While very often the design of a website and the actual hosting deal take precedent over many other issues, it is also vital that you ensure your site has great navigation and a site map. These are vital parts of any site, and something you will ignore at your peril!

You may wish to consider the following elements of site maps and navigational issues :-

Site Maps

While we have covered site maps before on this blog, their importance should not be forgotten, both for search engines and for your users. The main use of a site map is for the search engines, and it allows you to control which areas of the site they will look at, and which areas you want them to ignore.

The search engine industry is becoming more and more competitive, and the more help you are able to give them, the more chance of being indexed quickly, and indexed with the pages you want to show. Every day you are not on the search engines is a day missed, revenue down the drain, and customers lost. A simple site map can make a real difference.

Navigation

How many times have you been on a website and looking for a specific area, only to find that it is buried deep in sub section after sub section? Did you hang around? I did n’t.

As a general rule of navigation, you should be able to reach any page on your website in two clicks, any more and you risk losing the reader, losing that sale and reducing your exposure. Side bar menus are very important, and they can and do offer a useful quick route to any page. By structuring your pages correctly, and taking time to ensure everything is in order, you can hit the two click measurement for any site.

Conclusion

Many people seem to put far too much emphasis on the high profile areas of a website, the design, the cheap web hosting and the layout. While these are vital areas, navigation and site maps are equally as important, and should not be ignored. It is very often the simple things which will be the difference between a successful site, and a mediocre one - you have been warned!