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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: JANUARY 19, 2004
Last month we gave an overview of 10 features of a professional
website. This month we will look at the first three in more detail.
1. Consistent Navigation
A site’s navigation should not change very much from the format introduced to the visitor on the landing page (home page). You want to establish a site’s navigation in order to make it easy for a visitor to be able to quickly find what they are looking for. A good example of consistent navigation is www.getlisty.com
2. Functional Links
It is imperative that links within a web site work. This includes e-mail links, site navigational links, and intra-site referencing links. It is more forgivable to have a link to an external source that is broken, because external sites are usually beyond your direct control. Still, if you are checking your site regularly then broken links get found and are easily fixable. One thing to watch out for is when new pages of information get added over time and the number of links to keep track of throughout the web site can spiral out of control.
3. Logical Organization
Logical organization is one of the aspects that truly sets amateur web sites apart from professionally designed sites. The key here is selecting category names that belong together, and knowing when to create subcategories. This rule is most commonly broken when a subcategory is arranged at the same organizational level as a category.
Next month we will look at Consistent Look and Feel, Appropriate Use of a Database, and the Ability to Grow.
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