Introduction
Now to the four questions

First, where am I? Each page should be labeled clearly as to the
content of the page. A larger font size, emphasized text or
different color should differentiate page's title from the text
of the body. The visitor shouldn't have to guess as to the focus
of the page.

Second, where have I come from? What main area of the site am I
in? It needs to be clear to the visitor which selections she made
to get to the current page.

This leads to the third question: How do I get back? At the very
least, your visitor should be able to one-click back to the home
page or to another main area of your site.

One classic way of answering questions 1-3 is with "bread
crumbs", or recursive navigation. Like the crumbs dropped in the
woods by Hansel and Gretel to mark the way back home, a site's
bread crumbs mark the path a visitor takes through the hierarchy.
Yahoo! and CNET are classic examples of sites that use bread
crumbs. Their bread crumbs not only tell me where I am (question
1) and where I've come from (question 2), they let me return with
one click to any of the previous levels (question 3).

Finally, where do I go from here? This is usually the toughest of
the questions to answer, and possibly the most critical to user
acceptance of your site. Proper site planning and organization
are key. In general, you don't want your site to be too wide (too
many choices on any given page) or too deep (too many clicks
required to reach the destination).

Take some time to site down and review your site, making sure
that you can answer all four questions for each page. For best
results, make this a regular event in your web maintenance
schedule to keep your treasures unhidden.
Keith Reichley
www.webthejoint.comKeith Reichley is webmaster for WEBtheJOINT, the web resource center for small business. Contact Keith at keith@webthejoint.com.