HINT: Study other webpages with similiar content and see how they have done their pages. Right clicking over a blank part of the page will bring up a menu on your browser. Select "View Source" to look at the coding that webmaster used to design his/her page.

First of all, be mindful of copyrights and acknowledgment requirements. I am not suggesting that you copy the webmaster's content or graphics but that, in looking over the site, you glean ideas of what you would like to do with your own website. By looking through different sites, you get an idea of what navigation systems work for you as a visitor. Look at your own site like a visitor would. There are some websites that I have felt absolutely lost in and there are some that I absolutely loved and wished I could adopt.

DESIGNING A GOOD NAVIGATING SYSTEM AT THE BEGINNING
saves you and your visitors lots of time and headache. Inevitably, growing websites often lead to restructuring. The best navigating systems take into account the following:

1. Easy to understand and be used by your visitors.
2. Able to be read at a single glance.
3. Easy to update.

NET SURFERS WANT AND NEED
these days and, as one yourself, you should be concerned too. It's bad enough with the traffic jams and isp's disconnecting folks these days. Be sure to help your visitor make his/her journey a pleasurable one. For my own loud gripes, read Pet Peeves and see if you agree with me. *grin* Your visitors will want to get to the information that they are looking for FAST. The average net surfer gets frustrated after 30 seconds of waiting for your page to load. Be sure to optimize your site. I'll have a few tips and resources in the near future.

Once their wait is over, your visitors will want to be able to soak....um....read through your pages quickly. More importantly, if what they are looking for is not on your homepage, they want to be able to get to it quick. Try to design a website that makes your pages easily accessible. As a website grows so does the intricacy of a good navigation system. Use headers, fonts and icons to help your visitor scan your site faster.

REPITITION AND CONSISTENT DESIGN
also helps your visitor find what they need faster. Eyes get trained to look in certain areas of your format for certain details and cache files load pages faster. My style around the Labyrinth is to have section menus immediately under the Logo, with site menu bars in the left hand margin. Because I can be a bit wordy at times *hehe*, I like to repeat the menu at the bottom of the page also. The hierarchy of your own pages will dictate a certain type of navigation. Experiment and let your own style emerge.

A well-planned navigating system will support adding pages to its system stressless. While brainstorming, envision how you would like your site to grow. If you have 10 pages to your website and have to edit each one to add another page, it may be time to redesign your website before it gets much bigger. Your work will only get more tedious from here. Look at what the bigger sites are doing and their navigating solutions.

I find webmastering to be part storyteller, graphics designer, techie and administrator. Yes, that's four people in one. Large, corporate sites actually have a team of people to do their webmastering, finetuning their area of expertise. Webmasters of personal pages and small business sites find themselves performing all four tasks. Fortunately, there are lots of tips and resources here and on the wider internet. Lots of it is free too! Just keep reading and......

Happy Building!

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