Implementing Site Navigation

Website navigation is important to the success of your website visitor’s experience to your website. The website’s navigation system is like a road map to all the different areas and information contained within the website.

Using a consistent navigation scheme from page to page helps the website visitor learn your website navigation system.

Types of Website Navigation
There are different types of website navigation:

• Hierarchical website navigation

The structure of the website navigation is built from general to specific. This provides a clear, simple path to all the web pages from anywhere on the website.

• Global website navigation

Global website navigation shows the top level sections/pages of the website. It is available on each page and lists the main content sections/pages of the website.

• Local website navigation

Local navigation would the links with the text of your web pages, linking to other pages within the website.

Styles of Website Navigation
Styles of website navigation refers to how the navigation system is presented.

• Text Links

Text links are words (text) which are surrounded by the anchor set of tags to create clickable text which takes the visitor to another web page within your website, a downloadable document from your website, or to another website on the Internet.

• Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumb navigation shows the website visitor the path within your website to the page they are currently on.

• Navigation Bar

A navigation bar is the collection of website navigation links all grouped together. A navigation bar can be horizontal or vertical.

• Tab Navigation

Tab navigation is where the website navigations links appear as tabs, similar to the tabs you use in a binder to divide the contents into sections.

• Sitemap

A sitemap is a page within your website that lists all the sections and web pages (if you don’t have too many) that are contained within the website. This is different from Google Sitemaps and Yahoo Sitemaps.
A traditional sitemap provides navigation for your website visitors should they get lost, a shorter path to the different areas of the website for those who know what exactly they are looking for and a means for the search engines to find all the pages within your website.

• Dropdown Menu

A drop down menu is a style of website navigation where when the visitor places their mouse over a menu item, another menu is exposed. A drop down menu can include a flyout menu (see next item).
A drop down menu system can create accessibility issues and a problem as far as the search engines not being able to read the links in the menu, but if constructed properly, these issues can be overcome.

• Flyout Menu

A flyout menu is constructed similar to the dropdown menu. When the visitor places their mouse over a link, another menu “flys out”, usually to the right, from the link where the mouse is placed.
Flyout menus face the same challenges as dropdown menus but if constructed properly, they can be accessible and readable by the search engines.

• Named Anchors

Named anchors are the type of links that take you directly to a spot on the current page or on another web page.

Website Navigation Use
To be effective, the website navigation system needs:

• To be consistent throughout the website.

The website visitors will learn, through repetition, how to get around the website.

• The main navigation links kept together.

This makes it easier for the visitor to get to the main areas of the website.

• Reduced clutter by grouping links into sections.

If the list of website navigation links are grouped into sections and each section has only 5-7 links, this will make it easier to read the navigation scheme.

• Minimal clicking to get to where the visitor wants to get to.

If the number of clicks to the web page the visitor wishes to visit is minimal, this leads to a better experience.

    Some visitors can become confused or impatient when clicking a bunch of links to get to where they want to be. In large websites, this can be difficult to reduce. Using breadcrumbs is one way to help the visitor see where they are within the website and the path back up the navigation path they took.

Creating the website navigation system at the planning stage of the website will effect the overall design of the web page layout and help develop the overall plan for the website.

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