Poor navigation makes us think. Better navigation makes us think less. Great navigation is so obvious we don't have to think at all. If someone who's been living in a cave since the Web took off, can get online and figure out what a site is all about without help, that is just about the right amount of thinking.

Once you have the customer on your site and have passed the 30 SECOND threshold, the key is your site's EASE OF NAVIGATION. While there are no hard and fast rules here, use common sense and the idea that your customer should be able to get where she wants to be in no more than 2 clicks.

In an effort to assist you making the right decisions about your site navigation I have separated this section into various pieces: NAVIGATION BAR - the most common form of website navigation; INLINE LINKS - links placed within the page content; SITE SEARCH - often considered the most usable method of finding information quickly; and SITEMAP.