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The Home Page |
The Home Page is your calling card. It's the first impression
and introduction to your site. This is the most important page
on your site, because it pulls people in and gets them looking
at what you really want them to see.
If you're going to spend time on graphics and fancy design,
this is the page you do it on. But after this, keep your pages
simple and quick loading. The biggest turn off to a user is when
they have to wait for a page to load.
You can use your home page like a book cover that once it's
opened presents a menu or table of contents page. This is one
of the more common designs used for personal web sites. Many
business sites, combine their Home page with their Menu page
to help draw in customers and advertise their services. |
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The Menu
And Remaining
Site Pages |
The menu page is just that, an itemized or topical listing of
the contents on your web site. Many people like to use listings
or graphical links and bars to help a visitor surf through the
content of their site. The method is entirely personal to the
developer. The biggest thing to remember is to try and design
your pages so that they flow easily from one section to another. |
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Design your page
to the lowest
common denominator. |
In every situation where text is used to communicate - a signpost,
billboard, newspaper, magazine or web page - the designer has
to employ the correct techniques to suit the desired medium.
Designing for a computer screen has its own set of problems.
Add to these the limitations of a web page, which has to work
across different computer platforms and screen sizes, and the
problems get even worse. It is the designer's job to understand
these issues and to use HTML design and graphics that can be
viewed by their targeted audience. |
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Organize Your
Web Site |
Before you can begin creating your site, you should have an idea
about how it should be organized. Make some simple storyboard
drawings on a few pieces of paper. Decide how you want your content
to flow from the main page(s) down to your detailed postings
(or pages). |
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Create Your
Web Environment |
You're ready to get onto your computer and begin the set-up details
of your site's creation. Before you begin creating your first
web page or image, you should create a web environment on your
PC. This environment is really just an organized set of directories
on your PC that you will also use when you transfer your site
to your web host. |
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Your web environment helps you keep your site organized and
manageable. Think of it as a filing cabinet with folders. Your
cabinet is your web site. The folders group your content together
so they are easily accessible.
In your file manager, create a new directory on your hard
drive where you can keep your web data. You might call this top
level folder WEB, as an example. Within that directory create
a sub-folder called MYSITE. Creating your web environment will
allow you to create multiple websites within your WEB directory.
Inside MYSITE create a folder for all of your websites graphics.
Call this folder IMAGES. The remaining directories will be based
on how you've laid out your web site content. The following is
a simple example of the most common environment layout. |
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- Hard Drive:
- If you have more than 1 hard drive on your PC, chose the
one that contains all your personal data. You should also keep
a disk or CD handy to occasionally back up your personal data
files. Trust me, the backups will come in handy.
- Web:
- Create a folder that will contain all your web site designs.
Trust me, you'll create more than one once you get started. If
you're creating a family or personal home site, you might want
each member of your family to have their own area to work in.
It's worth creating this extra folder now.
- Mysite:
- Next create your personal folder. This is where you'd create
your personal work space. Mysite or JoesSite are two examples
of 2 different family sites. The most common directories for
a personal site should be created within each persons work space.
You should have an images directory and any subdirectories for
topics you'll cover on your site. For instance:
- Awards:
- Everyone wants their site to be recognized for the work they
do. So you might want to apply for awards, or give awards from
your site.
- Dogs:
- Create sub-categories to hold information that you're going
to put on your site. If you want to discuss dogs as a topic on
your site, create a folder to hold your dog web pages.
- Emails:
- Once you start advertising your site, you'll begin receiving
email notifications. Although you won't be posting these files
onto your site, it's a good idea to keep those emails in a central
location.
- Images:
- This folder will contain all your web graphics. These can
be .gif, .jpg or animated files. Whatever the picture, it should
go here.
- WebRings:
- Many people like joining webrings. It's one way to generate
traffic on your site is through joining a web ring. You'll want
to keep all your webring pages together in this area, the same
as you would your award pages.
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Next: Intro To HTML Tags |
