internet users will be used to your method of navigation to some degree -- as they will have experienced, and learned on similar systems on other sites -- and won't need to be taught anything new. Using your navigation system will be easy!

6. Add a 'Home' Button

Your home page is the most important page on your site, so make sure your users always know how to get back to it. Not only will the 'home' button let people who clicked links on your site get back to where they began, but it also allows people who land on sub-pages within your Website to find your home page -- potentially resulting in a new repeat visitor for your site.

7. Keep it Fast

Don't be fooled into thinking your users have super-fast Internet connections. They don't. Despite the fact that a large proportion of the Internet community does have a broadband (or similar) connection, there are still plenty of surfers stuck with 56k modems who like to see fast loading pages wherever possible. Optimise your images, your HTML and your stylesheets to ensure everything loads as fast as possible.

8. Quality, not Quantity

Build your navigation so that it 'streams' users into progressively more and more specific information. Internet users are a lot happier with a few choices (and navigation buttons) at each level than hundreds. Use subsections and subcategories with appropriate navigation to enable users to quickly locate the specific content they want.

9. Netscape isn't Dead!

Remember, people use other Web browsers and resolutions to the ones you use. Check your site's navigation in all possible browsers and resolutions before you launch. This way you can spot mis-alignments and errors your fancy JavaScript code before anyone else does, sparing you a great deal of embarrassment in the future.

10. Leave Out the Unimportant Stuff

Links such as 'Contact Us' and 'Privacy Policy' are best left out of your Website's main navigation. The most common place for these to go is at the bottom of the page.

The Most Popular Methods of Navigation - The following are the most popular methods used to create a site navigation scheme. Make sure you take all the aspects of each into account before you decide which one you'll use.

1. Text-Driven Toolbars

These, I would say, are the least effective at grabbing users' attention. There isn't much you can do to static HTML to make it stand out more than other elements of your page -- except for large letters and bright colouring. Although these kinds of navigation systems are extremely fast loading and can be changed very quickly, they often look dull and in some cases actually put your users off looking further into the site.

One effect that's very popular and can be achieved with minimal effort --- all that is required is a touch of JavaScript --- is a rollover table cell effect. These are far superior to rollover graphics in some cases, and again, they take little time to load.

Advantages: Fast loading
Disadvantages: Can be dull

2. Image Toolbars

Although images have great potential to do well, and in 99.9% of cases do, they are often misused. Bad design, large images, and garish colours can put your user off immediately. It is worthwhile to consider using a single image map, which will reduce the image size considerably --- the server only has to carry out one HTTP transaction instead of several (if you have several small button images).

Make sure you specify the ALT attribute for your images, otherwise people using text-only browsers, who have images turned off, or who simply cannot wait for the page to finish loading, can still navigate your site without hassle.

Advantages: Can look great
Disadvantages: Can be slow loading

3. Flash Menus

Flash menus are becoming increasingly popular now, mainly because of the growing numbers of people with access to a fast Internet connection. But take into account the fact that a lot of your users will still be using 56k modems, so don't overuse your Flash.

Indeed, sometimes Flash can be a big no-no. If it takes longer than about 10 seconds to load, ditch it. Under no circumstances include a preloader. People do not want to be greeted with a 'Now Loading' message before they've even begun to explore the site.

Also consider users who don't have the Flash plugin installed on their computer. Although few, they do not want to have to download a whole new piece of software in order to be able use your site.

Advantages: Can look amazing and very professional
Disadvantages: Not everyone has the Flash plugin, can be slow loading

Of course, there are other possibilities to consider when designing your Website; the methods described here are only the most popular.

Other Considerations

Make your navigation suitable to your site's theme

If you run a Recipe Website, for example, consider making for each section small icons that relate to food and/or cooking. Perhaps you might include a small cartoon cake with a caption that linked to the 'Cake Baking' section.

Make your navigation suitable to your site's target audience

If the largest proportion of your users are children, why not make your navigation look like it belongs on a kids' Website? If you had a jokes section, for instance, you could use a small cartoon laughing face to symbolise joke telling.

3 Points You Should Remember At All Costs!

If you've decided to ignore everything I've said so far, please read these three points -- I think they're the most important when you design your site's navigation.

1. Test, test, test!

Make sure you thoroughly test your site navigation on as many browsers as possible. These should include:

2. Be Nice to Your Users

Put your most important button first on the navigation bar. This should probably be the 'Home Page' link. Also, spell out each link to your users. Cute little icons with no textual description are simply not enough. Your visitors should be able to work out exactly what is in each section before they click on the link to it.

3. Place it Well

Make sure your users can see your navigation clearly. Don't surround it with other content -- make it stand out from the rest of your content, and you won't go wrong. Also, keep in mind the 'Above the Fold' and 'Banner Blindness' considerations discussed earlier.

What is content? The simple answer is "information." If your site is thorough, organized logically, has data that is accurate, and is current, then it will probably fly in today's world. Should you thoroughly explain EVERY aspect of your company? Maybe, maybe not. How much of your company would you explain on a "sales call?" Probably 2-3 minutes, or 1-2 paragraphs is about all the patients that most people have. You might want more company information if your site is geared towards gathering large clients, or advertising for new employees.

Picture your site as a "Pre Sales Call!"

Most sites today have at least the following areas:

Complete, thorough, accurate, creative, and logical ... What more can you ask for in a quality site!?

From www.SitePoint.com - What Exactly Comprises "Great Content"?

I. ORIGINALITY

Unless your site is called Yahoo!, it's probably a safe bet that you won't do much in the way of return visits if your page consists of "Links to Sites I Think are Kewl!!!" and little else. You've got something no one else has...*your* opinion, *your* viewpoint, *your* advice, *your* product, etc. Have you ever visited a site and things "just clicked"? Maybe you had heard something explained in several different ways, but it just didn't sink in until you heard it explained in a particular manner. You may be the person who can "make it click" for someone. Why recycle the same old, tired clichés and content when you have the chance to give visitors something unique and original?

II. EASILY UNDERSTOOD INFORMATION

This would seem to have a very high "Duh!" factor, but this concept is frequently disregarded. Just because you're an expert on existentialist writers of the 19th and 20th centuries and you spend your spare time calculating the escape velocity required for given objects to break free from the gravitational pull of the Earth, doesn't mean your visitors will necessarily be so well versed in those areas. There is a reason that the "For Dummies"(r) series of books is so popular; a basic, straightforward way of addressing things is very beneficial at times.

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying you should insult the intelligence of your visitors. "Kids, today we're going to learn about web site pro-mo-tion! Can you say promotion?" probably isn't the best way to address an audience you're aspiring to keep. On the other hand, don't write so far above everyone's head that only a few visitors can glean the esoteric knowledge contained within your site.

III. CHECK SPELLING AND GRAMMAR

This is an all too common misteak. (I meant to do that - really.) No matter how great the information you provide is, spelling and grammatical errors mar an otherwise professional image. I don't know about you, but I tend to distrust a company with these kind of errors on their site. Before you start thinking that I've spent a little too much time studying conspiracy theories, consider this: Do you think a large, prestigious, professional company would allow a blunder like this on their site: "Yuo can trust us with you're envestmint"?

A fairly effective way to remedy this is to spell check your pages before publishing them. Bear in mind though, this isn't a panacea. Spell check won't tell you when "your" should've been used instead of "you're"; make sure you proofread your pages at least once or twice before publishing them. Although I have found that many visitors are more than happy to provide this service for you free of charge and will send you a lovely personalized email (Subject: You are a Complete and Total Idiot!!) to inform you of any gaffe you might have inadvertently committed.

IV. BE YOURSELF

While it is important to follow the rules of spelling and grammar, your goal isn't to impress everyone with how well you write. You want to create interest - capture and hold visitors' attention. I've found that one of the best ways of doing so is to develop your own style.

When I first started writing about designing and promoting web sites, I felt as though no one would be interested in the articles unless they were meticulously researched and documented and written well enough to win a Pulitzer. I struggled and struggled to write that "perfect" article and I just couldn't do it (At this point, you're probably thinking, "You're telling me, sister!"). What I could do, however, is write using my own style and many editors thought that the articles were good enough to share with their subscribers. You can do this too; you've just got to find your "voice". An example of this that immediately comes to mind is Jim Daniels of BizWeb 2000. Jim has a very unique style - it's almost as if he's talking to you, personally. It's very effective and he's been wonderfully successful in providing help to web site owners.

Of course we've only scratched the surface of how the content of your site can be improved, but hopefully this will give you the "push" you need to begin the process of refining your own content.

From www.AKAMarketing.com - Content is King

On the Internet Content is king and it always will be. This is because the Internet is the information superhighway and most people use it for information of some sort.

The information on a website is its content, generally the more useful and interesting content a website has the more successful it will be, because more people will want to visit it again and again, this is especially true if a website is constantly adding more and more content on a regular basis, be it articles, tutorials, news and opinion or whatever.

Content is what drives the web, OK, OK - what about the vast variety of products that can be bought on the web?

It's true there are millions and millions of products available to buy on the web but only the odd surfer goes online to specifically look for a product so if you gear your site to simply sell your product and do nothing else, you won't be very successful.

This is because nobody will even visit your site unless they are looking specifically for your product and they just so happen to find it via a search engine.

So now you know content is king, but do you know what good content is, well the first trick to creating good content for your website is to be sure that your content will have specific appeal to your target audience.

Next you want original content, if someone asked me what I considered good content I'd say that it was content that's different and unique and not the same as the content on the other website I just came from.

Good content will show the writers own personality and flavor in it. It will be interesting and very informative, if it's not what's the point of putting it online in the first place, nobody will benefit from it and it won't help you get more repeat visitors.

Your content should be easy to understand and use regular English as far as possible, if you have to use topic specific words that could cause trouble for some visitors make sure you explain them. To create content you simply write news and articles about the industry your product is in. This ensures that visitors who read your content are also the visitors that are likely to be interested in buying your product.

If you feel you are great at creating product(s) but don't feel the same way about your writing skills and think you can't write your own content there are hundreds of places where you can get content for free, usually all that's required of you is that you place a small bio of the original writer at the bottom of the article, tutorial etc.

To find free content like this simply visit any major search engine and type in "free your keywords here content" and then visit a couple of the returned sites. You'll be surprised at the amount of free content you can get for your site.

Remember before you publish new content always, always check spelling and grammar, if your content has misspellings and poor grammar your website and company will appear unprofessional and people don't generally buy from companies they think are unprofessional.

Don't just use the spell checker in Dreamweaver, frontpage or any other website creator you use, because the spell checker will do just that - spell check, it wont be able to tell you that you have used there, when you should have actually used their, so you always have to actually read all your content, usually twice is enough to spot errors, also to make sure try and get some friends to proofread it for you.

On a final note - Always try to update your content as much as possible, as more people will become regular visitors and will be exposed to the products and services you offer. This is turn will equal more sales and profit for you, and that ladies and gentlemen is what it's all about.

More articles:
IT Pays - ECommerce.com - Evolution7.com - InfoWorld.com - WDVL.com - Bill Gates Web site! - TwistedTail.com - Linking101.com

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See who links to your web site.

http://www.marketposition.com/linkpopularity.htm

This service will quickly compare your link popularity across four major search engines. It will also compare your site to up to three other Web sites that you designate. This is a handy feature to see how you stack up against your competition. It's also great to find out who is linking to you. You may be surprised at what you find!

The link service displays colored graphs so that you can visually compare your popularity scores for different search engines or different Web sites. In addition, you can have your link popularity report e-mailed to you weekly, twice a month, or monthly if you wish. I've reviewed other link checking services on the Web, and this one is by far the best one I've seen. Be sure to bookmark it!

So what are the advantages of increasing the number of links to your Web site? There are three primary benefits:

For example, the domain www.geocities.com has extremely high link popularity. However, that doesn't mean that having a Web site at www.geocities.com/mycoolwebsite/ will benefit from this high link popularity. If so, you'd see a great deal more geocities, tripod, compuserve, aol, and other pages at the top of the search results. In fact, we know that on some engines with all other things being equal that many free Web sites or Web sites that share a domain name are ranked lower than sites with their own domain name.

Based on this, I believe the search engines either maintain a list of domains where they choose to ignore link popularity as a factor, and/or they ignore link popularity scores for any submitted URL that includes a sub-directory. Therefore, to fully benefit from link popularity, I recommend you get your own domain name!

This is minimal given the numerous benefits you gain. You might also avoid hosting your important doorway pages in subdirectories whenever possible. That way you avoid giving the search engine the impression that you are sharing a domain with a thousand other Web sites.

With that said, the question still remains: How do you improve your link popularity? There are many strategies. I'll discuss each of the major methods so you can choose what's right for you.

Trading Links

This is by far the oldest and best-known method of improving link popularity. Basically you e-mail or contact the Webmaster of a site that is complementary but generally not competitive to your own. You ask them to link to your site while outlining the benefits of doing so. You would generally offer to link back to them in exchange for this courtesy.

The disadvantage to the link trade method is that it's time consuming. You'll also find that far more people will ignore or reject your request versus those that accept it AND follow through by adding the link to you. Many of these people get e-mails every week from people asking to trade links. These Webmasters are also going to be very hesitant about linking to another Web site and potentially sending their own hard-earned traffic away to somebody else. Most people will refuse to link to you unless they're convinced that they'll receive more traffic from you than they'll send away, or that there's some other advantage to them.

Free For All Links (also called "FFA")

Many FFA (Free for All) programs and services preach the flood of new traffic you'll receive to your site by bulk submitting to thousands of FFA sites. For those of you who have not stumbled onto one of these pages, FFA's are simply pages that link back to the last 50, 100, or some number of Web sites that submitted to their FFA page. You might think of them as pages that consist of links to recently submitted sites.

You might wonder why Webmasters set up these FFA pages in the first place? Generally it's a method to gain e-mail addresses to send advertisements to. To submit to them, nearly all require that you give them your e-mail address. I *highly* recommend that you use a fake or expendable e-mail address or you'll get 300-500 spam messages within 48 hours of submitting to a large list of FFA's!

Reciprocal Link Services

May 2001 -- Editor's Update: Reciprocal link services, often referred to as "Link farms" have come under fire lately by some engines such as Google who now consider them to be a form of spam. Google has officially stated that they will ban sites that participate in "link farms." Therefore, participate in these type of services at your own risk!