Business Guruz

Anyone working with SEO knows there are certain aspects of search engines you need to be careful of.  A main SEO tactic is navigation regarding the movement between pages.  SEO states that you should have a link to every page on your site.  It also dictates that you should be able to find a back button, or move onto another page while on the site.  For example, you should always have a link to your homepage no matter what page you are on.  You should also be able to go back or forward.

Thus the question about flyout menus needs to be answered.  Flyout menus are a navigation technique many sites use.  A flyout menu is a menu that opens when you place your mouse over the area.  It will show you what is under that tab, and then recede if you move your mouse away.  In the past flyout menus have been controversial regarding SEO for navigation purposes.

A JavaScript or flash flyout menu can take longer to load on a page, thus the consumer and the spiders get tired of waiting.  It can lose you consumers in other words, if the fly out menu is not created correctly.  Furthermore, the question of how long a flyout menu remains on the page should be addressed.

If the menu goes away too quickly it can irritate the consumer.  The same is true if the opposite occurs.  Your flyout menu needs to be built with CSS.  Something else to consider is how the search engines navigate your site.  The search engine is not intelligent; it is based on maths.  Therefore it cannot use flyout menus in the traditional sense.  It has to find other ways of navigating your site.  If you do not have other links such as a site map the spider will not be able to index your page.

Also consider the errors that occur in the translation of the menus.  Often times if your site has different language options a programmer may not be able to translate the flyout menus to the other language.

The best option if you do elect to use flyout menus is to have a horizontal menu to provide the most information.  You also must have another way to navigate the site to allow all pages to link properly and thus enhance your indexing qualities.  The search engines want pages consumers will enjoy using.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 6:03 am and is filed under seo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.