The Three Navigation Elements That Can Make or Break Your Website

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Just because a website can have breadcrumbs, dropdowns, and sidebars…
Doesn’t mean it should. 

In today’s episode, we’re talking about three of the most overused—and often misunderstood—website elements: breadcrumbs, submenus, and sidebars. (And what they are if you are clueless!) 

I’ll walk you through when they help, when they hurt, and how to decide what your site actually needs to guide visitors (not confuse them).

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Just because a website can have breadcrumbs,
dropdowns, and sidebars doesn'tmean it should.
In today's episode, we'retalking about three of the most
overused and often misunderstoodwebsite elements: breadcrumbs,
submenus, and sidebars, and whatthey are if you're clueless on
what those are.
I'll walk you through when theyactually help, when they hurt,

(00:22):
and how to decide what your siteactually needs to guide visitors
and not confuse them.
So let's dive in.
Struggling to turn websitetraffic into real sales, you're
not alone and you don't have tofigure it out all yourself.
Welcome to Smarter OnlineBusiness, the podcast for course
creators, coaches, ande-commerce entrepreneurs who
want their websites to convertvisitors into buyers without the

(00:45):
tech overwhelm.
I'm your host, Carrie Saunders,a website strategist and
conversion expert with over 20years of experience.
Each episode delivers simple,proven strategies to help you
generate more revenue and makeyour website your smartest sales
tool.
Welcome back to the show.
Today we're talking about sidemenus, breadcrumbs, and drop
downs.

(01:05):
Now, if some of that doesn'tsound familiar, like Carrie,
what the heck are you talkingabout?
I'm going to first define themreally quick.
So you don't know what we'retalking about.
So breadcrumbs are those littlelinks that usually appear at the
top of the page.
They show the path that you tookwhen you're clicking through the
site.
So it could be home, it could bewomen, women's tops, and then

(01:26):
that's where you are.
You're shopping for women'stops.
So it will show that across thewebsite, the different path that
you came to get to there.
That's what a breadcrumb is.
Now, submenus are thosedrop-downs that appear when you
hover over the menu or thenavigation bar.
Kind of like whenever yousomebody has multiple services,
you may have hover overservices, and then there might

(01:47):
be a drop-down with five moreoptions underneath that.
And then sidebars are thosethings that are along the side.
They're little narrow columns onthe side of the web page, and
they're often filled with linkslike blog categories or email
opt-ins, or if you're ane-commerce site and maybe your
categories for your store.
So all of these serve a purpose,but only if your visitor

(02:09):
actually needs them to moveforward.
So we want to make sure thatwhen if we use them, that
they're effective and when wedon't even really need them.
Sometimes people put them inthere just to be fancy.
So let's first start off withbreadcrumbs.
Breadcrumbs, like we said, arethose links that go across the
top of the page that tell youwhere you have been and where
you came from.

(02:30):
So this is very good to havewhen your site has many levels
of product or content.
So an e-commerce site, thiswould be very appropriate for
maybe a blog where you have lotsof different, you know,
subcategories into it.
That might be important too.
But usually it's more fore-commerce sites.
That's usually where I see this.

(02:51):
And so a lot of people who sellservices don't really need this.
So when you have e-commerce,it's a very good idea that helps
visitors backtrack where theywere.
So the example earlier, maybe Iwas shopping for clothing,
women's clothing, and I havethis trail of going back.
I can click on the women's wordsand the breadcrumbs and get back
to the other options for women'sclothing.

(03:13):
It's a nice quick way to getback and works really well then.
But it's not something that youwant if you only have a few core
pages.
It's just clutter and just extrastuff.
We want to make sure that ournavigation is already clear.
If it's already clear, youreally don't need them either.
And we want to be designing formobile first.
And breadcrumbs usually justcrowd the space, especially if

(03:34):
your website is pretty simple.
And usually I will actually,even on sites that have
breadcrumbs and they're usefulfor desktop, we usually hide
them when we're on mobile.
So short answer is breadcrumbsare great for big websites and
they're clutter for small ones.
And then this is a big questionI get a lot across all the

(03:56):
people that we help, all thebusinesses that we help, whether
it's e-commerce or coursecreators and coaches.
Should you use submenus or dropdowns?
They can feel fancy, but theycan easily frustrate users.
I know I sometimes get reallyfrustrated with submenus that
drop down whenever they're notcoded right, and it's really
easy to move off of them,especially when they're

(04:18):
multi-tiered, where you mouseover it, one drops down, and
then more come out to the side,and you might try to go over
there to mouse off on them, andsomehow you've moused off of
everything and you've lost whereyou were.
So we don't really always wantto use submenus.
No, so when do we want to usethem?

(04:39):
We want to use them when youhave more than six to seven
pages linked across the top ofyour website.
So say you need more than six orseven.
Um, what you can do is you cangroup things clearly into a
submenu.
So let's say you have yourservices business and you do
coaching services, but you havedifferent levels or different

(05:00):
types of coaching.
You may want to put it in asubmenu under services right
there.
If you're an e-commerce store,you're gonna want to put
probably things under submenu.
Say you sell clothing, you know,you'll probably want to have
women's and then the submenuunder there, like tops, bottoms,
etc., men, top, bottoms, etc.
Children.
Um, that's when it's reallycommon to have them and when

(05:20):
it's very helpful.
So I'll say that again, makesure that I'm clear here.
So you do want drop downswhenever you have layered
products, so products that canbe grouped together and make
sense together, like women'sclothing or men's clothing, or
if you have services that makesense for them to be grouped
together, that way you don'thave too many links across the

(05:41):
top of your page.
You do want to avoid menuoverload and drop-down overload.
Now, I do see this sometimes.
Um, most likely most of youlistening have experienced this
as well.
If your menu has more than threelayers, it's way, way too deep.
That's just not, it's too much.
Too much for Google, it's toomuch for users.
And if your visitor can't easilyclick on these drop-down menus

(06:03):
on mobile, then that's also aproblem, too.
So you want to make sure that wecan easily click on them on
mobile.
So then I get this question alot too, especially from coaches
and course creators, too.
Are sidebars still useful?
You know, the bar down the side.
And they used to be usedeverywhere.
Like that was the standard.
When you were designing awebsite, you had a sidebar down

(06:24):
the side.
Didn't matter what you sell,sold, what you did, or who you
were, you had a sidebar menu.
So they work on blogs, andwhenever we have content-heavy
sites.
So we want to have it wheneverwe want to show recent posts,
maybe the categories for yourblogs, maybe opt-ins.
So this is something I seesometimes people don't have on

(06:45):
their blogs now because sidemenus aren't quite the normal as
much anymore, but it isnecessary on blogs.
It helps you get deeper downinto those really good blog
articles that may have been sixmonths, nine months ago, but
they're still really good andrelevant.
So having that side menu sopeople can go back to older
archives, whether it's through acategory hierarchy on a blog, or

(07:09):
you know, August 2025, April2025, you know, what whether
it's by month, either.
And then it also can be greatfor lead magnets or quick call
to actions if they're welldesigned.
This is something that we got tomake sure that it's very well
designed and isn't cluttered andit isn't distracting to the user
to see.
So I would most likely tell youto do it on blogs, and I would

(07:33):
kind of hesitate on the leadmagnets or quick call to actions
on the side.
You got to make sure that iswell designed.
So that's why I hesitate onthat.
So it's a little bit moreadvanced, but I want to let you
know that it's there in casethat is something that you do
need.
So they can really hurt youthough on mobile.
They can get pushed down or putinto a weird spot on mobile.
So if you do need it, make sureyou're testing this on mobile

(07:56):
and put it in a place that itmakes sense on mobile.
And if they're filled with a lotof noise, oh my goodness, you
can probably remember back inthe day ads, outdated content,
and random links off to theside.
Um, it just was something normalback in the day.
And sometimes websites need tobe cleaned up and getting that
removed.
So we definitely don't want tobe doing that in our modern day.

(08:17):
And when they detract from themain action you want people to
take is also when you don't wantthem.
So be cautious there, make surethey don't detract from what the
main action you want people totake.
So if your website includeselements, just because that's
what websites do or how we usedto do it, it might be time for
strategic cleanup.
And if you need help decidingwhat to keep, cut out, or

(08:38):
restructure, you're alwayswelcome to join our Facebook
group at smarteronlinebusiness.com forward slash
Facebook, and that will get youto our group.
And you can join that and askquestions there.
You can also join our weeklynewsletter for simple, smart
tips to make your websitecleaner, faster, and more
effective without the techoverwhelm.
Just go to smarteronlinebusiness.com forward slash

(09:01):
newsletter to sign up there.
And then I want to do a claritycheck and a clarity test with
you.
So I want you to open yourwebsite and look at one page
that has a breadcrumb, adrop-down, or a sidebar.
Ask yourself, is this helpingpeople move forward?
Or is it giving them more tosort through, more to decide
upon?

(09:21):
If it's not guiding decision orhelping them navigate clearly,
it may be time for that elementto go.
Or if you're the opposite wayand you're like, oh, I've got
way too many menu items at thetop.
Carrie said five to seven'sabout more ideal.
Is there a way that you cangroup them together and put, you
know, a set of them in adrop-down?
So look at a clarity test fromboth directions.

(09:45):
Do I need to remove something ordo I need to add one of these
elements?
That's all we have for thisweek's podcast episode.
I hope you thoroughly enjoyedit.
Be sure to go to Apple and rateand review us.
That really helps get the wordout to others just like you that
want help with their websitewithout all the tech overwhelm.
And we will see you next week.