Click Consult - Internet Marketing

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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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Is The Best Web Design Always Simple?

posted on: June 14th, 2010

Usually, it is wise to follow the generally accepted advice that a website's design should be kept as simple and straightforward as possible, in order to allow visitors to use it more easily and for it to have benefit for your internet marketing strategy. There is also a sense that minimal, clean designs appear more elegant and upmarket than cluttered pages heaving with showy decoration. However, there are always exceptions to rules and in certain cases a business or organisation may require a complicated web design, allowing a large number of items to be displayed on each page. One example of a website, which is hugely successful and yet has many elements struggling for space on its pages, is that of the company Amazon. Now that the business is so well-established, it would be a mistake for any designer to tinker with the site's design too much, as visitors are extremely familiar with how it works. Any changes could cause confusion and upset for returning customers expecting the website to behave in a certain way and to look roughly the same as the last time they used it. There are other examples of websites, such as those run by hospitals or government departments, which have to supply information to lots of users at different levels. It would be impossible to create a minimal site that meets all these needs, so the goal is to make using the site as simple as possible through careful and thorough organisation. At web marketing agency Click Consult we have the experience to create the right kind of web design for your needs.

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