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Removing navigation menu items/links on homepage
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We are redesigning our website after a long stint with an SEO firm who also handled our design/dev. We want to clean up the links on our homepage but don't want to screw up our IA or SEO.
We want to delete some navbar menu items and a whole bunch on random links to our evergreen content below the fold. Would we need to reposition those navbar items/content links to our footer or somewhere else on the homepage to maintain our internal linking structure?
It would be great if you could take a look at our site and give us any suggestions or advice on the best way to go about this. Thanks!
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Hi Lorne - Welcome to the Moz community!
It's great to see you questioning your IA and usability, it is a continual process and there is always improvement to be made. I like to consider the following:
My main navigation should include all highly relevant, top level links. These are usually links to categories and very important pages. Your current nav structure does not include very many links, so I'm not seeing much of a need to adjust it as it stands.
I consider my Footer Navigation to be a secondary navigation. Google does discount links in the footer, they understand that this area is mainly used for supplemental links to pages like contact and company information. If a page/section of your website needs to be within 1 click of the homepage, but not necessarily a core part of your service, then it is a good link to put in the Footer. For example, Moz puts its Affiliate Program links in the footer - it's not a section that deserves much exposure, but should be within 1 click for the user.
I think you could clean up the language of your nav a little bit - what exactly are 'Other Quotes?' I think it is quotes that can't be instantly generated, but maybe other text is more appropriate. 'Humour' also isn't self-explanatory and I suggest considering a different label for that menu item. Finally, I always like to see the use of Semantic HTML and the<nav. tag="" whenever="" possible,="" that="" helps="" search="" engines="" and="" certain="" readers="" understand="" ia="" better.<="" p=""></nav.>
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