Website Design For Newbies – 4 Important Ideas You Need For Website Navigation
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The navigation of your website is of course extremely important. What most newbies do not understand however is that there’s much more to it than merely throwing up a few links to the other pages of your website. There are actually many small details you have control over with your website design that can vastly improve your navigation and make your website more appealing and easy to use. Here are 4 important ideas that newbies should consider using for their website navigation.
1. Search Boxes – Search boxes are an easy way to allow visitors to your website to find exactly what they are looking for without any hassle. It also gives them more control over the experience, which is something that people enjoy and respond to positively. You can quickly include search boxes using tools from search engines like Google, or with the functionality of certain website platforms such as blogs. With a search box you know that your visitors will always be able to find what they need.
2. Sitemaps – Today, the most important use of sitemaps is that they help your site get indexed and ranked within search engines. This is because all of your pages can be easily found at the same time. However, sitemaps still play a role with aiding your website navigation. The whole point of good navigation is to ensure that people can get around all areas of the site as easily as possible, allowing them to obtain any kind of information they are looking for. An HTML sitemap will help a confused visitor locate what they are looking for instead of leaving your site for to search elsewhere.
3. Web 2.0 and Social Networking – One of the advantages of website design today as opposed to years ago is that there are hundreds of useful web 2.0 tools and social networking services that you can integrate into your website. For one thing, this will help your website gain a great deal more exposure. However, in terms of your website navigation you can also use some tools to help provide features on your own site. For example you can use web 2.0 tools that let people rate articles, find similar articles and related content and much more. All of this enables people to directly control their own website navigation and to have easy access to the information they most want to see.
4. Above the Fold Navigation – The term “above the fold” is used to refer to the section of a website that is at the top of the page, where a user can see everything without scrolling down in their browsers. You want your main navigation information and structure to be located here, allowing visitors to your site to get a quick grasp of the kinds of things you offer. This will also ensure that visitors can easily see how to move around within different sections of your site.
These are just a few of the easy things you can do with your website design to improve your navigation. A good website navigation structure can help you in many ways, and it’s important not to overlook the above principles to help maximize your success.
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