e4mediagroup.com helps small businesses look like big businesses.Just because your website is inexpensive,does not mean it has to look like it.
If people cannot navigate through your site, they will quickly leave. Thus, designing effective navigation on your Web site is crucial. But there are some basic things you need to do before you can start worrying about rollovers or links, images or flash.
Information Architecture
Before you can even start to plan your navigation, you need to define your site's information architecture. Information architecture is the taxonomy or structure of your Web site.
Some common taxonomy elements on a corporate or business Web page are:
* Products - the products or services the company sells
* About - information about the company
* Investor Relations - information specific to investors
* Support - help for customers
Some common taxonomy elements on a personal Web page are:
* About Me - information about the page author
* Favorite Links - links that the author likes
* Friends and Family - information about the author's friends and family
Organization
Once you've determined your site architecture, you need to decide how to organize it. You might have it all live in one directory, and just link to the major pages from your front page. Or you might have all the sub-pages separated into directories.
When thinking about your organization, you should think about how your customers might wander through it. Flow charts and storyboards can help you map out exactly how you would like to encourage your readers to use the site. You might want to map out several paths for your readers to use.
