Navigation - does this makes any or big difference?

blabla90

blabla90

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I'm finalizing work on my blog and I'm putting some content on it before we put whole thing online. Of course, I should split that content into sections, so someone could easly find what they need.

My first idea was to have home page, about me, contact, portfolio AND categories - "categories" would be drop down menu with other sub-categories (and that's where I will sort my posts).

Now, as I am researching whole thing about it (keep in mind, I am not expert or whatever by any meaning), I've found comments that it is not the best idea, as it is not "search engine friendly". Other comments says that it depends on how whole thing is programmed.

My question is: does this really makes any or big difference? How I can learn more about it?

Do you have any advices in general with this?

Thank you in advance. :)
 
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Are you using Wordpress?

Only one of the sites I manage uses a handful of category pages in the menu bar (alongside the actual pages), but my client and I are not focused on the SEO of that site (and it's been "under development" for 2 years now) as it's a personal website for him, so it's not ranking for any terms. Therefore, I can't tell you for certain what problems, if any, that you'd run into.

By the way, for what it's worth, there are many people who no-follow and no-index their category and tag pages because of "duplicate content" (there's no penalty for non-malicious duplicate content). A user and I were discussing it in one my SEO guides here, but some people have supposedly had issues when they let those pages get indexed and crawled, issues which they claimed were resolved after adding those no-index, no-follow tags. I've followed suit with the tag tactic though it didn't make much of a difference on any of my sites, but it's still something that might be worth looking into.
 
Thank you, @Zwielicht ☺ I'll read that one for sure. A lot of great info around here, in general. And yes, I am on Wordpress. ☺

It's little bit overwhelming as I don't know a lot about it and when I think I found solution for one problem - new one come out.

I hope someone with experience about this would post... ☺
 
blabla90 said:
It's little bit overwhelming as I don't know a lot about it and when I think I found solution for one problem - new one come out
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, I remember that feeling from when I first switched over to building self-hosted Wordpress sites years ago. Every now and then, I still come across stuff that I felt I should've known about from the beginning.

It can be inundating at first, but you'll get the hang of it. :)
 
Well, I hope so! ☺

Anyone else with answers? ☺
 
I think it's not possible to achieve the best layout for the site right away in most of the cases unless you get it done by someone who's building sites similar to the one you are going to make. Make navigation as easy as possible, but then study how it performs with time and make necessary changes.
 
That's totally another thing and I feel that you are right - but on other side, I'm perfectionist, I understand how things should look (aesthetic) and how good potentional it has and it's hard for me to just let it go. :/

Thank you, btw. ☺
 
If you have a ton of categories there is no way you will be able to slap them all up on the main navigation. Drop downs are common and as long as you organize them right, they should be fine for your users AND Google. Just be sure to take some time and make sure your site structure is silo'ed out well. The file paths and how things link out is more important than having links in main nav.

-ThopHayt
 
ThopHayt said:
If you have a ton of categories there is no way you will be able to slap them all up on the main navigation. Drop downs are common and as long as you organize them right, they should be fine for your users AND Google. Just be sure to take some time and make sure your site structure is silo'ed out well. The file paths and how things link out is more important than having links in main nav.

-ThopHayt
Click to expand...

So, I ended up with 9 tabs - does that sounds like a lot? Previously I had 5 and whole that area was not "busy"... And just as note, that's really basics of the basics (and I can't go less)... :/
 
If it doesn't looks too stuffed - it should be fine
After you run for a while you can see if some categories are less/more visited than others and make changes
 
Ok, sounds resonable. ☺ Thank you. ☺
 
blabla90 said:
So, I ended up with 9 tabs - does that sounds like a lot? Previously I had 5 and whole that area was not "busy"... And just as note, that's really basics of the basics (and I can't go less)... :/
Click to expand...

If you have the time you can split-test the number of tabs you use. Optimizely works with Wordpress I believe: https://www.optimizely.com/

-ThopHayt
 
ThopHayt said:
If you have the time you can split-test the number of tabs you use. Optimizely works with Wordpress I believe: [link]

-ThopHayt
Click to expand...

To be completely honest, I don't have a clue what's this - but I will research for sure. Thank you! :)
 
It's a free split testing engine. You give it two different versions of the page and it shows half the people one version and half the people the other version... then whichever version gets better conversions/performance you can keep. This way you can split test the number of navs. Look into it. It's a game changer that few here utilize.

-ThopHayt
 
Don’t make your universal navigation like a table of contents, use HTML, 100 links per page max. Also, drop downs might not look too good for those who aren’t using a mouse as it’s not easy to keep those drop downs activated.
 
Zwielicht said:
Are you using Wordpress?

Only one of the sites I manage uses a handful of category pages in the menu bar (alongside the actual pages), but my client and I are not focused on the SEO of that site (and it's been "under development" for 2 years now) as it's a personal website for him, so it's not ranking for any terms. Therefore, I can't tell you for certain what problems, if any, that you'd run into.

By the way, for what it's worth, there are many people who no-follow and no-index their category and tag pages because of "duplicate content" (there's no penalty for non-malicious duplicate content). A user and I were discussing it in one my SEO guides here, but some people have supposedly had issues when they let those pages get indexed and crawled, issues which they claimed were resolved after adding those no-index, no-follow tags. I've followed suit with the tag tactic though it didn't make much of a difference on any of my sites, but it's still something that might be worth looking into.
Click to expand...

there real issue behind this category and sub menue crap WP does is:

unrelated keyword stuffing .
categories ranking for some terms sometimes which fucks your conversion..

so, CREATE your "categories" manually.

else, blast tons of links to your site, and WP bleeds it everywhere.
or do that "nofollow" crutch..

or make it right, first time.

same applies to that tag bullshit.
dont use them. done.
 
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