You'll need to have a clear section of page designated for navigation--one that a visitor will immediately recognize as navigation area when he arrives at site. Navigation should not necessarily be prime focus, but it must be highly visible.

On many sites, main navigation is overly subdued. It sort of "lurks" on page, but it's not kind of thing that really gets to a visitor's consciousness. It gets drowned out because there is too much color or excitement in rest of page.

Occasionally, this is ok. You may have some navigation options, such as a privacy policy, that need to be available, but don't need to be emphasized.

However, aside from those few exceptions, you'll want your navigation to be used. So it will need a voice loud enough to be heard above excitement of rest of site.

Here are 4 tips to make sure your navigation stands out:

1. Put it in a prime spot

It's all about positioning. Give your main navigation good placement at top or left of page.

When visitors arrive at a page, they scan in an orderly pattern from left to right, starting in top left corner and working down page. So if your navigation is at top or on left, it's going to be seen fairly quickly. Also, this is where visitors expect to find navigation, so they'll be primed to notice it there.

2. Use color

Besides size, color is best way to get something noticed on a page. You can use color very powerfully in drawing out your navigation.

A very common technique is to place navigation options on a colored field, on a horizontal bar or a sidebar. This is effective because it creates a strong contrast with other elements on page.

Just remember, brightest, most vivid, most saturated colors will stand out most. You don't necessarily need to use a strong color for your navigation, but you do need to look at how your navigation color mixes with rest of page.

1. Your link titles need to be understandable.

Visitors need to know exactly what link to click on for info they need. Unfortunately, visitors frequently get confused and don't understand what a link means. Consequently, they aren't sure what info they'll find at other end of link.

Often, a link name that makes complete sense to you will mean nothing to visitor. For example, I once used a link called "Resources" in navigation bar of a site for a client. This section of site contained various articles and links to outside sites with helpful information.

However, after a little bit of testing, I discovered that most people had no idea what I meant by "Resources". They didn't know what kind of information was in that area. Also, when visitors tried to look for articles, they didn't think to check Resources section.

In other words, link wasn't doing anyone any good.

The difference between your understanding of a term and a visitor's understanding of same term can be rather drastic. This happens because you are so close to your own business and your own site.

It's important to remember that visitors don't know nearly as much about your business as you do. They often have no background knowledge, and they might not know standard terms in your industry. Sometimes, you'll have to work to come up with terms and phrases for your links that are meaningful to visitor.

Here's one general principle: Don't use clever terms.

Although clever attention-getters often work well in offline world, it's different online. In character with their generally hurried attitude, web users want to know exactly where they are going and what they will find when they click on a link. They don't like guessing games and are usually not enticed by clever lead-ins. What lies beyond them is simply not clear.