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How_to_Easily_Create_a_Search Engine_Friendly_Navigation_Menu_For_Your_Website
| How to Easily Create a Search-Engine Friendly Navigation Menu For Your Website
A navigation menu is an important element of a website.
A good navigation menu helps your visitors navigate through your
website efficiently - in as few mouse-clicks as possible.
You can think of a website navigation menu like the "Table of
Contents" of a book.
And the greater the number of web pages on your website, the
more important the role of a website navigation menu.
Another important benefit of a navigation menu is it optimizes
the internal linking structure of your website and allows the
navigation menu links to rank better in search engines, since
all web pages will be pointing to it.
(For example, if your website has 1000 web pages, each
navigation menu link will have 1000 web pages pointing to it.
This will result in the navigation menu links ranking higher
than the other web pages)
Here's how you can use this knowledge to improve the
search-engine rankings of selected web pages - Simply include
the selected web pages as links in the navigation menu and
you'll automatically have the rest of the web pages pointing to
them.
And finally, here's one method you can use to easily create a
website navigation menu - Using Server Side Includes (SSI).
What are Server Side Includes? ------------------------------
Server Side Includes (SSI) are simply instructions (also known
as "directives") that are included in a HTML document to execute
a specific command e.g. inserting the content of an HTML file.
The SSI directives are "processed" at the Server side, before it
reaches the requesting browser (hence the name Server Side
Includes).
As a result, the "processed" SSI directives merge seamlessly
with the HTML file.
Here's an example of SSI in action at a website (i.e. the left
navigation menu): http://www.BizSuccessOnline.com.
Notice the left navigation menu is made up of static HTML links.
This is to allow search-engine spiders to crawl through the
website to discover other web pages (via the navigation menu
links).
An alternative solution to get your web pages spidered by
search-engines is to use a sitemap.
A sitemap is simply a webpage that contains links to every
webpage on your website and should be linked from your home page.
This will provide the search-engine spiders a path to follow and
will ultimately result in your web pages getting fully indexed.
You can learn more about sitemaps here:
http://SiteMapSoftware.com
Note that most, but not all servers have SSI's enabled. Please
check with your web host to find out whether SSI is enabled in
your server.
How to Easily Create a Navigation Menu Using SSI?
------------------------------------------------- Step 1# -
Create a HTML navigation menu file
This is the navigation menu file that will be inserted into your
HTML pages and is also your HTML navigation menu template.
A simple horizontal text HTML navigation menu can look like this:
Home | Products | Pricing | About Us | Contact Us
(You'll need to hyperlink each of the above text to make these
navigation links clickable by using your favorite HTML editor
e.g. FrontPage or Dreamweaver)
You need to save this file with a .shtml extension once this
file has been created e.g. topnavi.shtml
Step 2# - Insert navigation menu file into HTML file
Open up the HTML file (e.g. products.html) and place the cursor
on the location where you wish to insert the navigation menu.
Click here to view the SSI directive:
http://BizSuccessOnline.com/SSI_CodeSnippet
And copy and paste the above SSI directive at the cursor.
(Be sure to replace "your_navigation_filename.shtml" with the
name of your navigation menu file)
Note: You CANNOT use absolute path with an SSI directive: e.g.
do not use http://yourdomain.com opnavi.shtml
And finally, save the HTML file with a .shtml extension e.g.
products.shtml
Step 3# - Upload files onto your server
The last step is to upload the newly created .shtml files onto
your web server and check to make sure the pages display
properly.
And if you view the HTML source code of your HTML file on a live
internet connection, you'll notice that the SSI directive would
have been replaced by the actual HTML navigation menu code.
Maintaining your navigation menu is now a simple matter of
changing the contents on the navigation file.
That's all there is to it!
Give it a go!
About the author:
Fabian Lim is a Management & Internet Marketing Consultant. He
helps organizations and individuals succeed online. He is also
editor and publisher of "BizSuccess Tips", a No Hype, No B.S.
internet marketing newsletter. Visit his website at
http://www.BizSuccessOnline.com
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