Primary navigation
Also called: main nav, header nav, top nav
Definition
The top-level horizontal navigation bar that appears on every page, containing links to the site's main sections.
Use when
Every site with more than three top-level sections. The primary nav is how both users and AI crawlers discover your site's structure.
Don't use for
Single-page sites or landing pages where a long-scroll structure is the whole experience.
AI-crawler note
Primary nav is the single most important piece of crawler-friendly infrastructure on the site. Render it server-side with real anchor tags. If the nav is client-rendered only, AI crawlers never find the rest of your site.
Accessibility: Use a <nav> landmark with aria-label="Primary". Each link must be keyboard-focusable and meet color-contrast standards in both states.
Prompt templates
Chat-editor (AI site builder)
“Add a sticky primary nav with five links (Services, Work, Process, About, Insights), condensed to a hamburger on mobile, with the active page highlighted.”
Code-gen (Cursor / Claude Code / v0)
“Build a sticky primary navigation component using semantic <nav> and <a> tags. Five links, hamburger-condensed below the md breakpoint. Active route gets an accent-colored underline.”
Design-gen (Figma Make / Uizard)
“Design a primary navigation for a B2B SaaS site. Top-aligned, 64px tall, five text links + one primary CTA button on the right, hamburger menu on mobile.”