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Website Sections
Breaking your website down into manageable segments

Determining and naming the main sections of your website

Determining and naming the main sections of your website is important for developing your website navigation scheme. Each section should contain material grouped according to your visitor's needs. These sections should be sizable chunks of related information that can be easily explored. See diagram below.

Website sections and website structure
Main sections and subsections make-up the bulk of your website structure

Deciding on the main sections of your website

Main sections are exactly what the term implies. These are the prime headings or categories that make-up your website. From here your visitor should be only one click away from the information that they are seeking.

If, for example, you are creating a site for a garden center, you would want to make it easy for the visitor to find the right information. To do this you could break down the various areas of the website into main sections. The main sections might include:

Website structure: Main sections
Note: This should be the foundation for the navigation scheme

Develop your own main sections. (i.e. website index)

Think about your own website. What main sections do you think you'll need for your visitors? Write these down. This will become your site index, the backbone of your navigation scheme.

The main sections or divisions you choose will become the index pages of your website. After you have divided your content into main sections, determine their order of importance. What will visitors want to know about first, second, etc. ( This will also determine the order of your navigation index)

Creating your website subsections

Not all main sections necessarily need to have subsections, but most will require a further breakdown of information. It really depends on the amount of content on your website. When designing a new website, keep in mind that the content will increase as you update and add information to the site. Build in room to expand as you determine your main and sub sections.

website subsection diagram
Website Subsections Diagram

An example of subsections

Going back to our garden center site above, the subsections under, for example, Vegetable Plants might be the type of plants available. . .or it might be categories of plants depending on the inventory. Under the Landscaping main section, you might find subsections relating to lawn care, tree trimming, etc.

Summary

Think about how your site should be organized, decide on main section and subsection names and write them down. From now on this will be the backbone of your navagation scheme.

We have now established the home page, main sections and subsections of the website. They have been organized into order of importance and noted. This is the basic layout of your website.

See: Website Basic Layout - Organizing your website into a logical structure.

Now it is time to take a closer look at navigation - how visitors will move about your site.



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