Good site design means a good navigation structure for your web site. This means visitor can find information with ease. Put yourself in shoes of your Grandmother. Would she quickly and effortlessly be able to find information she wants, or know what to click on to make purchase? Don't think that just because it is easy for you, it will be easy for others.

Visitors should not need to click more than three times during their navigation, to find information they are searching for.

1. Navigation Styles These can range from navigation buttons, navigation bars, plain text links, fancy animated graphics or drop-down select menus. You can also use illustrations, photographs or graphic images to show your visitor around. For example, an image map contains one graphic with different "hot spots"(invisible buttons) that link to other pages.

2. Primary and Secondary Navigation Primary navigation consists of navigation elements that are accessible from most locations within site.

Secondary navigation elements allow user to navigate within a specific location. For example, many sites have a page that offers information about company. The primary navigation element may be an About Us link.

Once user arrives on About Us page, there will be other links (secondary links), which navigate within About Us page.

These could be links to Press Releases, Corporate Locations, Investor Information and so on. These links are secondary navigation elements because they are relevant to About Us page but not other pages of site. Therefore, these links will not be found in other areas of site.

A fast and simple navigation structure is essential for a successful web site. Visitors must have a good experience at your site, if you want them to return.

How to design your navigation structure 1. Sketching it out. Part 1 of this article (www.isitebuild.com/navigation), discussed different navigation styles and a navigation action plan. Now let's begin sketching out your site.

Take one sheet of paper, draw a circle in middle – this is subject of your homepage. From there, draw branches, which have more ideas about your topic. If any topics are related in a more definitive way, create another branch off current idea branch. Within minutes, you will see your web site develop into a dynamic sketch. You might find that a standard sheet of paper is not enough to contain all your thoughts. Use more paper, create more branches, and keep ideas flowing.

Once you have sketched out your site, use separate sheets of paper for each web page. Make sure you define a heading for each page and decide how it links to other pages. This exercise will help you to decide how you want visitors to navigate through your web site.

2. Which navigation style? This could be a navigation bar across top, a navigation bar on left (the two most common styles), or an image map (an image divided into separate links to other pages).

If you use graphical icons or other graphics instead of text, then include text links elsewhere on your site. This is because some people browse with their graphics turned off and this technique allows them to still see and use links.