Affordable SEO and the Truth Behind Java Script Menus

When it comes to affordable SEO, you probably try to do as much of the web page layout as you can on your own without hiring a professional. So you’ve probably done a bit of research into affordable SEO tactics and you’ve tried to learn what works and what doesn’t work as far as driving traffic to your website goes. Which means you’ve also encountered the debate over JavaScript menus.

According to the Mozilla definition, “JavaScript is a small, lightweight, object-oriented, cross-platform scripting language.” In plain English, Java Script is a simple programming language that basically enables a more interactive website. JavaScript code can be used to validate form fields before they are submitted. It can be used to make images bounce all over the web page. It can be used to open new browser popup windows. And all sorts of other creative things.

But perhaps the most popular use of JavaScript is the creation of website menubars. With JavaScript menus, a lot of links can be presented in a small amount of space by making the menu pull down or fly out to reveal additional links.

The benefits of a JavaScript menu are:

1. it takes up only a small amount of space on the web page
2. only premium products or categories are initially displayed by default
3. when a user hovers over a premium product, sub category info automatically displays

Although JavaScript menubars are popular and useful, there is also a downside to using them on your website. Web crawlers or “search engine spiders” can not read or interpret the subcategories of pure JavaScript menus. If the spiders can not read the menu, they also can not follow the links to the web pages on the menu, which means those particular pages will not get crawled and indexed. If a web page is not indexed, it will not show up in the search engine results pages.

To put it plain and simply: if your JavaScript menu links to a page about dog food, and the spiders can not crawl your menu, that means they will not be able to visit your page about dog food. If they don’t visit your page about dog food, they will not be able to add that page to their search engine index. So, when someone goes to Google looking for dog food, your page about dog food will never show up. (Please note, this is an oversimplification of the search engine optimization process. There is more to SEO than using the correct menu format.)

How can web surfers benefit from JavaScript menubars?

The reason JavaScript menus gained such widespread popularity is because although pure JavaScript can not be seen by internet crawlers, it definitely makes online shopping easier. Pull down or fly out menus allow you to categorize your website menu, making it easier for your website visitors to navigate your site and find the products they are looking for. It’s similar to grouping the products in your brick and mortar store into departments.

You wouldn’t walk into a department store and expect to see kitchen blenders with men’s slacks. You’d want the men’s slacks grouped with the men’s shirts and ties and belts; and the blenders grouped with the food processors and hand mixers and toaster ovens. And a pull down menu gives you this same functionality for your online store.

Introducing: SEO friendly pull down menus

Fortunately, there’s a way to take advantage of the much-needed functionality of a pull down menubar while keeping your web pages search engine friendly; and that is by using a CSS menu in combination with JavaScript, or a pure CSS menu alternative.

By using a CSS-based menubar, you’ll have the ability to create a pull down menu that the search engines can crawl. Since a CSS menu uses very little markup, your web pages will use less bandwidth and they will load faster than they would with a pure JavaScript menu. And, when you use an external style sheet, you can easily change the entire look and placement of your menu across every single one of your web pages by changing only one file.

How do you know if your website menu needs to be updated?

If you’re not sure how the pull down menu on your website was created, here’s an easy test for you. Simply hover over one of the menu links on any of your web pages, then take a look at your browser’s status bar. If you don’t see the hyperlink path in your status bar, chances are your menu is pure JavaScript and can probably use an update.

But have no fear – you don’t have to lose the pull down functionality. Just replace your JavaScript menu with a CSS based menu (or request that your webmaster o it for you) and you’ll have a search engine friendly and highly functional website menu in no time.

You might also be interested in:

• Create a Site Map For Better Traffic
• 7 Common Web Site Mistakes You Might Be Guilty Of
• Why Won’t My Site Show Up in Google?
• SEO Mistakes You’re Probably Guilty Of
• Affordable SEO Quick Fix in Minutes

Tags: Affordable SEO, javascript menu, search engine optimization, search engine spider, website menu

This entry was posted on Monday, August 2nd, 2010 at 9:58 am and is filed under Affordable SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.