Left or Right Rail Navigation?

I personally prefer blog navigation on the right side. It's a convention that is used on most blogs and is very familiar.

While the left nav may offer more continuity, I think it helps distinguish the content by staying on the right side.

Just my 2 cents.

Many of the people I know prefer left nav. I made the nav on my blog on the right though so people can still see most of the page when viewing 800x600. As long as the nav doesnt cover the important pages when viewed in smaller resolutions thats fine with me.

Personally I like left nav because it's easier to skip a set different left and start reading that start reading and then get interrupted by a nav.
I do like right Nav for looking different though, especially as Palconit said it fits on blogs because I am used to seeing it now.

I'd leave the blog with right nav to help users distinguish it from the training area. Also, eye tracking studies have shown right nav to be very effective. It's also a great placement strategy (above the fold) for Adsense or other monetization.

Hey Aaron,

Leave the navigation on the right side of your blog. I would even return the navigation on the Training page to the right side.

As like the poster above pointed ( eye tracking ), but not only that. But also because the people are used to have sidebar on the right side for most information site ( sample: blogs ).

As what I would only try is to maybe create two sidebars on your blog just to test the ad's on the sidebar.

Hrvoje Livnjak

For the training subdomain I clearly see where the left nav bar would be more conventional. Kind of like when you open a PDF training/instructional guide, and it has the index of chapters/sections on the left side.

I was initially going to say the blog sidebar should stay on the right side (normal for blogs), but I could see where it may be beneficial to have it on the left side for site consistency, or even for the potential of more clickthroughs for the promotional links (which is what is mostly on the right). Might be a good scenario for testing.

As a note, I really think on blogs the right-side is generally ignored. I recently made it a point to actually look at the ads on another popular site, because though I visit often, I'm really blind to whatever is to the right of the post.

I will add one thing I REALLY like about your site navigation is the previous post/next post at the top of each entry. On other sites I see it at the bottom beneath comments, or in a sidebar of recent posts (like your recent comments section), and it is not nearly as convenient as your site.

Just a general critique of your design - - you might want to update to a more structured page (e.g. some delineated columns) given the amount of info you're sporting on the blog sidebar these days.

I like what Brian Clark did - and this site is reminiscent of the original Copyblogger theme (for good reason, considering you both used Pearson).

Aaron,

I have both IE7 and Firefox running. The SEO Training navigation is still showing on the right hand side on Internet Explorer 7. However, the navigation does show on the left hand side on Firefox.

As far as my preference, the left hand side navigation feels more natural to me.

I read in one SEO book that the right side was better for two reasons: (a) we tend to read from left to right and (b) search engines give more weight to the items on the right. I'm not sure about "b". My navigation remains on the left side for all of my websites.

I'd go for rock-solid-same on your navigations layout, but differentiate your large subsections via color scheme. Currently your site-wide scheme is green heavy (first color in your logo, solid color bar above navigational header, color of subject headers, and footer highlighting). You could trend slate blue for the training section, silver/gray for your tools (like the disabled SEOtools icon in Firefox when someone installs your toolset), and navy for your community. Also highlighting the portion on the header nav that corresponds to a visitor's current location should help remove confusion. And finally you can just write, "BLOG" or "COMMUNITY" etc. above the top of that corresponding menu. All in all, there are tons of ways you can address this via design without odd tweaks in usability, if so your reasons for making navigation universally the same stack up 3 to 1.

Aaron,

Traditionally I've always put nav on the left or top, but I think the right side has become common and acceptable for blogs. Then again, if your target audience to the SEO Training subdomain isn't savvy in the blogosphere, it may not be as intuitive.

Keep the great content coming.

Lots of great feedback. Thanks everyone. :)

Not sure as of this minute but at some point, not far back, only the first instance of anchor text to Page A on any given page would be counted. So if the left nav code comes before the copy (assuming not linked in header) then you'd get stuck only internally optimizing (via anchor text) for the one phrase.

The sidebar location is entirely css driven...I didn't change the actual page code, but just the css file.

While you are at it you might look at the archives link. It took me a good while to find it. You could have it like Wp templates, a link after the last post for the archives (or previous page).

Hi Antonio
Now that I took that link out of the sidewide navigation at the top and bottom I need to add it in at the bottom of the page above the global navigation (especially the blog hompeage).

Late to the party, but I wanted to second what chuckallied said - use visual clues other than the navigation placement to indicate section changes.

Moving the navigation around based on what I clicked in the top nav is an unexpected change. When visitors come to your site, they'll create a mental model of how it works. Don't change it except to increase usability.

Recommendations:

1) Consider changing the colour of the green bar about the nav and using h1 colours that match.

2) Highlight the current section by changing the background colour of the active section in the top nav (e.g., keep the mouseover colour when that section is active).

I still clearly have some work to do on it. I am wondering if the logo colors should change too to match the designs?

I would recommend against changing the colour of the logo itself. The logo is your brand and should stay constant.

Some graphic ideas:

• Close the gap between the green bar and the nav bar, use the green bar's colour as the highlight colour of the active section (possibly change the drop shadow colour to match)
• The site is fixed width, so you can work with the unused space beyond the 800 px margin
• Add a tint to the content area

etc.