What is everyone doing to reduce the number of links on a page?

[LisaS13]

Some clients of mine have sites that are throwing the "too many links on one page" error and we're not just talking a little more than the status quo 100 links, it's much more. I believe it could be due to the fly-out navigation.

My Solution: shorten the Tier 2 categories in the left nav down to 5 and add a "View All" link after the 5th and remove top nav fly-outs.  I'm not sure if these are best practices or the best for usability though?

[AdoptionHelp]

When I redesigned our main site the navigation looked something like what you described. I cut our main navigation options down to 5, with no flyout navigation. I had to debate the other stakeholders about this choice, but I finally convinced them it was the way to go. Our conversions doubled when the new site rolled out.

One of the tenets of good UX is: Don't overwhelm your user with too much choice.

I think if you can find a way to significantly reduce their menu, you'll not only improve the SEO but you'll make for a better user experience as well.

Another thing to consider about flyout menu's is "How will this work on mobile and tablets?" The scary answer is "Usually not at all".

I guess what I'm rambling towards is that I think you should probably reorganize their navigation to reduce the number of options, get rid of the dropdown aspects, and move the secondary dropdown menu items onto an on-page secondary menu on the pages themselves.

[LisaS13]

Thank you, Ryan. Looks like we're on the same page I'm going to relay this to my web developer.