Maze or Menu?
Please note this article was first published in 20 Dec 2010. Its content may now be out of date. We recommend taking a look at more recent website building blog posts or check out our comprehensive support pages. If you are looking for information on our 14 day free website builder trial we have a large number of webpages that guide you throug the process.
Maze or Menu?
When you’ve attracted the attention of internet users, encouraging them to click further into your website is a huge priority when you've built a website. One way to do this is to make the website very easy to navigate. Making your visitor feel confident that he or she will be able to find what they are looking for quickly and easily will ultimately help lead to sales and bookings. Simple to view, easy on the eye menu pages do exactly this and they also show visitors a good idea of what you have on offer straight away so tempting them in to have a closer look!.
website navigate
Menu pages are essentially a list of either text names and / or images showing each category of products or services you offer, which link with one click to either their respective item or groups of items in your shopping basket or to further information pages. A clear menu page will also help customers to spot other related products which they may not have previously thought of so maximising the sales potential!
In addition to the standard menu button for your Product Menu Page, it’s a good idea to have a clickable link right from your home page too. Create a line saying: “Click to View Products” or “Product Gallery” or “Shop Gallery”. Highlight the line then use your yellow insert link icon in your editor to link it to the menu page. (Webpage > Internal Webpage > Webpage > select page from drop down menu > Add to Website)
Use the best possible photography for your menu page!
Pick out the best picture for one of the best items in each group of products or services. Crop all your selected images to square images and then resize them all to between 125 – 150 pixels wide so that they are all the same size and shape. Choose “Save As” when you save each resized image to a separate new “Menu” folder on your computer with a new name such as “originalnamemenupic.jpeg”. By choosing “save as”, this won’t alter your original image and as they’ll all be in their own new folder, will be quick for you to find when you come to place them.
If you don’t have an image-editing programme, Picasa from Google or Paint.net can be downloaded FREE and are great programmes to use. We’ve covered basic resizing using Picasa in a previous Blog – Click here to view.
In Step 3 in your control panel, create a new page for your menu page and set it up with a title, introduction, any instructions etc and then on a new clean line add a table.
Click the Blue Insert Table icon on your editor icon bar.
Select 2/3 columns depending on the width of your website.
Select 3 times the number of rows you have planned to allow one for your images, one for image titles to appear under each image and a third row to provide a nice gap between each.
Leave the Table Border setting as “0”,
Set with table width at 90-95%
and click add to website.
Upload your images to your first row by placing your cursor in each cell and clicking the red Insert Image icon. Browse and upload each image. Select “Centre” alignment. Select a thin border if required. Click Insert / Add.
Now go down to the next row and in the cells underneath each image, type a short one / two word title for the group depicted by the image. Centre align all your titles so that they line up nicely with your images.
Leaving a gap row between each title row and following image row, go through your table and place all the necessary images and titles for your groups. You can rearrange your menu images / titles by dragging and dropping them around your table to get a nice balance or to make the page look nice.
Linking your Menu Page
You can set your links from either your image, your title or from both for each group.
To link to a Shopping Basket Group - Highlight each image / title in turn and click the Yellow Insert Link Icon and select Webpage > Internal Webpage > Group > select the correct group from the drop down menu. If you wish to link to an individual product, select Item at this stage.
To link to an information webpage select Webpage > Internal Webpage > Webpage > select the correct page from the drop down menu.
Attach all the links to your images / titles, then click save and test your new menu page. Remember you can go back and amend any links by highlighting the image / title > removing the link with the broken chain icon and resetting your link in the same way as above.
Please remember, this article was first published 20/12/2010. The content may be out of date and you cannot post comments any more. Please check out our new blog.
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