Basic Site Navigation Help

When it comes to navigation for a Web site, depending on the size of the Web site in question you might have to do a lot of planning. It would be nearly impossible to have every page out there link to every other page you host. So where do you draw the line and how can you figure out the best navigation techniques for you?

Before doing any work on the Web site, you need to come up with a basic outline of how the Web site will look. You will need to divide it into a few main sections, and make sure that your basic navigation is easy to understand. Now from there, you can give each section its own navigational links. Always make sure you leave a trail though that human eyes can follow to get back to where they once were. Nobody likes having to start over when it comes to browsing a Web site. They will just leave if they cannot figure out how to get back to that cool link they saw two Web pages ago.

Another useful set of navigation links that you could gain some help from are bread crumb trails. These act as place holders to go back down the steps of th ladder if needed. Most of the time they look like this:

Home > Articles > CSS Design > Article on CSS Design

This gives you the easiest way to see where you are at and gives the viewer a good feeling of knowing where he or she is at. Thy know they only have to go one link back to get back to “CSS Design.”

The best thing to keep in mind with Web site navigation is that you need to make it make sense to humans first and robots later. Google might love your layout, but if human eyes can’t understand how to get backwards and forwards, you’re not going to have people staying once they have found your content.

[tags]navigation, design, basics, help, lists, outline[/tags]