Click Consult - Internet Marketing

Web Design

Should Navigation Be Vertical Or Horizontal?

posted on: August 25th, 2010

Over recent years web design trends have shown a greater use of horizontally arranged navigation menus. Often these will stand alone, although sometimes they are used in conjunction with vertical menus, typically placed down the left-hand side of the page and containing subcategories. While the vertical style of menu is certainly the more traditional form of navigation, with the advantage that visitors will instantly recognise what it represents merely by its position on the page, there are benefits offered by the horizontal navigation alternative which should not be overlooked. One advantage of styling navigation horizontally across the screen is that more of the page can be used for content, with a greater available width than is possible when a vertical menu occupies space on the left. Another useful aspect of links being arranged sideways is that each one can be expanded in the form of a dropdown sub-menu. This is visually cleaner and easier to use than the sub-menus which fly out to the side of many vertical navigation lists, and which can sometimes prove extremely fiddly to handle. The content of a website ought to dictate the style of menu used, and for some sites, web development issues will mean choosing one style over another. For example, with a vertical menu it is easier to add and remove links than it is with a horizontal navigation bar, where the width of the page limits changes. Here at internet marketing agency Click Consult, we use horizontal or vertical navigation menus according to each website's requirements.

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Subdomains Versus Subdirectories

posted on: August 23rd, 2010

Websites generally start life with one domain name, and the structure and content develop as the business develops. The decision on whether to use subdirectories or subdomains for distinct content should be considered carefully alongside your search engine optimisation strategy. Is there any advantage in keeping all of your content within the same domain, and using folders to separate information? For example, plants.com/indoor or indoor.plants.com; subdomains can be developed as if they are completely separate domains, but use a common main domain name. Search engines want to give users the most relevant results, not multiple domains with the same content - they won't list subdomains on their SERPs if they have content that simply mirrors the main domain. So if you are creating subdomains with SEO in mind, do so only if the content is substantially different in nature, for example outdoor.plants.com and indoor.plants.com - but not if you are duplicating this across the subdomains. Subdirectories or folders are a quick and easy way to separate different categories of information on the same main domain. A subdirectory may start life as a couple of pages, but evolve into a larger resource. You might then consider moving the content to a subdomain, but you should do this only if the number of pages of discreet information becomes large enough that it could exist as a website on its own. At Click Consult, we are the internet marketing experts and we offer leading web design and web development services and SEO expertise to help you get the best results for your business.

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