More Reorganization of a Travel Site

decisions, decisions

[old_expat]

A recent thread where tedster talked about 5-7 prime menu choices got me to take a critical look at my site. Besides being pretty boring, it has some of those menu diseases.

So basically I spent 2 days deciding on some stuff and came up with 5 [or 7*] stops on my main menu

All About [Country]
Destinations
See & Do
Travel Maps
Hotels & Spas
Add to Favorites*
Home*

Looking back, that was the easy part.

My next decision is how to structure the entry pages to the above topics. In the past I just had an index page in each directory

1 - I can use a multi sub-headed left side menu for some sub-topics, but not for all. Some of the side menus have 40 items. As an example, under "About", I will have at least 3 major divisions >> Information (25 pages), Culture (20), History (40 pages).

One thing I thought of doing is putting "about-this-place.htm", etc., pages in the root directory and do some teaser paragraphs about the sub headings, then link to the directory index pages.

2 - I can combine several directories into 1, [and do a mod rewrite] but will still need intro pages for the sub-topics .. if for nothing else to get a left side menu that doesn't require scrolling in order to read it.

The other main menu items present similar issues.

Any recommendations?

[Lipik]

Just an Idea how I do it :

First of all I don't use directory's, all pages are generated as if it's all in the root directory.

At top of every page is 'main' menu (lets say : all-about / destinations / hotels)
left of every page is sub-menu wich is different for every item in 'main' menu. So left menu is the same if you stay in 'destinations'.

Let's say you have to many items in 'destinations' (40 city's b.e.) Then you could make this submenu as follows : region A/region B / etc...
On page region A, you discribe this region in short and put links to city1/city/2etc...ON the page not in submenu.

This way you can stay with only 'main' and 'sub' menu and keep them small but generate as many pages you want.

[old_expat]

Hello Lipik,

"At top of every page is 'main' menu (lets say : all-about / destinations / hotels)
left of every page is sub-menu wich is different for every item in 'main' menu. So left menu is the same if you stay in 'destinations'."

That's the format I'm using, but I have so much info on "destinations" (as an example) that each separate destination will have a unique sub-menu.

[Lipik]

If you have space for it in Top menu, maybe you can split 'destinations' in destinationsA, destinationsB etc...That's another solution I use for one of my sites. I split it in country-westcoast / country-eastcoast etc...

[old_expat]

"If you have space for it in Top menu, maybe you can split 'destinations' in destinationsA, destinationsB etc...That's another solution I use for one of my sites. I split it in country-westcoast / country-eastcoast etc... "

I actually have 10 significant destinations and more to be added eventually.

The whole idea of this re-organization is to get my main/top menu down to the 5-7 item level as recommended in tedsters article.