Website Design : How To Improve Navigation
by Darren on May.14, 2010, under Graphic Design, Web Design and Development
A link is a word or phrase that when clicked takes visitors from one part of your website to another part of your website, and knowing how to make use of them as part of your website design is absolutely essential. The more pages your website has, the more links you will need to include. If your website has 5 pages, then you will probably need around 20 links. If your website has hundreds of pages, then you will probably need 300+ links.
In theory, each page of your website should link to all of the other pages of your website, as that would mean that visitors only have to click once to find the information that they are looking for. However, if your website has many pages, then this will not be possible, as you would have so many links on each of your pages that there would be hardly any space left for anything else. What you should aim for though is to have every page that is directly relevant to another page to include a link to it.
You can do this by including links within the written content on your web pages. For example, if you mention ‘Sony TVs’ on one of your pages, and another page on your website provides information on Sony TVs, then you should make the phrase ‘Sony TVs’ link to your Sony TVs page. Another approach is to have a list of relevant web pages on your website at the end of each web page. So, using the same example, if you have written a web page about Sony TVs in general, at the end of that page you could link to your web pages on Sony TV prices and Sony TV models.
In addition to having links within your written content and at the bottom of your written content, you should also incorporate menu bars along the top and / or left hand side of your website design. You can include many links within a menu bar without them getting in the way of your written content or cluttering up the look of your website.
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This article was written by a website design expert who has more than 10 years experience in the industry. He is currently doing website design in Bedford, NY and can be contacted at http://kinneymedia.com
