The main purpose of your navigation is to get your customers to the information they want quickly and easily.  For this reason, it is important that you keep the 3-click rule in mind.  This rule says that all pages on your site should be accessible within 3 clicks of the homepage.  If you think about it, this makes sense; rarely do we make it to the 4th page of a search engine.  We just aren't patient enough.  Instead, if we don't find what we are looking for on the first 3 pages, we refine our search and simply start over.  Imagine what this means for the staying power of your site.  If your visitors get impatient, they are off to another site to become their customers instead.

It is especially important for sites with a lot of detailed information to plan, plan, plan.  When you think you have a good navigation plan, try simulating the common steps that visitors might take to get information from your site, then modify your plan to reduce the number of clicks. 

No matter where your customers are on your site, they should always be able to find their way back to your home page.  This is done by adding a link to your business logo and a "home" link in your navigation menu.

Locate your main navigation near the top of the site either at the left-side of the page or just below the header.  This guarantees your customers won't have to scroll to find it.  Keep this navigation consistent from page to page, with the only possible exception being to your home page.

Sometimes it is fun to add graphics to your navigation, giving your site a little character.  Be sure to add text to the graphics, since images that seem so obvious to you may not be quite so apparent to your visitors.  Remember, confusion leads to lost customers.

It is important that your users be able to tell where they are at all times in your site.  You can provide this information by highlighting an item on the navigation menu, including the information in the page header, or adding "breadcrumbs" to give your visitor a step-by-step guide showing where they are in a current section of content.

Of course, we always want to be thinking of the future, so be sure to make your navigation menu as flexible as possible, allowing room for growth. 

Did you know that your navigation also helps search engine robots index your site?  A simple way to help the robots access all of your content is to include a site map with links to every page.  This is particularly helpful if your site has dynamic content, pages that aren't easily discoverable, or includes a large archive of content pages that aren't linked to each other.