Decide on the structure of your site right at the beginning and don’t
keep moving things about or changing their names, especially at “top” level, this is the Home
Page and the pages directly attached to it. If you keep moving things or changing
the page names the
search engines will never find them.
Have a home page that has NOTHING in front if it. No flash pages, no
click here to enter pages and the like. You would not put a gate in front
of your shop door so why do it on the internet. BUT there is another
MORE IMPORTANT REASON not to obstruct your home page.
Search Engines will eventually rate your site, Google calls this Page Rank, but the others do it too. The highest ranking page will be your home page but it won’t if you have something in front of it. Each subsequent set of pages rank one less (-1) in value than the ones above it so if your introduction page ranks as PR1 then your home page will have no value at all and the rest of your site will not be listed.
Your site should look something like this suggested layout
By all means spread sideways but don’t go to deep. Small sites should not have any pages more than 3 or 4 clicks from the home page therefore if you get your home page to a Google PR3 then the next row will be PR2 and the bottom PR1 in which case your entire site has the possibility of being listed by the search engines. Pages with a PR of ZERO will not be listed by Google.
The pages in the second row are likely to be your section menus whist the pages in the bottom row will be your general content. This provides you with the knowledge that you will need at least three different page payouts for your site; one for the home page, one for the section menus, and one for the content pages. But before you start to build any of these pages you need to decide what code type the pages will be created with.
The are many options open to you to create web pages the most basic and probably least understood is good old '.html'. The beginner is likely to create pages like "xxxxx.html" or "yyyy.htm", this is fine for simple sites but of little use for commercial or large multi-function websites.
Firstly I will point out there is a major drawback with such static coded pages. There is no way a web designer, unless they control the server too, can instruct a search engine that a page is temporarily not available or permanently moved. This is a serious drawback to a large website as the only way you can get your new page into the search engine is to start all over again. With ASP or PHP dynamic code pages you can insert an elements that informs the search engine that a page has been replaced with a new one and not only does that mean the search engine knows about it but it will also take the PR of your old page and give it to the new one.
Static Pages
Pages created as .html or .xhtml are usually static pages, this is where the information on the page is fixed like the words printed on a sheet of paper. This is not a drawback to the small website that intends to stay small but is a disadvantage to a site that intends to become big.
Dynamic Pages
Pages created as .asp, .php and the like can be dynamic, that means the information on them may not fixed but changing data provided from a source like a database or XML file. Note we said 'CAN BE' because there is nothing stopping you writing static pages with ASP or PHP code, just like this one. By doing this if you ever want to add databases or communicate with the search engines from each page at some point in the future you can without changing its name.
If therefore you are new to programming we suggest that you learn a dynamic programming method right from the start and save yourself lots of grief later on. If you are not new to programming then always code in ASP, PHP or another dynamic language even if you are not using dynamic feed. You will thus not need to rename your pages, with the risk of loosing your page rank, when you decide you do need to add dynamic data.
If you are building a corporate business website then you MUST use a dynamic language or more likely many different languages in order for your site to do all the things required of it. This website is hosted in the Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Service) environment and uses the old HTML, XHTML on ASP and XML code augmented by JavaScript™ and visual basic (VB) where required. We are in the process of replacing all the old fixed html pages with xhtml on ASP.
Note: If you are hosting your website on the Microsoft IIS environment then it usually costs nothing extra for ASP to be added to you site. This will allow you to name all your pages as .asp right from the beginning even if you do not know how to write ASP code. Just carry on as though you were creating .html pages but name them .asp. If at some time in the future you learn ASP you can start to use its functions without having to rename your pages which will potentially loose their page rank.
We determined above for the small website example that we needed three distinct page types; one for the home page, one for the section menu, and one for the content pages, but before we start on that we need to consider a few other things.
You have probably heard of a thing called "Corporate Identity" and even if your website is NOT a business website this is important to understand and follow. Unlike a shop most of the users of your website will not come through the front door (home page) they will arrive on your site from a search engine directly onto the page they think they want and then they will leave again after possibly looking at one or two more pages of your site. So unless each and every one of your pages contains some elements of who you are, that is your 'Corporate Identity', your users will never know where they were. Similarly if you have small village website each page has to have the name of the village, etc. on it as its identity.
For the commercial site this is not a problem as nearly all businesses have a distinct identity that encompasses their house colours, logo, etc., some businesses like ICI and British Airways even have their own flags! To preserve the corporate identity the web designer therefore has no choice but to follow the established schema.
On the other end of the scale the village website ought to have an identity which is equally distinct for its location. Our local town has a unique river bridge that is used by just about everyone in the town as part of their logo, similarly the blue water of the river becomes one of the town colours. Try to create a colour scheme and web design that fits with your local environment or website subject and then stick to it on all your pages.
Always attempt to make your site accessible to all. Initially this does not mean extra work it actually results in the opposite. Keep to simple fonts in a standard colour, keep colours to high contrast, that is light colours on a dark background or dark colours on a light background. If you know about style sheets then use them, and if you don't then learn how to use them as they will not only make a better site for your users but one that is much easier to maintain.
If your small community website purports to be the "official" website for your town, parish or community council you are actually obliged by law to maintain a certain level of accessibility. (NOTE: I have been asked a number of times about this subject so I will add a little bit more of an explanation - If you are using public funds in any way to support your community website then the law requires that the service is available to all members of the public without exception and you as web controller must do everything that is reasonable in your power to ensure such access. If you are using a DOT GOV domain name the rules are even more distinct on this subject. Further details are available from the Cabinet Office website currently document TG102/May 2008.)
All websites in the UK or EU have similar obligations as defined by Disability Discrimination legislation and commercial websites would ignore these obigations at their peril.
Regardless of the size of your prospective website or its reason for being, before you sit down at your computer and start coding try to put your ideas down on paper. It is a lot easier to define your ideas in this manner than to keep re-writing code.
Similarly before you set about coding there are some other things to think about and the next we deal with how are you going to get customers or visitors and that comes down to marketing your website