Site Navigation System: We Choose Creativity!

Good navigation is what your website needs if you are going to really make a difference online. Your SEO and PPC marketing will not matter at all if your customers get to your site and then click off as soon as they arrive.

People need to be able to find the things that they need, and they need to be able to find them quickly. There is little point in you spending hundreds of dollars on building up your online campaign, only for your customers to hit your site and then leave because they cannot navigate your site.

That would be like advertising your shop during the super bowl, and then locking the door on the day of your big opening.

What sort of navigation do you need?

You need navigation that is unambiguous, that is meaningful, that is able to organize content, arrange content, and display content in a meaningful and visually pleasing manner. It needs to be able to be understood by whoever looks at your site, even if they are not very “up” on websites and website navigation.

There are now things such as the Jquery library. They allow you to add different kinds of animations and add sleek designs to your to your navigation. They have made it so that you do not need to worry about certain forms of navigation.

You may find it difficult to add a decent search widget to your website, but Jquery make it a lot easier. You should be aware however that too many animations when navigating is going to cause loading and functionality problems. You should be aware of that before you run off and add a bunch of navigational elements with sleek animations.

Dynamic effects and navigation are not always perfect

They are very good at making your website user friendly, but if someone has a low bandwidth for their Internet, or they have a slower computer, then this fun navigation is going to turn into a nightmare.

Plus, do not forget that some people are going to see your evolved and dynamic navigation as just plain weird. On the other hand, you may find that dynamic navigation leads to some very nice effects that turn your dull navigation process into something a little more interesting.

Website navigation menus often look a lot better

Picking a navigation menu is something that takes a long time, because so many of them look cheap, tacky and boring. However, if you really dig deep, you will find some great menus that are visually pleasing and still functional.

If you are really having trouble finding a good design, then why not steal parts from one of them and add it to parts of another. Steal the silver effect from one, and the noise from another, and couple it with a template you found and you are half way home.

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Test and validate your menu as best you can

You want your menu to be fresh, interesting and original. But you also want it to work. This means that you have to test your menus and navigation as much as possible. You need to test it on your own desktop computer, and then on the various operating systems and handheld devices that you can find.

You will need to be sure to test out all of your links too. You can do this with one of the many link checking tools that are available online You need to verify that your links and your navigation are working correctly, because they are going to ruin your customers user experience if they do not. People will not endure pages crashing, items being unclickable, or unformatted lists appearing.

Don’t forget the scrolling side of it

Part of your navigation also involves scrolling. There is only one rule for scrolling, and that is to keep your scrolling to a minimum. This rule is especially true with mobile searching, because people on mobile devices hate scrolling.

They would rather click off of a page than scroll down it. You should also remember that people on desktop computers are also very bad at scrolling. They do not mind doing it as much, but they would prefer not to. If you can keep their scrolling to a minimum then you are on a winner.

Clickable widgets and animations can also work well

You do not have to have text based links all the time. You can have widgets and elements that are clickable too. They are not commonly seen because they do not offer very much SEO value, but they are fun to use and may attract the attention of your customers.

They may not be ideal for some website, but if you put the SEO value to one side, and concentrate on engaging your users, then you may find that they are very good at getting people’s attention.

Make your navigation a little bit larger

Add widgets, links and scroll bars that are over sized. Where is the harm in making them a little too big? It will increase how easy they are to use, and will make your visually impaired users a little happier too. You may also find that it helps to make the page more cohesive if you already have a lot of larger elements on the page.

  Sonia Jackson

About the Guest Author:

My name is Sonia Jackson. I represent the web-site www.write-my-essay-for-me.com. We’ll help you to solve all problems with writing different essays and research papers in a short time; we’ll answer all your questions and give you useful advice.