Sticky Sites and Other Stories (General Web Design Tips)

Member Name: Whitehorse

Product:	General Web Design Tips
Date:	18/06/03 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everyone gets to find out who you are, Promoting your ideas/beliefs/talents/wor k, Freedom of speech

Disadvantages: Getting to grips with web design, Finding a host

So you're about to take the plunge and set up a website are you? Are you sitting there with pieces of paper scattered around you trying to figure out a design? Have you an idea in mind but can't translate it to the screen? Do you want something professional or personal - or a bit of both? Are you just simply tearing your hair out trying to figure out what the hell HTML means?

I've been running my website for the last 3 years and learned a huge amount in the time. In fact I now have two sites and I am planning two more. My first site has had several incarnations as I gradually learned more about what works and what doesn't work. I want to share with you what I have learned along the way and hopefully save you some time and frustration in the process.

Name and place
Even if you are going to host your website on a free hosting site I would recommend buying a domain name. It's just so much easier to remember and looks better too! Once you have done this then you can mask the real address of your website. I have bought one name through a company called 'Easily' (URL at the bottom). It costs me 9.99 for two years of ownership. I find them a very good company to work with. They also provide hosting although as yet I haven't gone the pay road but I would certainly consider them. A friend has a website hosted by a company called Purple Paw (URL below) and they are quite cheap - they start at £25 a year which is very good compared to some other extortionate prices!

HTML etc.
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. Put simply it's the language that you need to use to write your website so that web browsers can understand it and translate it into a page. If you are using Internet Explorer go to 'view' and then 'source' whilst looking at any website and you will see the page written in the HTML language. At first site I was completely overwhelmed not to mention a tad confused but after a wh
ile HTML becomes quite easy to understand. I won't for a second pretend I am fully conversant but I can use the code to make basic changes now to my site.
Luckily for all of us there are lots of programs available nowadays that help you to design your website without having to know HTML. These are called 'what you see is what you get' programs. An example of this is Dreamweaver which is the program I use. You create all your text and insert pictures etc. and Dreamweaver will show you exactly how your page will look. It's only when you choose you can see the HTML. If you are a beginner and not planning on being a full time web designer I would suggest using one of these programs. It makes life so much easier.

I also found websites such as HTML Goodies www.htmlgoodies.com/ an absolute godsend when I needed to understand what I was doing. This is an excellent site for beginners and advanced alike.

Lots of free web hosts also offer web design tools - particularly the bigger names like geocities and angelfire. I haven't used them myself but they look simple enough although unfortunately it gets easy to tell when people have used these set designs because so many people have used something similar.

READY, SET, AIM...
Content
Who is you website aimed at? More importantly what do you want them to think about you? I find that looking at a website is rather like looking at someone's cd or book collection. It says something about you! Admittedly it can also say something of your web design skills as well. If you are planning a professional site then you already know that you are wanting to market yourself, product or your service but what if you are just wanting a site about yourself and your interests?

Personally speaking I find there is nothing so boring as clicking on a homepage to find 3 lines of information and then lots of 'here's a piccie of me and my best friend in Malaga', 'now he
re's one of our wedding', 'here's one of the kids', 'and one of the dog' (well okay I'd probably look at the dog!). That doesn't tell me anything about the site owner and who they really are - worse it makes me think they are boring which they probably aren't! If you are setting up a personal site then think about what it is you are trying to convey. Do you have a particular experience or skill to share, a story to tell? Everyone has a story, everyone has observed life and it's eccentricities. Share those unique aspects of yourself with the world and you have something interesting for your viewer. Let your visitors discover your interests and beliefs. Show them, if relevant how you came to the life you lead now.

If you are setting up a site about your hobby or interest then this must be visible immediately. So many times I've clicked on a site and wondered what on earth it's about. Make it clear that you are going to talk about the history of fair-isle knitting or whatever. Allow the reader to join you on a journey step by step so that they understand where you are coming from. Imagine you are telling someone with no experience at all of your interest - what would you need to tell them first?

Design
This is one of the most important stages - planning your design. We surfers are a hasty lot. We want to see what we need NOW without waiting or searching or deciphering.

Page set-up
Lots of people use a simple navigation menu on the top or left hand side of the page with content running down the middle. It's easy it's functional and clean. Some people use frames (which means the page is split into two or more independent sections) so that the menu for example stays the same but clicking on a link will bring up a new page in the other frame. What doesn't work is having lots of bits and pieces scattered all over the place. A well designed site will have continuity with jus
t the content changing from page to page rather than the design as well. There's nothing worse than every page being a shrine to a newly discovered free background!

Graphics
Now there's nothing wrong with having a few graphics to illustrate your page or illuminate points but if your site is graphic intensive it will probably be slow to load. If it's slow to load then impatient surfers like me will give it 30 seconds then click away to somewhere else - and 30 seconds is being generous! Also remember that some people choose to view the web without graphics so that pages load quickly so if your site uses graphics as links for example then your page could become unreadable. Try and keep pictures reasonably small - if you are an artist you can always have thumbnails that can then be clicked on if the viewer wishes to see a full size image.

There are lots of sites on the Internet that have free backgrounds, buttons, clip art and graphics. Just type in 'free+backgrounds' in Google for a start. If you use these choose those that have a plain background. A pretty sidebar is okay as long as you can read text over it. Crazy background might look great (well I hate them anyway) but try reading text over the top of it! I find the nicest sites are those that have a simple one colour background and a complimentary colour text with visible links.

Connecting the dots
I once read somewhere that a website should never be more than three clicks deep. By this I mean that once you've clicked on your first link on the home page then clicked another link on that page you should easily be able to get back home. I prefer sites that have a main navigation bar on every single page of the site so that you always can reach another part of the site quickly and easily. This makes the website easy to use and intuitive. Unfortunately our friendly Dooyoo is not a good example of this nowadays. I have got so annoyed with some sites that I ha
ve ended up going elsewhere even if their content is good because I cannot be bothered trying to find my way around. If you site is really large then having main navigation and a site map maybe useful. A sitemap is something I need to do now on my own site as there are so many articles available to read, it would be better if I could give my visitors the option of seeing them all listed on one page.

Bells and Whistles
Music
Just don't. Just please please don't put midi music on your site. It isn't comforting for the viewer, it doesn't make your site more interesting, relaxing or wild. Plainly it's extremely annoying. Inevitably it can take ages to load and invariably makes said viewer jump out of their skin as yet another rendition of Enya' Watermark booms from speakers one has forgotten to turn down! If you are a musician or you ant to share some music with the world (baring in mind copyright please) then use MP3 or WMA files (the latter are far smaller) and let your visitor choose whether or not they want to listen.
Fluffy bunny changing curser
Nope - don't do that either! Again it takes ages to load and is just irritating
Dissolving/sliding pages
Lots of free hosts are offering the script to make your pages seem to dissolve as you click from one link to another. There's a couple of sites I've been to where this works quite well but to be honest it's pointless. Now everyone is getting them it's becoming a bit tacky and again, it can take ages to load. Perhaps better on a paid for host if at all.
Counter
Now I like to have a counter on my sites but if you have a professional site I would suggest this is a no no. My site original site is a mixture of professional and personal so it's okay there but when I set up a professional site later in the year I shall ditch the counter. Afterall, it's rather like a builder telling you that he's had 4008 enquiries - kind of irreleva
nt really. If you are really curious about how many visitors you've had most hosts keep a record of page hits so you can still add it all up.

Sticky Stuff
So to the title of this piece. A sticky site means a site that encourages the visitor to stay on it. It means that perhaps there are interactive features like a message board or surveys or that the content is always fresh and exciting. For example on my site I have a messageboard for visitors to converse between themselves, polls and surveys they can take part in and a never-ending story which I put in on a whim but has surprisingly been very successful. I use a guestbook as I like to hear my visitors views but I won't use one on my professional site as again it doesn't feel relevant. Note that it's best to choose a guestbook or other gadget that can be customised to look like it is part of your website. There are addresses below. I also have a news section imported from a relevant website that is updated daily plus my own news headline section that I update monthly by trawling through Google News. Websites that stay the same eventually lose hits. I discovered this myself after I just left my site to it's own devices for several months. Gradually my page hits began to tail off a little. Now that I update regularly and involve my visitors they come back just to see what's changed. I also make a small note on the homepage that notes when the site was last updated so that the visitor knows the content is still up-to-date.

A little word about Links
I love link pages. I use them a lot to find sites that would otherwise probably invisible to the web. Not every site is found by search engines and it is estimated that there are around a billion hidden pages on the web. I have a very large links list organised into categories with clickable 'back to top' links so that my visitor doesn't have to scroll for hours. This by the way is a good thing to use if any page
is a bit long. However, one big giveaway that a site isn't being cared for is when the majority of links you provide aren't working. As a rule if I find 3 or more 'not found' pages from the links page I get annoyed and move on. Of course pages move and disappear quite rapidly on the web so the odd duff link isn't a problem but as much as possible do try to keep them up to date.
Another tip here is to actually say a little about the page you are linking to. I don't find it much use to be faced with a whole list of http://'s with no further information. Think of it like a little index - just a line about what you like about the site will do. At least then the visitor knows where you are sending them.

Building a website can be frustrating sometimes but it really is worth the effort. The internet may have many failures but where it excels is that it gives us all a voice. You can share your interests, views, experiences and beliefs with people all over the world. I have had hundreds of emails from people from all four corners of the earth giving me feedback, sharing similar feelings and sometimes just saying hi. It is a heady feeling to be able to reach out and touch someone who I may never meet in real life.

I hope that some of what you find here is useful. There is far more I could say but we would be here all night! I shall leave you with a few links to websites that I have found of use.

http://www.bravenet.com - a fantastic site offering all manner of tools

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/ - for finding out more about HTML

http://www.webmaster-forums.net/ - the place to go when you really need someone else's advice. Busy boards. Knowledgeable people

http://www.easily.co.uk - for domain names and hosting

http://www.purplepaw.co.uk/ - for domain name and hosting also.

http://www.100best-free-web-space.com/ - as the address suggests. Reviews of the best and worst of
cheap and free hosting.

http://www.cgispy.com/ - another site that offers various tools and gadgets for your website

http://www.everyone.net/ excellent message boards

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