Site Navigation in Web Templates Design
Goal Setting Software - Affordable Health Insurance - About Us - Contact Us - Privacy
Tutorials - HTML - Domain Names - Email - Web Hosting - Ecommerce - Business Plans - Affiliates - Home Business
HOME

Site Navigation in Web Templates Design

 
© Copyright 2003 by BasicTips.com, division of BasicTemplates.com



The #1 Most Overlooked Element:

When determining the utilization of links within your web site's template, don't forget to include a "Home" button or link. As simple as it may sound, it is the most overlooked element. Your web template (or variations of it), should be used on every page of your site. This gives your site an overall consistent appearance so that your visitors have no doubt that they are still at your site. Remember that the web template you may have purchased or that you may be shopping for, must have the ability for your site visitors' to find your home page from any page within your site. Your visitors will not always find your site through your homepage and even if they do, they may want to go back to that page eventually.

Static vs. Dynamic Navigation:

Effective site navigation is critical for the success of any web site no matter how large or how small. As your site grows, changes to your navigational system may be needed to keep information flowing smoothly to your site visitors from any page they may access or find your site through. For very large sites, you may opt to include dynamic drop-down menus within your template. However, keep in mind who your main site visitors will be. If your visitors have scripting disabled on their systems or are using older browsers, and you have no other form of navigation available to them, they will not be able to navigate your site.

Textual Links vs. Graphical Link Buttons/Image Maps:

The same is true if your only form of navigation is through image maps and/or graphical buttons. If your site visitors have graphics disabled on their systems (and many folks surf this way to speed up page load), they will not be able to quickly find the link they need. They could become completely lost and frustrated if you do not use alt tags for your images AND hide the link path with a status bar message! You might as well kiss your visitors good-bye if you use a "no-right-click" script on these pages too. Not only can they not find the link path by visually seeing it on mouseover, but you have further frustrated them by a "Sorry, you don't have permission ... " popup box when all they really wanted was the direct link path to a page of information on your site.

Moral of the Story:

So what is the best form of navigation? The best form of site navigation is generally a combination and always includes textual links as one of those within the combination. For example, when we design a web template we consider what navigational elements we will be using. If we are using an image map with hot spots, we always include a textual navigational bar.

Stategic Planning:

Professional template designers take into consideration that most of their customers will not be obviously aware of this critical factor as well as other important design plans. At BasicTemplates.com we strategically design our templates for an effective site layout and do not take for granted that the end user already has this knowledge. It takes planning to build an effective web template that is resourceful to the end user. We could design some awesome eye-appealing web templates that could easily have the knock-your-socks-off effect on your site visitors, but if it is not realistically functional for site navigation, we would not dream of offering it to our customers.

When shopping for the best web template for your site or your clients' sites, think about how the site will be structured. Will you have sections within subdirectories? If the website will be small, you may not need subdirectories. If you know it will grow, then you might want to plan ahead and structure it so that it will be organized in a fashion to accommodate the growth. Always be sure the most critical links are accessible on every page. But do not subject your visitors to link overkill either. Too many links can be confusing and overwhelming.

If you have a web template with a planned out site structure, and you want a professional opinion as to whether it will be effective for your needs, contact us. We would be happy to help you. That is what BasicTemplates is all about: "helping web designers build affordable and effective sites for their clients"

 

© Copyright 2003 by BasicTips.com, division of BasicTemplates.com



Return to Web Template Design Tutorial Index

Get your Business Domain Name for only $9.95, Right Here, Right Now!




 
WEBSITE101 TUTORIALS

HTML Tutorial | CGI tutorial | Email Tutorial |
Spam Tutorial | Cookies Tutorial | Privacy Tutorial | Windows Tutorial | DreamWeaver Tutorial | Domain Name Tutorial | Business Plan Tutorial | Search Position Tutorial | Online Advertising Tutorial | Ecommerce Essentials Tutorial




   
             Free Text to HTML Converter for Web Publishing   
Google
  Web website101.com
 
Tutorials - HTML - Domain Names - Email - Web Hosting - Ecommerce - Business Plans - Affiliates - Home Business
   
Goal Setting Software - Affordable Health Insurance - About Us - Contact Us - Privacy
   
   
HOME