Author: Stoney deGeyter

What this is about: This list covers issues related to a site's primary and secondary navigation menus, their effectiveness and how they are implemented from both a search engine and user perspective.

Why this is important: A strong, user-friendly and search engine friendly navigation is essential in helping people and bots through your site. You visitors need to find information quickly with minimal hunting and the search engines need to be able to follow the navigation to reach all site pages with the fewest number of jumps (clicks) necessary. If the navigation is broken or doesn't get people (or search engines) where they need to go, the performance of a site will suffer.

What to look for:

• Located top or top-left: Typically primary navigation is found along the top header and/or down the left side of the page (except blogs which typically falls on the right.) Be consistent with convention.

• Consistent throughout site: Don't move or change the navigation from page to page. Be consistent in its implementation.

• Links to Home page: Make sure you have a link to your home page in an obvious location near the top-left.

• Links to Contact Us page: Keep an obvious link to a Contact Us page in a consistent location.

• Links to About Us page: Make sure site has and links to an About Us page.

• Simple to use: Navigation should not require much thought to use. Use headings that are easily identifiable and understandable links.

• Indicates current page: Through breadcrumbs or other means, make sure current page is easily identified in the navigation.

• Links to all main sections: Main navigation should contain links to all of site's primary areas.

• Proper categorical divisions: If navigation is robust, divide into sensible categories.

• Non-clickable is obvious: Make sure non-clickable category headings don't look like the clickable navigation links.

• Accurate description text: Link text should adequately describe the destination page.

• Links to Login: If site has a login area, login link should be readily available in an obvious spot.

• Provides Logout link: Once logged in, a logout link should be readily available in an obvious spot.

• Uses Alt attribute in images: Any image-based navigation elements must use image alt text.

• No pop-up windows: Don't use pop-up windows. Please.

• No new window links: Navigation links should not open into new windows or tabs.

• Do not rely on rollovers: Don't rely on mouse-over changes to indicate a link is a link. Should be obvious without mousing over.

• Avoid cascading menus: Avoid complicated fly-out menus that go several levels deep.

• Keep scent from page to page: There should be a natural progression from page to page, even if multiple paths are used to reach a destination.

• Targets expert and novice users: Navigation should be workable for newbies just as well as for those who have more experience with your industry.

• Absolute links: Always use absolute links in navigation.

About the Author:
Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing, a search engine optimization / marketing firm providing SEO and website marketing services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. He is the author of his E-Marketing Performance eBook and contributes daily to the E-Marketing Performance marketing blog. "