News Summary:

News Content:

If the design does not follow accepted marketing (and
design) techniques it will not serve you well.

Your opening page (or any of the pages on your site for that matter) MUST
immediately satisfy the viewer's question:

"WHAT IS IN THIS SITE (PAGE) FOR ME?"

You have 10 seconds to "capture" the male visitor and 14
seconds for the female visitor.

First though, I would recommend reading

http://htmlgoodies.earthweb.com/wsdg.html and taking a close look at the
questions Joe says you MUST answer before you write one line of text or code.

Question One: Who Is Your Site For?

Joe goes into this in more detail in the link above but basically
he asks if your site is for your visitors or if it is to satisfy the authors
desire to express themselves with graphics or coding tricks.

Initially, visitors do not care if your business has been around for 200 years,
nor do they want to see half the page filled up with an image of your new
location.

New visitors want information related to the search that brought them to
your site in the first place.

Question Two: What Is Your Killer App?

This is a bit off the wall but you can decipher it to
mean:

What Do You Want the Site to Do?

Will it act as a simple Public Relations vehicle, or will the site sell your
products/services?



Question Three: What Is Your Identification?

By this Joe means what is it that
defines and identifies your site. You need to define your graphics, colors,
font, and the way your site displays, the character of the site.

Question Four: Who Is Your Competition?

Question Five: What Makes Your Site Different?

Why will people visit your site rather than your
competition's websites?

You have to give them a reason to stay.

Better information is key.

If you have products that need a description - give a good
one.

The more information that is available the more likely I will be able to make a
decision.

I cannot put enough emphasis on designing your home page.

Here is another article:

The First Fold Makes Your Site! (Or
Breaks It.)

Written by Bob McElwain - "1001
Newbie-Friendly Tips"



Visitors to your site are not looking to make a new friend. They don't want to
chat. And they don't give a darn what you think about anything, least of all
your product. They only want to know:



1) What's in it for me?



2) Why should I believe you?



3) Why should I buy from you?



They will answer the first two questions to their satisfaction within seconds.
Only if they like these answers will they even consider the third. And at least
a partial answer to it must come easily, or they'll never see your sales pitch.

Use your space wisely.

• DO design
  your web page around your keywords. This is THE most important
  ingredient for top listings on the major search engines.


• DO make
  your page easily readable. Be careful when using background/text colors.


• DO NOT make
  your main page slow to open by using too many graphics.


• DO NOT
  design your site in "frames". The major search engines do not like them and
  using them will most likely result in poor rankings.


• Consider
  using a full screen display. Designing for fixed resolutions wastes
  valuable "real-estate" when visitors arrive using higher resolutions.  This
  can be done easily using tables. Set your table properties to display at
  100%.

WebMaster Tip: 
A comprehensive article on page widths can be found at

http://webreview.com/2001/03_16/webauthors/index01.shtml

 

• DO NOT
  overpower your website with your logo. No one but you and the graphic
  designer cares.


• DO answer
  the viewer's reason for being at your site in the first screen displayed,
  WITHOUT scrolling.


• DO NOT use
  a "Splash Page". These serve no purpose and just remove the viewer one step
  further from the information they are seeking.


• DO include
  an "opt in" email form on your pages. The top center or top right side is
  the "sweet spot".
  
  "Opt-In" email databases are the 2nd highest means of generating sales. (The
  major search engines listings are the first).

WebMaster Tip: 
A free email autoresponder service is available from
Get Response

Another service is also available from
Postmaster On Line This
service offers up to 50 timed autoresponders and offers a one month trial for
$1.00

• DO NOT
  plaster your pages with banners. Your visitors are not coming to see
  advertising. Business related banners are ok but use them wisely.


• DO use a
  means of tracking website visitors.

WebMaster Tip:
WebTrends is one of the premiere visitor
tracking tools. They offer a free "demo" service which can be found at
WebTrends Live

• DO NOT use
  an automatic page redirect. The (major) search engines will not index the
  page.


• DO use
  technology to promote your page. Autoresponders, see
  Get Response, promotional
  software


• DO make
  certain that your page(s) displays correctly using both Internet Explorer
  and FireFox.

And last but not least:

• DO use a
  professional website design program.

WebMaster Tip:
I use Microsoft's Front Page as it is a
flexible tool for web design. I have tried most of the professional design
programs and find that FP suits me the best. One drawback to FP is that the
hosting company has to have Front Page Extensions (FP Extensions are basically
"drivers" for the advanced portions of the pages. They are required for the
forms, counters, and so on.) installed for the advanced features to work. Front
Page webs CAN be FTP'd to a non MSFP equipped server.

For those of you that do not wish to use Front Page, a basic html editor would
be my choice.

Page Layout

Page Layout Explained

Authors Special Note:
Experience has taught me to use a professional
website design program. After trying many different programs I chose Microsoft's
Front Page. There were many reasons for this but primarily it came down to ease
of use, excellent navigational structure outlines, and configurability. There is
also a lot of technical support available for users of this program, both in
newsgroups and websites dedicated to the program.

As you see the layout shows 4 "borders". Each border is
actually a Server Side Include (SSI) that is reflected in all the pages on your
site. When a new page is designed you can specify which borders to include.

This is one of the options available in Front Page. This can also be done
manually through the use of SSI. More information about SSI can be found
HERE.

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