Search Engine Friendly Menu Design

Menu links are some of the most important features on a website in terms of SEO. The keywords in these links tell search engines about the main idea of the content on the connecting page and also give search engine spiders access to other areas of the site. That is – if the menus are search engine friendly.

Many of the more visually elaborate menus are SEO show stoppers. Some ways to ensure that your menus are search engine friendly are:

• Use text for menu links: Search engines read texts, so ideally menu links should be text as opposed to graphically designed buttons. Instead, use CSS to create design.
• Use some form of expandable menu system so that second tier links are accessible from the home page.
• Avoid Flash and JavaScript menus – search engines can’t (or in the case of JavaScript, won’t) read the text or spider them.
• If you’re set on cool drop-down effects, use DHTML – but very carefully. When using DHTML menus code cannot be placed in external JavaScript files. Also, DHTML menus have a tendency to get wacky depending on the browser. Here’s a great case study about a site that used DHTML menus and ranks #1 in the search engines.
• You’ve certainly heard this before, but include a site map. A good site map is still the best way to ensure that all pages get indexed.

David Williams is an Ethical Search Engine Optimization expert located in Raleigh, North Carolina. He works with people all over the United States marketing their websites. David has also been a public speaker since 2000.