RodeWorks

I’ve been involved in some web site re-designs lately, where we’ve spent a lot of time on the navigation and site layout. And I know that those things are important — but I’m not sure they are as important as they once were. Think about your own browsing habits. Most people I see using a browser ‘google’ something, and expect to find what they are looking for in one or two clicks. I rarely see people making extensive use of the site’s navigation.

In fact I think the navigation is most important as a way to indicate to people what is on a site. And for this use it should tell a story, rather than try to be a route to all your site content. Just put a prominent search box right up at the top, which for most visitors is all they really need!

The URL Is Dead, Long Live Search - ReadWriteWeb

According to Compete last fall, navigational searches make up about 17% of all searches on average, more on Yahoo! and Live than on Google. For well-known web sites, Compete found that about 9 out of the top 10 search terms for that site tend to be some sort of variation on the domain. Surprisingly, people actually often search for entire domain names rather than type them into their browser’s address bar.