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Casual Articles - Website Design: Improve Your Navigation
I love the art of selling. LOVE IT. When I first entered the field of sales, the one thing I quickly grew to appreciate was the fact that anything I did to increase my ability in selling also increased my ability in life. Sales skills are life skills.“There’s a born salesman!” I have yet to read, or hear on the evening news, of a lady who gave birth to a sales person. Or an attorney, or doctor, or for that matter an embezzler or swindler. Birth is given to boys and girls; everything after that is by choices made and skills that are learned. And sales skills are life skills.“I am not ever going to be in sales!” Really? If you have ever been in a conversation in which you were trying to express an opinion or influence an event, then you were selling. The truth is that everyone is constantly trying to sell an idea, belief, proposition, opinion, or a goal. You use sales skills throughout the day, everyday. With your spouse, your kids, your peers, your neighbor, your parents, at the store, at the bank, at your church, when you buy a car or a house, or when you simply go out to dinner. Sales skills are life skills.There is not an area of your life where sales skills cann
Navigation musts
If you mosey along to any Web site worth its salt and look carefully at how it was put together, you'll notice that all the big sites follow the same navigation methods: a tidy nav bar for effect with a bandwidth friendly set of textual links somewhere on the
Increase sales is the mantra from Fortune 100 companies to the smallest of the small businesses. The U.S. economy is growing with the Dow over 12,000 point and everyone is looking for more business results. So what is keeping you from achieving more business success? Even though we know that there is no magic pill to increase sales, there may be one secret or key that may help you to achieve more in 2007.How many times in our search to improve our businesses, do we seek solutions from the outside and fail to look within ourselves? Have you considered assessing your own tenacity and looking within the word tenacity? Did you see the word ten – 10 - within tenacity?Tenacity has many definitions, but I like the simple ones such as Chuck Norris who states tenacity is the ability "to stick to it when things get tough. " So, how many times will you stick to it? Are you discouraged after a couple of times and give up? If you had a minimum benchmark before stopping and this thresh hold would keep you going forward, would those difficult times be less challenging?From our childhood experiences, we are told to "Count to 10" before allowing our temper to guide o
Thankfully, we don't have to wander round the Web feeling our way like a zombie in a maze. Navigation forms the basis of any Web site, and always has done. Despite the fact that it is a necessity of Web design, it has become something of an afterthought for many designers, as they concentrate on trying to get clever with content.
Navigation remains the single most essential aspect of site construction, and the wonders of modern technology mean you can guide your visitors around your site in a range of innovative ways to make their online experiences all the richer and more rewarding.
What’s the point of navigation?
For the benefit of anyone arriving on the planet in the last few minutes, the base principle of site navigation is to help your visitors find their way around your Web site, providing links to all its pages. Common sense reasons that it is imperative that your site is easy to navigate or your guests will soon leave the party for pastures new.
The home page of a web site is where visitors form their impressions about the entire design, and its importance far outweighs that of the other pages that make up the site. The same theory applies to the site's navigation mechanism, ie if you manage to convince new visitors to make the step from your home page to one of your sub pages, the chances of them wanting to peruse the other delights on your site increase no end.
Proper site navigation should give the visitor a sense of 'place' within the site. it should help you maintain consistency throughout the site, even establishing something of a brand. It's important that anyone delving through your site knows how to get back to where they started, otherwise they're likely to flee in frustration.
Your navigation system should also encourage the user to explore other areas of the site by suggesting pages of related interest, and challenge their minds by pointing them towards more obscure links elsewhere online that will interest them. Ultimately, your top priority when designing site navigation is to ensure that the user doesn't have to work hard to find everything you're offering.
Traditional navigation
Back in the old days, navigating the Web was a completely different experience from the one you'll see today. We all know that developments in Web design software have made it easy to create prettier pages with flashy graphics and stylish content, but site navigation has also evolved considerably.
In the late Nineties, when the Web was just beginning to take shape, the core device for site navigation was the trusty textual link, and a blue underlined piece of text was your ticket to a world of information. once clicked, the text link would turn purple (or sometimes red) to indicate that this was one corner of the Web that you'd already explored, and this became something that even newcomers to the Net could get their head around right from the off. Of course, these conventions still apply today, albeit in a slightly more 'glam' format.
A few years ago, the closest you'd have got to a graphical interface on a site would be a series of boxed text links across the top of the page of running down the side. Occasionally these would be accompanied by hideous animated GIFs or clipart that vaguely represented the part of the site a link pointed to ('home' would be a house, 'contact us' a phone, 'buy' would be a stack of coins, etc).
Just because these navigation systems seem a little primitive from this side of the Millennium, it doesn't mean they weren't effective, and they are still used in some form these days. The Site Map, for instance, was one of the first devices to appear, and still represents probably the quickest way to find your way around large Web sites. On the whole though, exploring a collection of pages in 2003 is a much richer experience than it was seven years ago. The emergence of modern WYSIWYG design applications and advancements in graphic manipulation technology have meant that Web developers can get more imaginative with their navigation bars in order to truly achieve usability.
Navigation musts
If you mosey along to any Web site worth its salt and look carefully at how it was put together, you'll notice that all the big sites follow the same navigation methods: a tidy nav bar for effect with a bandwidth friendly set of textual links somewhere on the p
I encourage each of you beef cattle breeders to consider these four steps in your Beef Cattle Marketing program.BUILD THE RIGHT PRODUCT There is no question that the most important thing in seedstock marketing is to develop the right product. That product is cattle with the kind of genetics that satisfy customers, solve problems and make money. To do this a breeder not only needs good cattle, he must also define a primary market area and learn what the majority of potential customers within that area need and want. And this is not a one-time thing. Keeping up with customer demand is an ongoing proposition.GET THE RIGHT ATTITUDE Public relations is the next logical step in marketing. It can do things that are very difficult to accomplish with advertising. PR can personalize you and your business in a noncommercial way with someone else telling your story. Good PR involves knowing and gaining the respect of the leaders in your area who can help influence a cattle producer's buying decisions. Individuals like livestock extension specialists, feed and equipment dealers, youth leaders, bankers etc. Make sure that local newspaper, radio and even television reporters and editor
The home page of a web site is where visitors form their impressions about the entire design, and its importance far outweighs that of the other pages that make up the site. The same theory applies to the site's navigation mechanism, ie if you manage to convince new visitors to make the step from your home page to one of your sub pages, the chances of them wanting to peruse the other delights on your site increase no end.
Proper site navigation should give the visitor a sense of 'place' within the site. it should help you maintain consistency throughout the site, even establishing something of a brand. It's important that anyone delving through your site knows how to get back to where they started, otherwise they're likely to flee in frustration.
Your navigation system should also encourage the user to explore other areas of the site by suggesting pages of related interest, and challenge their minds by pointing them towards more obscure links elsewhere online that will interest them. Ultimately, your top priority when designing site navigation is to ensure that the user doesn't have to work hard to find everything you're offering.
Traditional navigation
Back in the old days, navigating the Web was a completely different experience from the one you'll see today. We all know that developments in Web design software have made it easy to create prettier pages with flashy graphics and stylish content, but site navigation has also evolved considerably.
In the late Nineties, when the Web was just beginning to take shape, the core device for site navigation was the trusty textual link, and a blue underlined piece of text was your ticket to a world of information. once clicked, the text link would turn purple (or sometimes red) to indicate that this was one corner of the Web that you'd already explored, and this became something that even newcomers to the Net could get their head around right from the off. Of course, these conventions still apply today, albeit in a slightly more 'glam' format.
A few years ago, the closest you'd have got to a graphical interface on a site would be a series of boxed text links across the top of the page of running down the side. Occasionally these would be accompanied by hideous animated GIFs or clipart that vaguely represented the part of the site a link pointed to ('home' would be a house, 'contact us' a phone, 'buy' would be a stack of coins, etc).
Just because these navigation systems seem a little primitive from this side of the Millennium, it doesn't mean they weren't effective, and they are still used in some form these days. The Site Map, for instance, was one of the first devices to appear, and still represents probably the quickest way to find your way around large Web sites. On the whole though, exploring a collection of pages in 2003 is a much richer experience than it was seven years ago. The emergence of modern WYSIWYG design applications and advancements in graphic manipulation technology have meant that Web developers can get more imaginative with their navigation bars in order to truly achieve usability.
Navigation musts
If you mosey along to any Web site worth its salt and look carefully at how it was put together, you'll notice that all the big sites follow the same navigation methods: a tidy nav bar for effect with a bandwidth friendly set of textual links somewhere on the
First, the freight broker is never legally liable for damaged cargo or missing pieces unless they assume this by contract or if they are negligent in their operations. So, what does he or she do when these problems arise (and they will at one time or another)?The broker should be ready to talk to the receiver, the shipper and the carrier when these problems arise. But it's up to the shipper to file a claim should they decide to. The shipper often times assesses a dollar amount of damage and then deducts it from what they owe the broker. And the broker then turns around and deducts it from the motor carrier.This is not the right way to do it. But this is the way many shippers choose to do it. And the broker has no control over how the shipper wants to handle this.Second, there are all kinds of issues that may arise when there is damaged cargo or missing pieces. These issues are usually strictly between the shipper and carrier.The carrier normally assumes full liability for any damage or missing pieces. But what happens if the carrier says the damage occurred before loading. What happens when there is concealed damage that wasn't apparent during unloading? What happens
Your navigation system should also encourage the user to explore other areas of the site by suggesting pages of related interest, and challenge their minds by pointing them towards more obscure links elsewhere online that will interest them. Ultimately, your top priority when designing site navigation is to ensure that the user doesn't have to work hard to find everything you're offering.
Traditional navigation
Back in the old days, navigating the Web was a completely different experience from the one you'll see today. We all know that developments in Web design software have made it easy to create prettier pages with flashy graphics and stylish content, but site navigation has also evolved considerably.
In the late Nineties, when the Web was just beginning to take shape, the core device for site navigation was the trusty textual link, and a blue underlined piece of text was your ticket to a world of information. once clicked, the text link would turn purple (or sometimes red) to indicate that this was one corner of the Web that you'd already explored, and this became something that even newcomers to the Net could get their head around right from the off. Of course, these conventions still apply today, albeit in a slightly more 'glam' format.
A few years ago, the closest you'd have got to a graphical interface on a site would be a series of boxed text links across the top of the page of running down the side. Occasionally these would be accompanied by hideous animated GIFs or clipart that vaguely represented the part of the site a link pointed to ('home' would be a house, 'contact us' a phone, 'buy' would be a stack of coins, etc).
Just because these navigation systems seem a little primitive from this side of the Millennium, it doesn't mean they weren't effective, and they are still used in some form these days. The Site Map, for instance, was one of the first devices to appear, and still represents probably the quickest way to find your way around large Web sites. On the whole though, exploring a collection of pages in 2003 is a much richer experience than it was seven years ago. The emergence of modern WYSIWYG design applications and advancements in graphic manipulation technology have meant that Web developers can get more imaginative with their navigation bars in order to truly achieve usability.
Navigation musts
If you mosey along to any Web site worth its salt and look carefully at how it was put together, you'll notice that all the big sites follow the same navigation methods: a tidy nav bar for effect with a bandwidth friendly set of textual links somewhere on the
In most businesses, when sales are slow or low, the first reaction is to spend more on marketing. Create better adverts, more adverts; direct sales letters is the cry. But is this always the right solution?Let’s take a step back and examine the issue more closely.The first thing is to examine the numbers to see what they reveal. The critical ratio we need to look at is the conversion rate from lead / enquiry to sale. This will show us immediately where our emphasis should be.Let me explain…The numbers tell us that you’re getting 100 enquiries per month and tracking shows 25 convert into customers. What we also see is that 75 don’t become customers. This is the group you need to focus on. Typically, some will never buy so we can eliminate another 25. That leaves 50 who are still in the market.What happens to them? If they didn’t buy from you, where did they buy? No doubt a competitor. Depending on the market, it may be that your advert stimulated their interest, but because you didn’t connect with them and make the sale, they spent their money elsewhere.In other words, your advertising generated sales for your competitor. So when he sees your next advert
A few years ago, the closest you'd have got to a graphical interface on a site would be a series of boxed text links across the top of the page of running down the side. Occasionally these would be accompanied by hideous animated GIFs or clipart that vaguely represented the part of the site a link pointed to ('home' would be a house, 'contact us' a phone, 'buy' would be a stack of coins, etc).
Just because these navigation systems seem a little primitive from this side of the Millennium, it doesn't mean they weren't effective, and they are still used in some form these days. The Site Map, for instance, was one of the first devices to appear, and still represents probably the quickest way to find your way around large Web sites. On the whole though, exploring a collection of pages in 2003 is a much richer experience than it was seven years ago. The emergence of modern WYSIWYG design applications and advancements in graphic manipulation technology have meant that Web developers can get more imaginative with their navigation bars in order to truly achieve usability.
Navigation musts
If you mosey along to any Web site worth its salt and look carefully at how it was put together, you'll notice that all the big sites follow the same navigation methods: a tidy nav bar for effect with a bandwidth friendly set of textual links somewhere on the
Internet marketing experts will promote your website on popular search engines and look at making your website more user friendly to search engines and users. Once the design and navigation of your website has been perfected and enhanced, your chosen internet marketing company will start their internet marketing solutions to direct and attract more quality online users and customers to your website.Internet marketing involves the use of various channels and techniques to promote a favorable company or brand to online users; this is achieved through various tactics under the broad term of SEO (search engine optimization). Internet marketing tactics will involve research of your target market, analyzing your direct competition and then identifying keywords or terms that will lead to your website achieving higher ranking results on search engines.Internet marketers have found that 80-90% of online users will find their way to desired products and services by using popular search engines, such as Google, MSN and Yahoo. Now consumers with detailed use of key terms and key words are further refining online searches. This means that when people use the internet to find certain products a
Navigation musts
If you mosey along to any Web site worth its salt and look carefully at how it was put together, you'll notice that all the big sites follow the same navigation methods: a tidy nav bar for effect with a bandwidth friendly set of textual links somewhere on the page. However creative you think you are, or however much you want to hurl saliva in the face of convention, there’s no use trying to fight against these methods. They work and they always will work, and users are unlikely to stick around if they don't get what they're expecting.
Textual links, or embedded links, are the most basic form of navigation and represent a clear, instant method of accessing pages within a site. These are generally arranged in the form of a series of underlined words across the top of a page or a list running down the side.
Another key device in the quest for an easy ride online is 'breadcrumb' navigation. By using trails of HTML links, you can show the route from the home page to the current page, helping the visitor to move up and down the menu tree more effectively, especially on large, page heavy sites.
In order to give the user the richest, most diverse surfing experience, it's wise to slap in as many related links, within reason, as you can unearth. The key here is to avoid simply using the obvious links, and to add pointers to more obscure, off the wall sites that are likely to titillate your readers, adding greater value to your site in the process.
It's also important that you position your navigation links in a place where the user will expect them to be, and where they won't intrude into the content of your site. Many Web designers favour the placement of links along the top of a Web page, plus down the left or right hand side, and at the bottom of each page for good measure. Basically, you need to make sure that your visitors are never more than a scroll wheel rotation away from the next page. Make sure you stick to colour conventions too: blue is generally recognised as the norm for a text link, with purple or red used to indicate a page that's already been accessed by the browser.
New methods
While these traditional navigation principles should still be foremost in your mind when designing pages, there are a number of other devices kicking around town that are also worth thinking about.
Let’s first consider image maps, a navigational tool that has the potential to be something quite special, but which invariably turns into a confusing mess. The key to achieving a workable image map is to choose your picture carefully. Make sure it's something that lends itself to being logically sliced up and split into parts, rather than a generic piece of art with no determinable boundaries within it. if you can afford to do so, buy the image in from a picture agency before slicing it up in Image Ready (or a cheaper alternative such as Paint Shop Pro) and exporting it to your Web editor to apply the rollovers.
If pictures aren't your bag, or if you're keen to avoid bandwidth heavy navigation, you may want to think about exploring the DHTML route or even applying JavaScript pop up menus. While these have been around a few years now, they're still called upon by pro designers as a means of adding dynamic navigation. Adding DHTML menus is far easier today than it ever was, and there's plenty of software around that will do the job for you without you having to lift a brain cell.
However, when it comes down to designing sites 'in the Twenty first Century', you won't find many better tools for the job than Flash. Macromedia's cherished vector graphics application houses all the functionality you need to produce slick, easy to follow, fast loading navigation. The program allows you to create virtually any type of dynamic navigation system you can think of, from stylish icons and Flash buttons to pop up and pull down menus. Flash is also great for generating actions and animation within a navigation
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