Introduction
Now to the four questions

Is your site full of hidden treasures? Let's hope not.

Treasures, good. Hidden, bad. If your site's visitors can't
navigate effortlessly through all parts of your site, your web
presence isn't as effective as it could be.

A well-designed navigation system is a critical component of any
successful web site. It should be persistent and consistent
throughout the site and should answer these four questions:

Where am I?

Where have I come from?

How do I get back?

Where can I go?

An effective navigation system not only answers these four
questions, it answers them quickly. The navigation must provide
clear visual clues that let visitors reach their destinations
with minimal effort.

For starters, consider the placement of your main menu. This
should consist of 5-7 high-level choices that represent the main
areas of your site. If your visitors can always pick one of these
choices, no matter which product or bit of knowledge they're
after, you're golden. Your main menu really sets the tone.

Since the natural tendency of the eye is to move from top to
bottm left to right, your main menu should be placed in the
vicinity of the top left of the page -- and not just the home
page, but on EVERY page.

Keith Reichley
www.webthejoint.comKeith Reichley is webmaster for WEBtheJOINT, the web resource center for small business. Contact Keith at keith@webthejoint.com.