Easy Navigation Makes Your Website More Effective
Navigation is a road map for your website. It’s very beneficial for easily maneuvering throughout a site. To be effective, a website navigation needs to be consistent throughout, to make it easier to get around. Main navigation links should be kept together to make it easier to get to the main areas of a website. Reduce clutter by grouping links together, keeping links grouped into sections with each section having five to seven links will make your navigation 
scheme easier to follow. Minimal clicking makes getting through a site easier, minimizing clicks leads to a better user experience for a visitor. Styles of website navigation refers to how a Nav system is defined.
Text links are words (text) surrounded by the anchor set of tags to create clickable text taking the visitor to another web page within the website, or to a downloadable document form the website or to another website online.
Breadcrumbs provide links back to each previous page visitors navigated through to get to the current page. It provides a trail for users to follow back to the starting point of entry. They typically appear horizontally across the top of a web page, usually below title bars or headers.
Navigation bar is a collection of website navigation links all grouped together, thw bar can be vertical or horizontal.
Tab is where navigation links appear as tabs, similar to tabs in a binder to divide contents into sections.
As people age their ability to use websites decline by .8% per year due to navigation difficulties
Sitemap is a page that lists all sections and web pages that are contained within the website, almost like an index at the back of a book.
Drop-down menu is when a mouse is placed over (or clicked on) a Nav item exposing other menu items below it, it can include a fly-out menu.
Fly-out menu is similar to drop-down menus by placing your mouse pointer over a link, initiating another menu to fly out, usually to the right of the link. A fly-out menu also can have issues with accessibility and readability with search engines, but if constructed right it can be resolved.
Named Anchors are links that direct a visitor to a spot on the current page or on another web page. LJ
TYPES OF WEBSITE NAVIGATION:
- Hierarchical – website navigation from general to specific. It provides a clear, simple path to all the web pages on the website
- Global – shows top-level sections or pages of a website, it’s available on each page and lists main content sections or pages of your website
- Local – connects links with texts of the web pages, linking other pages within the website
“Website without visitors is like a ship lost in the horizon.”