Do
You Want To Save Time With Your Web Design?
by T. O' Donnell
It
starts off simply; a few HTML pages, a few hyperlinks, some affiliate
links. Your mother is proud of her clever son. Then you install
a forum, some more content, maybe consider using a Content Management
System (CMS).
Before
you know it, you have a monster on your hands. This monster is
eating up your time and energy and money. Here
are a few tricks I've learned to save you time and money with
your web design.
1.
Avoid Windows servers, if you can.
I'll
admit I've never used one. I've had too much trouble with Windows
on the PC, to risk it on my web site. Most geeks favour Unix.
It's been around longer, and is more stable. Web hosts offering
Unix variants like Linux have always been cheaper. They also seem
to offer a wider range of toys. I need SSI (Server Side
Includes), SSH (secure Telnet), 10 MySQL databases, Cpanel, PHPMyAdmin
and a UK IP number. And you can get this for $15 a month.
If
you're in business for yourself, consider Unix/Linux. If you want
to be a full-time employee, consider Windows/Microsoft. Many businesses
use it, as it's compatible with their office software, they like
that a major company supports it, and they distrust something
that's free.
2.
Server Side Includes are the poor man's CMS.
Each
web page can be 'stitched' together using Server Side Includes
(SSI). You can 'call' a header and footer HTML file, using SSI,
in each web page. That way, you can make site-wide changes in
an instant. For example, you can add Google Adsense to the top
or bottom of your site immediately.
Dreamweaver
can display SSI pages correctly. This is another reason, one of
many, for its popularity as a HTML editor.
3.
Which CMS to use?
A
Content Management System is very handy if you have a community-based
website, or want to let others add content to your site. It must
have a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) add-on. This means
a novice can type in formatted HTML the same way he could a formatted
Word document. He presses on-screen buttons to bold or underline
words, and make hyperlinks.
Another
keyword to look out for is HTMLArea. This means someone has made
an addon to cause all 'textarea' form boxes to have word-processor-style
buttons above them. This allows someone who doesn't know HTML
to add it to your CMS. Saves YOU having to do it, and that is
good.
Many
are free. I can't really recommend one at the moment, except perhaps
Mambo.
I've tried quite a few others, especially PHPNuke.
A
CMS allows you to set up a website with professional features
in a day. The downside is you can spend weeks customising it.
You may find, as I did with PHPNuke, that it's unsecure, that
it can behave eccentrically, and that essential third-party addons
may not work properly.
A
CMS is for geeks with time on their hands. I would dearly love
to be able to point to one and say to the small businessman "Put
your trust in this". I can't yet.
4.
Put keywords in the HTML.
Fairly
obvious, but webmasters don't go far enough. *Any* image name,
ALT tag, form field, bolded word or hyperlink can have a keyword
in it. So why not do it?
This
is where someone who tweaks his HTML code by hand gains a great
advantage. Newlines and double blank spaces are redundant in HTML.
A large document can have thousands of these. They obfuscate your
Search Engine Optimsation (SEO) efforts.
Use
a text editor that can strip them out, like Editpad,
or a HTML optimiser. Broken lines are not ideal either. Dreamweaver
can 'break' a tag or keyword at an inappropriate place. Why make
it hard for a search engine to promote your page? Strip out the
junk, and put in the keywords.
5.
Put at least 500 words of paragraphed text in.
If
your web pages have the same header, footer, left side-bar, right
side-bar, and only a small bit of text in the middle, you may
suffer a duplicate content penalty. This means a search engine
deems your site has duplicate pages. It considers it an attempt
to spam its database, and so shoves it way down its Search Engine
Results Pages (SERPS).
If
you can't write your own articles, get someone to do it for you
at a freelance site like ScriptLance.
You can get free articles at sites like EzineArticles.
6.
Offer people what THEY want, not what YOU think they should have.
This
is most important. Before making a site, go for a walk in town.
Sit down on a park bench, and try to figure out what people really
want; not need, WANT. Then figure out how you can get in on that
business with your site.
People
want sex, drugs, gambling, money, a house, a car, good food, nice
clothes, self esteem. The first three are disreputable. Promote
them, and get cut off from sections of society.
It
makes me laugh when I see pornographers saying 'it's just a business,
I'm not doing any harm'. They're making money *because* their
subject matter is taboo. Most people don't want to be associated
with pornography or pornographers. Likewise, a bar owner isn't
welcome everywhere, and casino bosses rub
shoulders with the underworld.
If
you ever want to be on the school board, or run for local office,
keep away from dubious content.
Look
at what people really want, AND which will make your family proud,
and then proceed with gusto.
© T.
O' Donnell
About
the author: T. O' Donnell http://www.tigertom.com
is an ecommerce consultant in London, UK. His latest projects
are a mortgage calculator and ebook, available at: http://www.tigertom.com/mortgages-uk.shtml