web design by websites-design.com.au

Web surfers are basically an impatient bunch of people and if a website design is hard to figure out because the links are not very obvious, your website visitors will click away never to return. Website navigation is one of the most important elements in determining the effectiveness of a website. This article gives a basic guideline of the principle of designing website navigation.

If your website navigation makes sense to an average person this means that your website navigation is fine. There is always room for creativity, good designed websites tend to have similar navigation layouts.

As a web designer you must always keep in your mind the basic purpose of the website with respect to its target audience. when designing navigational elements. Most websites are made so that it can provide information about the service or product being sold and most of them are made to actually sell service or products.

Make sure all navigational elements on the website design are clear links by using standard conventions for links such as menus, buttons , underlining the text or changing color on mouse over. Resist the temptation to use ambiguous or clever names for links.

When using non-conventional links scheme , always tell the visitor that this is a link. For example suppose you design a web page where you want to use a map showing several cities and want to let the user click on the city name to move to the next page and get information about that city. Just make sure you tell the user to click on the city name to get more information about that city they are interested in..

Always remember the Three Click Rule that most professional web designers use. Studies have proven that 70% of the users will not click more than three clicks to get to the information they want. So every page on your website should be reachable within the allowed three clicks.

We do not recommend using a flash movie or other type of flash splash page on your website. Keep the web page design simple yet very attractive. But if you do decide to use one a flash splash page or flash movie make certain you use the META REFRESH tag to take the visitor automatically to your home page after a few seconds and provide a clickable, clearly marked button or link so the visitor can skip the entry page and go directly to your home page if they require to do that. otherwise a large percentage of visitors will just click away never to return back to your website. Remember most visitors are looking for information not entertainment or creepy unwanted animations.

Top Main Menus – a top of the page main menu bar is usually located directly below the page header graphic that contains the website logo. These menu items may be single links, drop down menus, or expanding menus. Each menu link can be represented by a graphic link or just text link. In either case a hyperlink is associated with each item that the visitor can click on to get to the information described on the following page.

Left Side website Navigation – left side website navigation is typically implemented as either a column or text area on the left top portion of the webpage. Like the top menu, each item can be a single link or an expanding menu.

Right Side website Navigation – right side website navigation is not used that often, but when used, it is implemented as a column or text area on the top right side of the webpage. Most web designers use this area for advertisements rather than site navigation.

Bottom Menus – bottom menus can be either a menu bar or footer. Menu bars use either graphic design or text links while footers almost exclusively use text links.

Internal Page Links – Every page on the website should be within two or three clicks from the home page. That's the maximum number of clicks anybody would do to go to a page within your website.. Important pages should be ONE click away. The type of website will determine which links are more prominently displayed.

Website Shopping Carts – if you are using a shopping cart to sell your products online, you should prominently display a view cart button on each page. The most commonly used location is the top right side just below or as part of the header.

Order Buttons – if you plan to use individual order buttons they should be very large and visible. The fewer clicks it takes to get to your order page, the more orders you will get.

Breadcrumbs – breadcrumbs are both links and a graphical representation of where you are within a website. Breadcrumbs are located at the top left of the page under the header. Each word is a link back to the previous page. They are in the form

Home-> Articles-> Marketing

External Links – external links can be used anywhere but are most frequently used inside the text areas on a website. They may be references to more information located on another site, to recommended products, or to almost anything else.

Advertisements – advertisements on are usually either a graphic or text with a hyperlink. Ads can be placed anywhere on a website but are used just under the top banner, down the right hand side of the page, under navigation elements on the left margin of the website, across the bottom of the page or even interspersed within the test areas of the page. Research show that ads above the fold are more effective.
(“Above the fold” is referred to the area of a webpage that is visible without having to scroll Downloadable Items on your website – if you offer downloadable items on your website such as audio, video or pdf contents, make sure that you tell the user how big the file is and whether they need an application to run the file. If they do an application, provide a link to the application. For example, provide a link to the free Acrobat reader if you offer pdf files.

Google Site Map – A website map is a good way to layout your entire website for your visitor. (Search engine like them too.) It is just a hierarchical listing of every page on your site with a clickable hyperlink to that page.

A good website design will definitely need to have a good navigation system which can increase the numbers of pages viewed by each visitor. This in turn can increase website signups, customers, sales, members or whatever you are offering on your website. If you are planning a website redesign make sure you start your new website with a proper website navigation