Adding to our series on good web design, customer support manager Jon is here to share his favorite element with you, the Site Navigation Menu – Rochelle
Do you want to make navigating your website easier, or create some consistency with your links? The Site Navigation Menu Element is the way to go. It’s been around for a while, but I think a lot of members probably aren’t familiar with it, which is a shame. Simple text links or single buttons have their place, but if I have more than a few pages to link to, I always reach for the Site Nav Element.
It’s there at the top of SiteBuilder, looking like a little compass, beside the Rectangle Element. The Site Nav Element has a lot of options in it, but don’t let that intimidate you, it’s still easy to use. And I think it’s the best way to add links to your pages.
Let’s start with the high points. The Site Navigation Menu Element is what we call a “global” Element. That means that when you use it you’re creating a menu that can be used on several different pages without having to re-create it every time. It’s sort of like a QuickSite design for your link menu; once you create and name a Site Navigation Menu, you can add that Menu to different pages.
Also, any changes you make to it are global. If I create a Site Navigation Menu and call it “JonMenu1″, I can add that “JonMenu1” menu to any page on my site including, let’s say, my Index page, my Contacts page and my Testimonials page. Now, if I change the color of the “JonMenu1″ on my Index page, that color change will also take place on the menus on my Contacts and Testimonials pages. That’s what we call a global change.
And because the Site Navigation Menu is a single Element, you don’t have to worry about aligning individual buttons every time you move the menu around. Moving the Site Navigation Menu moves all of the links in that Element as a unit, neatly and cleanly.
One of the most powerful things about the Site Nav Menu is that you can add a mixture of different links to it. Email links, links to existing pages or files in your Homestead account, or external links… just because they’re all in one Element doesn’t mean that you’re restricted to a single type of link. You can also specify that some links will open in the same window, while others open in a new browser window. That’s particularly useful if you want your homepage to remain open when you provide your guest with a link to an external website!
I think that once you get a taste of the Site Navigation Menu Element, you’ll be hooked. It’s easy to learn how to use it. The best advice I can give is to just jump right in with both feet and experiment with it. Once you create your first Site Navigation Menu, you’ll see how easy it really is, and how valuable a tool it can be to your website design!
November 28, 2007 at 7:33 pm |
I like to us the Site Navigation Menu Element also, but then I got the following tip from the Homestead Connection:
“If you are using the javascript navigation that is offered with SiteBuilder you could be locking out the search engines. They are unable to ‘read’ java and thus can’t follow the page links through your site to index them. ”
Apparently the javascript occurs as an image rather than as text so the search engines can’t read them.
How does that fit with the Site Navigation Element???
November 29, 2007 at 12:37 am |
This is a concern Bob.
I always use the Nav Menu but also make sure that the pages on any small site I build are text linked across the bottom of at least, the Index page as well.
For larger sites I make sure there is a site map and that the Index page links to that.
This ensures the search engines don’t miss your links
Hope this helps you,
Ian
November 29, 2007 at 12:37 pm |
Are there any plans for an element that would create pull down menus with links. I paid your design service to create a few for my website, but it was difficult and time-consuming to have them written, properly aligned, and installed in HTML.
Not having that knowledge, I can’t change or add to them without help, another drawback. It seems to me that such a feature would add considerable value to SiteBuilder.
November 29, 2007 at 3:10 pm |
Hi Steve,
That’s a great suggestion. I’ll make sure it gets on our product feature request list!
-Rochelle
November 30, 2007 at 8:03 pm |
As Bob stated above the Site Navigation Menu is not something whose singular use is encouraged when we talk site design and seo on the Homestead Connection Forum. True it’s a fabulous tool because you don’t have to update each page, but used by itself the search engines won’t be able to follow the links through a site and index the pages.
Two solutions and Bob touched on both of these.
1. Use a second navigation created with plain text.
2. Create a site map page using plain text links to the respective pages and place a plain text link on your Home/Index page to the site map. This way the spiders will pick up the site map page and thus all the text links on it and be able to index the pages within the site.
Option 2 is best for sites with lots of pages as you can update your Site Nav Menu globally and then either add or delete the item from your site map page.
If being found by the search engines is important to you be sure you offer the spiders a pathway through your site.
Keep on Webbin’
Susan
Homestead Connection
December 5, 2007 at 4:51 pm |
Who would not use it?? (I have about ten after I deleted the old ones)
Regards,
CMS,
Sergio’s World Beers
Email : generalmailbox@sergiosworldbeers.com
http://sergiosworldbeers.com
December 12, 2007 at 3:17 am |
Steve Appel’s comments & recommendation are right on target! I’d love to see a way to add sub menus or links!
December 13, 2007 at 9:00 pm |
I was told by someone that the navagation menu is java script and the search engines can’t scan the pages because of the java script. Is this true?
December 29, 2007 at 11:54 am |
Another endorsement of Steve Appel’s request. I think dropdown navigation would be a great tool.
Also, what about the possibility of a login feature where our sites’ visitors can login with a unique username and (customizable) password and be able to access specific folders in the site (which the webmaster selects)? For example, my site would be
http://www.kevinlauer.com
Guest #1 could login with his or her password and access
http://www.kevinlauer.com/membersonly/guest01
and all the pages saved in that folder, while Guest #2 could login to access
http://www.kevinlauer.com/membersonly/guest02
but both could access
http://www.kevinlauer.com/membersonly/all_guests
and the pages saved in that folder.
I would also like to see the ability to password-protect the SiteBuilder tools for each website within my Homestead account individually. That way, when I go on vacation or out of town, I can have a friend update one of my websites for me without having unrestricted access to all of my Homestead sites.
January 26, 2008 at 10:38 am |
The GFX for the Nav buttons are out of date and look horrid. Please take the 2 hours it would take to update your GFX. I believe hell will freeze over before Homestead actually provides and visually good looking tools.
Long time member,
This thread will be deleted/censored in 3…2…1
January 29, 2008 at 4:23 pm |
Hi Mike, graphics are definitely on our list of upcoming improvements, for the nav and for other areas. Thanks for the tip, we’ll see what we can do. I’m betting you’ll see them before you need that winter jacket!
February 9, 2008 at 11:12 am |
I am using Sitebuilder lite with a beautiful template which has been modified with pics of our own. The problem: I have renamed my navigation buttons, yet this is not reflected in the http:// html Instead of my new name buttons coming up, it still says index, reservations, location, etc. in the http/html headings.
And when I saved it to my bookmarks, it said “campgrounds”, not “wetlands”. The extra page I added comes up okay. How can I get the rest of the https to reflect my navigation button names. Here is an example.
This is my new extra page heading called “In the News”. This comes up okay in the html
http://www.nswetlandpartners.com/In_the_News.html (but says Blank on Mozilla Firefox.)
But when my next page: “Wetlands” comes up, it shows up as:
http://www.nswetlandpartners.com/reservations.html
How can I get this to show: —.com /wetlands.html instead? Also with four other buttons that were renamed., etc. Thanks
March 18, 2009 at 5:09 pm |
Folks…I desperately need drop down menus on the navigation tool. I enjoy using the Homestead products, but, am surprised that there is no option for this.
thanks.
April 16, 2009 at 4:44 pm |
Reading through the comments listed here I see that on NOV 29, 2007, Steve Appel wrote suggesting drop down menus added to the navigation tool ….. I saw MANY also write in ‘in favor’ of that addition. It is now APRIL 2009 and we are all still waiting for this tool to be added. Homestead ,,,,, can you PLEASE hear us and create an update.
Thank you,
April 29, 2009 at 8:33 am |
Drop down menu with links please!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks in advance.
June 6, 2009 at 1:30 pm |
I too, am shocked that there is no drop down menu options for homestead.
I will have to reconsidering my options.
July 12, 2009 at 1:39 am |
It’s a very interesting subject I was looking around about more information but you got really what i was looking for in your article so thanks and keep it up you have a great blog .
I’m very interested in CMS and all its related subjects.