Hi guys, I am associated with a website and we are planning to give it a new look in the home page. I had this debate with my team members on whether we shoule keep the menu on the right side of the page or should we shift it to the left side of the page. What opinions do you guys have? Does the menu have any sort of effect on the visitors? Sam
In my opinion it doesn't really matter, whether you have it on the left or right. While the general menus are often seen below the header or to the left, it would take a user of very limited experience to get confused over such positioning. However that, said if the menu does not stand out, or is poorly laid out then it will have an effect on the visitors. Ensure your navigation is clear, and stands out. One factor you might want to take into consideration is where the menu appears in the source code. For example while you might want to have it appear on the right, you might want to have it appear before the content on the source code. As the source code should generally take the form of -header-menu-content-footer. While these can be displayed anywhere on the page they can still be re-arranged within the source code. However this is debatable on whether the appearence of data within the source code has any real effect on SEO.
Thanks for the comment, wd_2k6's. I asked the question from a user point of view. But you came up with a new thing, the positioning of the menu in the source code of a site, whether that has any role to play in SEO. Well, i dont have any idea on it. Lets see what others have to say on this. Thanks again! Sam
Purely from a visitors point of view I would go for menu on the left. People read left to right and it is easier to follow with the eye. Some say for SEO it is better on the right. Not sure about that.
I'm told you can rearrange the order of the source code for SEO using css. If you can't do this I'd suggest keeping it on the right like I do. That way your content will show up first and give you a higher ranking. If SEO probably isn't a big deal then either side is okay, I'm on the Web a lot and I'm kinda used to seeing the navigation either on the left or right and on the top and bottom.
A left menu will be viewed more often than a Right; users just sort of flock to the left when used to reading left to right; now if your site is in a language which reads right to left I'd sugguest a right side menu...