Website Navigation, Bottom Navigation, & SEO

So, are you all set on your navigation? Top, left, both? Maybe even right (against my better judgement). And do you have the navigation links all mapped out? Home, about, services, contact, products, blog, etc. Well then, you are almost done…almost.

Navigation does play a part in your search engine optimization efforts. The search engines do check the navigation. They like to see where the tabs point, how to find your pages, what pages are top-level, etc. However, if you design the navigation tabs as images, then you may run into a problem.

I understand. You want your navigation tabs to be pretty, artsy, cool. I get it. You don’t want to use some basic font and same old boring tabs. I feel your pain. However, here’s the deal. If your navigation tabs are images and not html, then the search engine bots won’t see them.

First, let me mention the fact that there are some very fancy websites out on the world wide web that have html navigation tabs that look as pretty as image navigation tabs. They are so good you may not have even noticed. HTML has come a long way, baby. You can have nice looking navigation without using image design.

But if you are still not convince or not that talented with html, you are not sunk yet. Go ahead and design you navigation any way you want. There is a fix for this issue.

After you are done designing your navigation, you are going to need to add html text navigation to the bottom of your web pages. I’m sure you’ve seen this before. Links at the bottom of the website that repeat the top or side navigation. The reason you need to add this navigation at the bottom is so that there will be navigation for the search engine spiders to see. They won’t see the image navigation so present them with html navigation at the bottom. They can work with this.

One thing is very important. Make sure you include ALL of your navigation at the bottom of the page. Don’t forget any. The spiders want to see your pages just as much as the users. So don’t forget anything.

Also, in the rare case that images have difficulty loading for some unforeseen reason, the user will have the backup navigation at the bottom of your website in order to find your pages. Good for the user and the search engines.

So, if you’re not afraid of html, us it to design your navigation. If you are afraid of html, design your tabs the way you want, but include regular html navigation at the bottom of your web pages.