If you have a lot of content to add to your website it is really important to ensure that the user can navigate to pages and sections in your website easily. The menu system should provide clear guidance and ideally you don’t want to have information buried under too many clicks.
Generally people can only take in around 8 different options at a time. So try to divide your content into around 8 top level sections. These would from your primary navigation. If some sections are larger than others then you will need a secondary navigation and again you can split this up into around 8 bite sized chunks. Third levels of navigations and so forth can be added if needed.
If the quantity of content to include on your website is so comprehensive that dividing in this way is not possibly then you need to include other aids to finding information:
- Search functionality is key. These do not need to be expensive – Google provide search tools that can be added to your website by adding just a few lines of code.
- Similarly a bread crumb (links at the top of the page showing where is the site you are)
- Sitemap – if possible you need two versions – one in XHTML for your visitors and another in XML format for Google.
- Concentrate on making the most important information can be found in just a few clicks. Remember the importance of information should be weighted by your client and not by yourself, your “about us” page might be a huge ego boost built unless it has information in it that will convert your visitor then move it down your priority.
- Including a latest news section to the home page or a left/right hand banner will guide visitors to new content.
- Simple naming convention, don’t try and be too cleaver and use your own nicknames for area’s of content that mean the visitor and to guess what they might mean.
Once you have organized your website and publish your content , always be prepared to go back and rethink it. Ideally you would have access to a content management system that would allow you to easily move the content and menu structure around if needed.
If you have Google analytics enabled on your website then you will be able to find out wish pages people are visiting and these that have low traffic, use this information to adjust the layout accordingly.
If you need help organising your website content then please do get in touch – I would be very happy to help
