Side Nav. Vs. Top Nav
-
I have a client that currently has a side navigation and wants to know how changing to a top nav will affect her SEO. We always recommend top nav for user experience but I am not sure if there is a direct effect on SEO. Would the change affect it? Thoughts?
-
I would.... put the links in the top nav and place adsense at the top position of the left nav.
-
Yea just think above the fold for your nav and links.
You can always design-silo the website to direct your users throughout your site.
This will help keep your home page in a healthy range for the number of links and you're most important ones at the top!
Using fresh h3 tags on other pages throughout your website with simple links will help a ton!
-
Great points; we have top nav and it's never proved to be an issue. I'm working on a project where we've migrating from left to top nav and I anticipate issues because its a change for the user experience and we've already trained them on a different nav.
-
if the linking is exactly the same it should have no effect on SEO, but could have a neg or positive effect on bounce rate and other user experience stats.
you could always safely a/b test it
-
Having your most important links in a top nav is great for crawlability and significance to Google about what directories or pages are of importance. Removing the nav is okay unless you can ensure keeping sitelinks from the home page of importance above the fold.
I professionally would avoid removing your top nav and maybe focus more on the mechanics of css/javascript-jquery to deliver better appeal to users for click-throughs and conversions
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Mobile SEO vs. Usability - SinglePlatform
I have a restaurant client that we're setting up with SinglePlatform.com to distribute their menu and make sure all of the restaurant sites have updated information for their business. As part of SinglePlatform's service, they offer a mobile site. Normally we would just create a mobile site and make sure that it's optimized but this client isn't ready to invest in a customized mobile site yet. The mobile site we can get with SinglePlatform is very simple. Call, Menu, Address, View Full Website, Photos, General Info. I know this would make it much easier for mobile users to find information and contact them but it's not mobile best practices. Whatever main page they land on would redirect them to the home page of the mobile site (i.e. not a 1 to 1). We also won't have any Google Analytics information for this site. The question comes down to usability or SEO? I'm leaning toward the mobile site for now and sell them on a customized solution later. I guess I'm just looking for some verification or any insight. ZRVbARv
Web Design | | JaredDetroit0 -
Post vs Pages
Does Google make any distinction between a web page and a blog post? Assuming all else is equal...any reason why a page would rank higher than a post? And that includes a page in WordPress vs a WordPress blog post.
Web Design | | Pinlaser1 -
One Page Guide vs. Multiple Individual Pages
Howdy, Mozzers! I am having a battle with my inner-self regarding how to structure a resources section for our website. We're building out several pieces of content that are meant to be educational for our clients and I'm having trouble deciding how to layout the content structure. We could either layout all eight short sections on a single page, or create individual pages for each section. The goal is obviously to attract new potential clients by targeting these terms that they may be searching for in an information gathering stage. Here's my dilemma...
Web Design | | jpretz
With the single page guide, it would be nice because it will have a lot of content (and of course, keywords) to be picked up by the SERPS but I worry that it is going to be a bit crammed (because of eight sections) for the user. The individual pages would be much better organized and you can target more specific keywords, but I worry that it may get flagged for light content as some pages may have as little as a 150 word description. I have always been mindful of writing copy for searchers over spiders, but now I'm at a more technical crossroads as far as potentially getting dinged for not having robust content on each page. Here's where you come in...
What do you think is the better of the two options? I like the idea of having the multiple pages because of the ability to hone-in on a keyword and the clean, organized feel, but I worry about the lack of content (and possibly losing out on long-tail opportunities). I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please and thank you. Ready annnnnnnnnnnnd GO!0 -
For a real estate website, is a different mobile site warranted vs a responsive site?
I researched the major real estate websites: Zillow, Trulia, Remax, Keller Williams, Century 21, etc. They all have a separate mobile site and not a responsive one. The client wants it to be easy to search for properties from a smartphone. Is it possible to get a responsive version of a real estate website on a smartphone?
Web Design | | MassMedia0 -
Text in Images vs. Alt tags
Hi on my homepage i h ave multiple images They have the appropriate alt text for each image, but the text which the image displays is not written into the page and styled using CSS rather than placing text within an image. Is this a issue worth correcting, or is it sufficient to have just alt text for each image. Any major pros from having putting the text in the image into the CMS using appropriate CSS styling to achieve the same effect.
Web Design | | monster990 -
HTML vs WordPress
Which website gets better SEO results? I was told that HTML is crawled better than WordPress. Which is a more expensive website to design? What are the pros and cons of each?
Web Design | | CapitolShine0 -
Responsive Vs Mobile Sites
I know this is some cutting edge technology, but I think that this will be a very important topic in the coming months, as html5/css3 becomses more and more the standard, or at least standardized, I think the topic of this in relation to SEO will also arise much more. My question is simple, is it better to code a responsive site, or a completely mobile site for a small company with no special needs (mobile ordering, ecommerce, etc...) I obviously know the visuall differences, and, personally, I think respomsive websites look better. From an seo perspective, my big thing is for the resizing, for example, with WordPress, when you reach the tablet size you can set the sidebar to basically display:none, can that impact your website? I would really appreciate any feedback
Web Design | | ZacharyRussell0 -
3rd party commenting systems vs native?
I'm curious what you all think about using a 3rd party commenting system (like Disqus) vs the native wordpress commenting system? I've read so many reviews online it makes my head spin, so I wanted to see if any of you have any experience, or perhaps some trusted case studies. I was using the native comment system for a while, and then tried out Disqus; which seems to be good, but I'm not sure if people know how to easily get notified of new comments. With the native system there was a check box that said "subscribe," plus I used a plugin to redirect a first time commenter to a welcome page, as well as sent an email to them. I feel like Disqus makes it harder for people to get notified on new comments. However, I like giving people the ability to log in via different 3rd party channels (facebook/twitter/disqus, etc.) I know there are some 3rd party tools that allow you to do this on the native comment system as well. Any way, I'm just curious if anyone had any experience. Also I'm assuming the audience makes a big difference. My target readership is mommy's and parents, and not necessarily a 'tech" one; so I want to make the ability to comment very simple and easy for them. That's key. I'm sort of leaning on moving back over to the Wordpress comment system.
Web Design | | NoahsDad0