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| WEBSITE STRUCTURE |
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| Most internet users want to see good, clean content. That’s why an organised website structure is very important in creating an online presence that will be a hit with those who frequently browse the internet. |
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The most important factor for good website structure is to making sure that it’s user-friendly. Site visitors shouldn’t have to click back to the previous page just to find a page that they’re interested in. They should be able to find links to other pages within the same website on every page—not just the homepage. If users cannot navigate your website easily, then the website structure needs to be revamped to make user navigation a lot more convenient. <
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| Website structure should be approached from the viewpoint of the average user. There should be primary navigation and secondary navigation options. Make sure that the user doesn’t have to go through a series of web pages before finding the info they need. Actually, many websites nowadays were built on something called the 3 Clicks Principle. |
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| The 3 Clicks Principle is an old rule of thumb used by many website designers. This rule is based on the idea that a website user should be able to navigate from any page within a site to another within three clicks. And although it is an unofficial rule, most websites that you visit every day were probably designed with this rule in mind. |
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| Primary navigation |
| There are three types of website navigation used in web design. Left navigation is the most commonly used. These are quite popular because of its response to user behaviour. People tend to read from left to right, and the left navigation panels are what most users first notice. |
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| Top navigation panels, meanwhile, allow for more content below. This kind of web design shouldn’t look like online ads, but should really feature useful links to other pages in the site. Most site visitors ignore ads, especially those that appear on top of a particular web page. |
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| Right navigation menus aren’t really used in web pages based on the English language. That’s because of the nature of the language (and most other languages, with the exception of Hebrew, Chinese, and other similar languages), which is read from left to right. Sites with text that read from right to left really don’t respond to the natural behaviour of the vast majority of readers. Thus, web design using right navigation panels may be completely useless for most countries. |
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| Secondary navigation |
| Other sections of a website, such as the Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Site Map, and other similar pages, are part of secondary navigation. As such, they shouldn’t overshadow primary navigation panels. Web design professionals should make them less noticeable by reducing the link text size and making sure that readers can distinguish between primary and secondary navigation tools. |
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| Internal linking |
| Convenient site navigation is also an important part of good website structure and web design. To achieve this, there should be effective internal linking between pages within the site. Placing links in page content can be very useful in helping site visitors find related info on certain topics within the content. |
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| The importance of simple design |
| Simple web design is the way to go when designing websites. Readers don’t really like getting confused. No matter how trendy a website’s design is, if users can’t get to the information they want, that design is useless and should be fixed. Users should feel comfortable browsing the site. A website that complicates things will lose its target audience. Good web design prevents that from happening. |
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