Drop down menu works best with jQuery
Since the advent of World Wide Web, website menu technologies have been out there. User friendliness is the heart of any website and as a drop down menu provides the same, it immediately became an important part of website design. Over the years, many breakthroughs in regards with website navigation tools have been there; however many of these had a negative impact on website design rather than having a positive one. Many of those tools make the website design so complex that it had an adverse impact on the search engines and your site therefore never gets crawled by them.
Contents
Some of the most used and known menu system types are the followings: vertical menu (Also known as side navigation), simple html menu (1 level only), floating navigation, horizontal drop down menu and tabbed navigation. Each of the navigation types has their own set of advantages and disadvantages. The type which you can implement in your site depends on the site design on a whole and also the hierarchy of the same.
Implementation in your website – why jQuery?
To implement these navigations in your website, you can use any of these following methodologies like HTML, jQuery, CSS or Cascading Style Sheet, Flash or JavaScript. Previously, there was a perception that CSS and HTML are the safest options to be used in your website particularly if you are thinking from the SEO point of view. But, with the introduction of jQuery, the entire situation experienced a change. With jQuery, there are numerous impressive effects that can be incorporated into any HTML unordered list with certain calls being made to the JavaScript functions. The good part is, jQuery is completely SEO friendly. Flash can be implemented in your website too but the site does not remain that much SEO friendly anymore.
There is another important thing which deals with the placement of the navigation. Most commonly used places are on the top side of the website or on the left side. Apart of these places mentioned, some websites also go for right side navigation. This trend has mostly been seen in the blogs.
With changing trends and to make the website look different from others, many websites are using a mix. For an example, the main navigation or the 1st level navigation of their sites are presented in the top site; whereas, the sub-navigation is maintained in the right or left side. However, to implement this, a correct approach should be used; otherwise the website may look clumsy.
Whether you will be going for a common HTML menu system or jQuery, the rather complex technology depends on the time that you can possibly spend with the creation of the navigation. Without a doubt, jQuery makes an awesome technology; however there are things to learn before you use it. If you are a rookie, then trying out the available jQuery menu builders should be a good option.