How to develop and maintain a website - ESRC

Contents

Structure and navigation

Your website needs to be structured in a logical and user-focused way. You should:

  • group content into logical categories – your website sections – that have clear and meaningful titles
  • create a hierarchy of pages, including a homepage and section landing pages to direct users to the relevant content
  • use a consistent layout across your site, ideally controlled through a small set of easily editable page templates.

You also need to ensure that your users can easily navigate around your website. Your users could arrive on pages within your website from a search engine or links from other sites, so you cannot rely on the homepage alone.

To help users navigate your site, you should:

  • include prominent links to main sections and important pages on all your pages, by using top and side navigation menus and bars
  • be consistent with navigation options across all pages
  • include links to related content.

You could also include some additional navigation features such as breadcrumb links and a sitemap.

Last updated: 31 August 2021

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