While flicking through the latest edition of B2B Marketing magazine I came a across this nifty little article which highlights how Chichester Design’s master web developer, Jeremy, can make your website easier to navigate.
We know how important website usability is and we stress that a website that you can find your way around and use to fulfil your goals, whether it be to find out information, book tickets or post a comment, is a good website.
Good website navigation is not only great for usability but also great for search engines. If you are thinking of applying any Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to your site then the navigation is the ideal place to start and our SEO experts would be glad to help you with this.
The B2B Marketing’s best practice guide suggestions for making your website easier to navigate, and Chichester Design’s little gems of the month, are:
Create a naturally flowing hierarchy
Make it as easy as possible for users to go from general to the more specific content they want on your site. Add navigation pages when it makes sense and effectively work these into your internal link structure.
- Avoid creating complex webs of navigation links e.g. linking every page on your site to every other page.
- Avoid going overboard with slicing and dicing your content (it takes twenty clicks to get to deep content).
Use mostly text for navigation
Controlling most of the navigation from page to page on your site through text links makes it easier for search engines to crawl and understand your site. Many users also prefer this over other approaches, especially on some devices that might not handle Flash of JavaScript.
- Avoid having a navigation based entirely on drop-down menus, images, or animations (many, but not all, search engines can discover such links on a site, but is a user can reach all pages on a site via normal text links, this will improve the accessibility of your site; more on how Google deals with non-text files).
Use ‘breadcrumb’ navigation
A breadcrumb is a row of internal links at the top or bottom of the page that allows visitors to quickly navigate back to a previous section or the root page. Many breadcrumbs have the most general page (usually the root page) as the first, left-most link and list the more specific sections out to the right.
Put an HTML sitemap page on your site
And use an XML Sitemap file. A simple sitemap page with links to all of the pages or the most important pages (if you have hundreds or thousands) on your site can be useful. Creating and XML Sitemap file for your site helps ensure that search engines discover the pages on your site.
- Avoid letting your HTML sitemap page become out of date with broken links
- Avoid creating an HTML sitemap that simply lists pages without organising them, for example by subject.
Consider what happens when a user removes part of your URL
Some users might navigate your site in odd ways, and you should anticipate this. For example, instead of using the breadcrumb links on the page, a user might drop off a part of the URL, in the hopes of finding more general content.
Have a useful 404 page
Users will occasiosnaly come to a page that doesn’t exist on your site, wither by following a broken link or typing in the wrong URL. Having a custom 404 page that kindly guides users back to a working page on your site- perhaps your root page- can greatly improve a user’s experience.
- Avoid allowing your 404 pages to be indexed in search engines (make sure that your webserver is configured to give a 404 HTTP status code when non-existent pages are requested).
- Avoid providing only a vague message like ‘Not found’, ‘404’, or no 404 page at all
- Avoid using a design for your 404 page that isn’t consistent with the rest of you site.
(Taken from B2B Marketing, July/August 09, p40)
Like these tips and hungry to get your navigation in tip-top condition? Contact us today for a quote and we’ll help with all your web development and SEO needs.
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