Website Building Tips
Building Blocks | Enhance your site | Getting Online | HTML Editors | Promote your siteBuilding Bloaks
Picture it
Here's where you actually start designing the site. Don't rush into making the pages or graphics yet. Use a paper and pencil, or even an imaging tool (MS Paint is good enough for this) and scribble your site layout first. Check out some existing Web sites for ideas. It's a good practice to keep all navigation links together. If there are too many of them, club them into logical groups. Keep important items, such as navigational links in the top 400 pixels of the page. Visitors to the site see this area first, so that's where the most important information should appear. Also, ensure that the main body of the page starts within this area, so visitors can start reading the text right away.
The first cut
When you start designing your Web site, do not develop smaller components of the page as individual components but instead start work on the whole page as a single image. Once the main image is ready, you can separate out each element by cropping individual items. This will ensure that all the items are of the appropriate size and the final page will be easier to make.
The sacred scrolls
Keep vertical scrolling to a minimum and avoid any horizontal scrolling. Restrict the vertical scroll to a maximum of two-and-a-half scrolls of an 800 x 600 screen. If you do have a lot of information that must be given on the same page, don't fill up the entire page with text. One column in the centre, irrespective of the amount of scrolling involved, interspersed with attractive graphics works well. This is one reason why it's a good idea to dedicate a column on the left to navigational links. Since the links already takes up some space, you have to worry less about the information flow. Avoid gimmicks such as tickers and scrolling text. It slows down the page and is usually quite irritating. It also distracts visitor's eye from the rest of the page.
Optimisation Tips
It's easier to retain visitors to your site if the pages load fast. A fast-loading site holds attention, so they won't go clicking around other windows.
Table smart
In browsers, tables do not show up on a page until the content within the tables have been downloaded, making a page seem slow. Avoid nested tables and long vertical tables. Instead, stack tables on top of each other-pages then appear to load faster as each table shows up faster. In this context, it's better to place your navigational links horizontally, towards the top, as it will show up before most of the rest of the page. Keep the most important links at the top and the rest on the left, or keep top-level sections on the top and subsections on the left. To make a table stand out on a page, use a border around it rather than an image that is fixed in size. Nest the table within a single-cell table with a cell padding of 1 pixel (or more for a thicker border) and a background of the colour you want for the border.
Re-use images
If an image is repeated throughout the site, use the same file across all pages so that it needs to be downloaded only once-the browser's cache takes care of this. If you use similar images, break them into static and changing parts so you can reuse the static part of the image.
Smaller images
The size of an image will be smaller if you use a 256-colour palette. GIFs are generally smaller than JPEGs, but JPEGs offer better quality when using lots of colours as on photographs. With smaller images, use distinct edges and crisp colours. Almost all imaging tools optimise images by saving them with a palette of only those colours used in the image. Some applications let you choose how many colours to use in the image. It then replaces colours not found in the palette with the nearest match, thus reducing the image size. Avoid too many animated graphics. A lot of them together are unpleasant to the eye and also take longer to download as compared to simple images.
Stylise your site
Use a style sheet for your site to add consistency and to reduce page size. You won't have to explicitly define many font and paragraph tags. Avoid using inline styles-this is as good as using HTML tags-except for special cases. Use a single CSS file that has all the style definitions. Once a person visits a page, the browser will use the file from the cache for the rest of the pages.
De-script-ion
Try and push all JavaScript (JS) into one or several external JS files. Re-used code such as that for rollovers, menus, validation, etc can easily be separate functions in a single file. Again, the file will have to be downloaded only once and will be used from the cache henceforth. So try to use scripts that are as generic as possible so that they work smoothly with all pages.
Less jazz, more speed
The lesser jazz on a page, the faster it loads. Animations and rollovers affect the size and number of files the browser has to download. Another aspect usually overlooked is DHTML items such as menus that show and hide themselves. Though hidden away, they add a lot of code to the page, increasing the size considerably. Use these wisely and limit the number of such hidden blocks to a minimum.
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Enhance Your Site
Treasure house of scripts
You will want your site to be highly interactive so that users find it easier to navigate. You might want to add menu systems, mouse scroll effects, etc. What you would definitely want is dynamic content. You can download any number of these scripts for free from www.Dynamicdrive.com.
Menu and navigation systems
Windows users might prefer having a Windows interface on the Web too. You can satisfy this need by using the menu and navigation scripts available at www.dynamicdrive.com. You can test each script before trying it on your site. Select the one that you like and following the instructions, copy and paste the code into your Web page and hey presto! You have the required menu and navigation effect on your site. You can choose from a range of scrolling, static, and dropdown menu and navigation items from this section.
Free applications
If you want to track the number of visitors to your site, you can add a page counter for this purpose. The other small applications that you could possibly add to your Web site are forums, guest books, log systems, polls, and e-mail forms, etc. Your hosting service might provide most of these. Since all the information is stored on the application provider's server, you don't have to worry about the hosting space for using any of these applications.
Document effects
Your HTML pages need not be static. You can add cool effects to it. For instance, you can have a snowfall or flowers moving across the page randomly. Mind you, this looks good but can be irritating too. So add these effects to pages where you have lighter content, for example, a photo gallery or a personal links section.
Tracking the stats
You might be curious about which pages on your site are visited the most, what browser the visitor uses, or probably what OS most visitors use. Visit www.extreme-dm.com and register yourself for free tracking code. You will be sent a mail with the code details. Follow the instructions provided and paste the code onto your site. As users visit your Web page, tracking starts automatically and your account is updated with details of the user and his PC. You can login to your account at the site at any time to view your site statistics that are quite exhaustive. You can also restart your tracking at any point in time, but this is at the cost of losing your earlier data.
Count the visitors
Make use of the counters if you want to track the number of users who visit your site. Some sophisticated counters allow you to track down statistics on user visits month-wise or even day-wise. Microsoft bCentral offers you a counter that tells you exactly how many people visited your site on a particular day in a month.
Visit www.fastcounter.com and you will be redirected to www.bcentral.com. Register and get your passport. A couple of clicks and the site designs the counter and gives you the HTML code. You can copy and paste the code onto your page. All the stats will be stored on the bCentral server and you can log on to your account anytime to view the statistics.
Soapbox
You can include message boards for free on your site. Visit www.boards2go.com and register yourself for a neat message board service. You can provide a link to the message board from your site or copy the code provided by boards2go.com while you register.
RSVP
You have worked hard to put together your online monument. Wouldn't you like to hear from the visitors whether they liked your site? A guest book is your solution. Some free subdomain name registrars such as Freeservers and Yahoo! Geocities provide a free guest book within the site manager.
Visit www.guestbookgiant.com and signup for a free service. Create as many guest books as you want and customise them from the respective menus. After customising the guest book, click on the 'Get code' link. This provides you two links-one to enter the guest book and the other to view it. Paste these links on to your Web site. Now visitors to your site can use the guest book to send their feedback to you.
DHTML games
Want to spice up your Web page? Then host some Shockwave, Flash and DHTML games. Some DHTML games are available at www.dynamicdrive.com. Download the games and unzip them. Before you upload them on your site, read the instructions provided by the author. Copy all the necessary files on a specific directory on your hosting space and provide a link from your main page to the games section of your Web site. Believe it or not, most visitors get enthusiastic when they see age-old games that they can play online!
Create the blocks
There are sites where you can create logos, buttons and GIFs of your choice. Customise the available buttons and GIFs to suit your preference
Create Logos
If you want a logo for your site, log on to www.flamingtext.com. Here you choose 'Start Here' from the sitemap in the 'New Users' section. You'll reach a page that carries a list of all available designs. Select the one you want and you're taken to a page where you can edit the design-change the text, size, colour, or font. Enter your preferences in the appropriate boxes and click on Create logo. A few seconds of rendering and your logo's ready. Right-click on the image to save it to your hard disk, you can use the image on your site as your registered logo.
Sew that button
There are sites that help you render buttons. Visit www.flamingtext.com and click on the buttons section listed at the top of the page. Choose the style and appearance of the button. The final section of the page lets you add text and change features such as colour gradients, the shape, etc of the button. Make your modifications and click on the Add text button to create your button. A few seconds and your button's rendered and displayed on the Web site. Save it by right-clicking on it.
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Getting Online
Storage space
Server space becomes a constraint as you start building up your site. Ask yourself ?How much space will I actually need?? HTML pages take up very little space and if you follow the optimisation techniques discussed above, you will save on a considerable amount of space while uploading images.
Choose a free hosting service that offers you upwards of 10 MB of space. For instance, Freeservers.com offers you 20 MB of free space while Yahoo! Geocities offers you 15 MB.
File size limits
Hosting your pages on free servers across the Internet would gulp down the bandwidth of the service provider. Hence, most of them restrict the size of the files that can be uploaded. For example, www.freeservers.com offers you a 256 KB file size limit, which is the maximum as far as we have seen. Choose a free hosting provider that would offer better file size limits. Freeservers.com also gives its free registrants a maximum bandwidth of 512 MB per month.
FTP access
For maintaining your site and uploading newer pages, you might require FTP access to your Web space-this is faster than the GUI Web interface. Most free Web space providers don't offer FTP access. It's usually reserved for professional and other paid package schemes.
Site search engine
You could make your Web site a repository of all your intelligence and knowledge. Now what if someone wants to search your knowledge store for something specific? Does your free service provider offer you the facility of searching your site? Check on it before registering with a hosting service. Freeservers.com offers a site search engine as well as a search engine that can search across similar sites.
Site builder
If you are a novice on the Web, you might prefer some kind of guidance. While registering for a free hosting service, check if the service provider will assist you with site building templates and tools. Most service providers do that as a part of their effort to promote their services.
Forwarding e-mail
Certain sites provide you with free e-mail services while others don't. The ones that do provide you with free e-mail also offer a mail-forwarding service. When you have registered a domain such as tintinsclone.freeservers.com and someone sends a mail to anyname@tintinsclone.freeservers.com, it will be automatically forwarded to the e-mail address that you entered in your membership details. You need to activate the e-mail forwarding facility before you can actually use it. If you plan to distribute the mail you receive to other individuals, then enter an e-groups mail ID to which all of them have subscribed. Whatever mail you receive at your site will then be forwarded to all the subscribers.
Sundry features
Other features that you could possibly look for could be free site statistics, site counters, message boards, guest books and form e-mailers. Most free hosting sites provide these features. Choose the best from the options you have.
Monthly bandwidth
Data is sent back and forth when visitors enter and leave your site. Your monthly bandwidth is the total amount of data transferred from your hosting space to all the visitors' computers. Since bandwidth is a main cost factor involved in hosting, free services limit the bandwidth offered. Yahoo! Geocities offers you a maximum bandwidth of 3 GB per month.
Cheap domains
Most Netizens would prefer having their own online identity. Domain name registrars allow you to register your preferred name. Offers range from Rs 350 to over Rs 1,000 depending on the service.
The cheapest and probably most reliable of all services is www.net4domains.com. You can register your domain name for just Rs 495 a year. Of course, a 10-year deal for Rs 4,950 will be economical if you wish to maintain a site that you can hand over to your successor.
Search for your domain name. If it's available, book it on the Web site and send a cheque or demand draft to Net4domains as instructed on the site or in the confirmation e-mail that you receive. Your domain will be registered only after your payment is received and will remain active for the registered period only.
Hosting/Storage
Web space is an expensive commodity. With add-on services such as POP3 mail accounts, most of the service providers rip you off even for a meagre 2 MB of Web space. Cybersitesindia.com is probably one of the cheapest options available. The company charges Rs 850 for 5 MB of space on an NT server or a Win2k server. If you are booking hosting space of 1 GB and above, then the cost per MB slumps to Rs 26. A list of hosting service providers is available in the links section. You can also check out hosting servers located abroad-they could turn out to be cheaper alternatives.
Availability of domain nameCheck whether your choice of domain name is available. Find domain name availability within different domains with any of the registrar sites. For example, enter the domain name of your choice in www.net4domains.com, and click Search. If it is taken, you get a 'whois' link. Click on the link to find out who has registered the site name.
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HTML Editors
FrontPage 2002
Specify Default Settings for Tables in FrontPage
Instead of re-entering the settings each time you create a new table, you can specify table settings once. This enables you to keep your tables consistent from page to page: On the Table menu, click Insert > Table. Specify the number of rows and columns. Select your preference for table alignment, border size, cell padding, cell spacing, and table width. Under Set, select the 'Set as default for new tables' check box. Click OK.
Know Your Visitors with FrontPage 2002
You decide which technologies and features to include on your site by knowing certain information about visitors to your Web site-for example, their operating systems, browser versions, and connection speeds. A new feature in Microsoft FrontPage version 2002 makes it easy to collect this important information. Go to Insert > Web Component. In the Component type list, click Top 10 List. In the Choose a usage list section on the right, click the type of user information you want to track. Then, click Finish. In the List settings box, enter a title for your list. Choose a style and click OK.
Refresh Grainy Thumbnail Images in FrontPage
You can resample and restore grainy and washed out thumbnails in the FrontPage photo galleries by opening the Photo Gallery Properties dialog box and changing the thumbnails' size. Right-click anywhere on the photo gallery in 'Normal view', and click 'Photo Gallery Properties' on the shortcut menu. Under the 'Add' button, select the thumbnail you want to resize. Do ensure the 'Maintain aspect ratio' box is checked. Under 'Thumbnail size', enter 110 in the Width box, and click OK. Repeat steps 2 through 4 for each thumbnail that needs restoring.
If you need to repeat this procedure on the thumbnails in a photo gallery, first you must return the width of each thumbnail to its original 100 pixels.
Create a Discussion Group on Your FrontPage Web Site
The Discussion Web Wizard is used to create discussion groups on Web sites. By using the threaded discussion feature of the discussion group, you can communicate with your clients, receive their feedback, and respond to their comments in real time. For example, if a client wants the design theme changed, you can change it and receive an opinion back immediately.
To create an instant chat room that you can use to communicate with your client, all you need to do is create a folder on the customer's Web server and then run the Discussion Web Wizard. You can use the discussion group to ask questions, comment on changes, and request text from the client. Open the Web site in which you want to create a discussion group. On the File menu, point to New > Page or Web. In the New Page or Web task pane, under New from template, click Web Site Templates. Click the Discussion Web Wizard. Select the 'Add to current Web check box', and click OK. Follow the directions on your screen to create a discussion group. When you're finished with the job, just delete the folder that contains the discussion group.
Add Text Balloons to Graphics in FrontPage 2002
Microsoft FrontPage 2002 provides drawing tools that can be used to create great effects on your Web site. For example, with AutoShapes you can easily put together text balloons with graphics to draw attention to important information. To create a text balloon, in Page view, click the Drawing icon on the Standard toolbar to display the Drawing toolbar. On the Drawing toolbar, click AutoShapes > Callouts and select a shape for your text balloon. Point to the area of your page where you want your text balloon to appear, and click to insert it. You can move the balloon after you create it, so don't worry about the exact position. Click the text balloon to select it, click the Fill Colour icon on the Drawing toolbar, and select the colour you want to fill the balloon with. Place the insertion point in the text area of the callout balloon, and type or paste your text. You can apply a shadow to your text balloon to add dimension. Select your text balloon, click the Shadow Style icon on the Drawing toolbar, and select a shadow style. That's all!
Apply Text and Graphics Formatting Multiple Times in Office XP
Applying the same format to items in different locations in your document, drawing, worksheet, presentation, or Web page can be quite tedious. For example, you may want to apply a special font to several non-sequential words in your document. Or you may want to change solid lines to dotted lines in graphics you created with the drawing tools. However, you can double-click this button and apply the format to multiple items in Office XP instead of clicking the Format Painter button on the Standard toolbar every time you want to apply the new format.
To apply formatting to multiple items, select the item with the format you want to copy. Double-click the Format Painter button. The button stays selected. Select the text or graphic items you want to apply the new format to. When you're finished applying the format, click the Format Painter button again or press ESC.
Auto Filtering Web Site Reports in FrontPage 2002
You can now use AutoFilter in your reports, with Microsoft FrontPage version 2002, to easily obtain important information about your Web site such as finding large image files. This can help you identify ways to optimise your Web site. By filtering lists in your reports, you can display the data that you want to see. AutoFilter for FrontPage 2002 works just like AutoFilter for Microsoft Excel, and is available for all reports in FrontPage, except the Site Summary report.
To use AutoFilter in your reports to quickly find large image files, open an existing Web site in FrontPage 2002. On the View menu, select Reports > Files > All Files. In the 'Type' column, filter the 'Type list' by clicking the down arrow and selecting GIF from the drop-down list. In the 'Size' column, filter the 'Size list' by clicking the down arrow and selecting (Custom.) from the drop-down list. In 'Custom AutoFilter' under 'Show rows where:' select the down arrow in the box on the left and click 'is greater than'. In the box on the right, click the down arrow and select the largest file size you consider acceptable and click OK.
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX
The CSS Mode of the Property Inspector
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: When you have the Property Inspector open, select some text and click the 'A' on the inspector. The Property Inspector will change modes, so that only Cascading Style Sheets styles can be added to the text, rather than the standard font tags, sizes, and so on. This should be a boon to developers creating sites with only CSS elements.
Auto-format XML Documents
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: In code view, start typing in a well-formed XML document (or else, open an existing XML document). You'll see that even without a document type definition (DTD) defined, Dreamweaver will parse the page and show relevant code hints based on the tags and attributes already placed on the page.
Working with ASP.NET
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: Developers, you'll notice that when working with the ASP.NET server model there is no menu option to create a dynamic list/menu. Here's the three-step solution:
Notice that when working with the ASP.NET server model, there is no menu option to create a dynamic list/menu. Here's the three-step solution:
i) Create a blank page with the language set to VB or C#, depending on what was selected when defining the site.
ii) Create a database connection by clicking on Windows/Databases. In the Database panel, click the "+" button and choose OLE DB Connection. Assign a name to your Connection. Click on Templates, and then select Microsoft Access 2000 (Microsoft Jet 4.0 Provider). Fill in the necessary information for your connection, such as the path to your MS Access database. You will need to modify the connection information so that it looks similar to the following:
Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;
Data Source=[databaseName];
User ID=[username];
Password=[password];
Fill in the information similar to the following:
Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;
Data Source=C:\databases\mydatabase.mdb;
C:\databases is the path where the database is located on the remote server. Note that if there is no username and password required to access the database, the User ID and Password fields can be deleted.
Finally, click the 'Test' button to test your connection and then click OK if it tests successfully.
iii) Next, create the DataSet by clicking on Windows/Bindings. In this example, the DataSet is named DataSetDropDown. See the sample code below:
Add on the page where you want to add the list/menu. Insert the asp:dropdownlist object between the and tags. This object is located in the Insert > ASP.NET Objects menu.
Insert the asp:dropdownlist and then click on Data to see a dialog box.
You need to enter the DataSource, DataTextField and DataValueField information into each field. For testing purpose, you should enter the information into your Data dialogue box.
Save the page and preview in the browser or view Live Data. The list/menu should be populated with data from the database. The source code of your final page should look close to the following:
DataMember="datamember"
DataSource=""
DataTextField="LASTNAME"
DataValueField="EMPLOYEEID"
ID="dropdownlistid" runat="server">
Here are the definitions of each property listed in code example:
DataMember: When binding data, this attribute specifies the table of a DataSet to use.
DataSource: When binding data, this attribute specifies the data source to use.
DataTextField: When binding data, this attribute specifies the field to use for item text values.
DataValueField: When binding data, this attribute specifies the field to use for values of item-value
Data Grids
The DataGrid is a feature-rich, unique, and powerful tool. For instance, most people know that you can edit items in place with a DataGrid, but few know that you can select the type of control that you want to use for the editing. Instead of using the default TextBox, you can choose to use a DropDownList, RadioButtonList or any other bindable control. ASP.NET "asp:textbox" controls are used as the default interface for data entry in Edit mode. Thanks to the "Free Form" column type, however, it is possible to use Dreamweaver to build a DataGrid whose edit field for a particular column is an asp:textbox, asp:checkbox, or asp:dropdownlist.
GoLive! 6.0
Cloaking folders and files in your site
Site cloaking allows you to exclude folders and file types in a site from operations such as Get or Put. You can cloak individual folders, but not individual files. To cloak files, you must select a file type, and Dreamweaver cloaks all files of that type. It remembers your settings for each site, so you don't have to make selections each time you work on that site. For example, if you're working on a large site and don't want to upload your multimedia files each day, you can use site cloaking to cloak your multimedia folder, and the system excludes files in that folder from site operations you perform.
You can cloak folders and file types on the remote or local site. Cloaking excludes cloaked folders and files from the following operations:
Put, Get, Check In, and Check Out
Reports
Select newer local and newer remote
Sitewide operations, such as check and change links and search/replace
Synchronize
Asset panel contents
Template and library updating
Note that Dreamweaver excludes cloaked templates and library items from Get and Put operations only. Dreamweaver does not exclude these items from batch operations, because it might cause them to get out of sync with their instances. You can perform an operation on a specific cloaked folder by selecting the item in the 'Site' panel and performing an operation on it. Performing an operation directly on a file or folder overrides cloaking.
Irritating Recurring Open Dialog Box (General)
Every time you try to save a file that's part of a site, GoLive presents you with one or a succession of 'Open' dialog boxes. This happens when any folder name in the path from the top of your hard drive down to where the item is stored contains a special character, like an ampersand (&) or the folder symbol often used on a Mac (?). Changing the name of the offending folder or folders eliminates the problem.
Automatic Rollover Creation
Have you ever created a rollover on a web page?
Probably thousands of times, right? Well, GoLive 6.0 makes this tedious process easier than any web authoring application in the world and it happens to be one of our favourite new features!
GoLive 6.0 can learn how you name the image files that make up the multiple rollover states so that all the required images are detected and all the JavaScript code is written (including preloading) automatically! To teach GoLive 6 how you name your rollover images, select any image in Layout mode and choose 'Rollover Settings...' from the 'Image Inspector' palette.
CSS with Contextual Menus
Cost people use the CSS palette to apply their CSS classes to page elements, but contextual menus offer an easier way to mark-up your pages in GoLive 6.0. Select the objects or text in Layout mode and Control-click (Mac)/Right-click (Windows) and choose the appropriate option from the Apply CSS Style menu.
Text in old pages seems too large
If you open web pages created in older versions of GoLive your text might appear larger then you expected. GoLive 6.0 now uses 96 dpi as the default for rendering text in Layout mode because this is the W3C recommendation and what most current Macintosh and Windows web browsers use. This means what you see in Layout mode in GoLive 6.0 is probably more like what your visitors will see in their web browsers. To ensure your text renders more consistently across platforms and browsers, we recommend using CSS to set your font sizes in pixels. If you really must force GoLive 6.0 to render fonts in the outdated and non-standard way, then here's the trick. Open the file AdobeGolive.agluap present in C:\Program Files\Adobe\GoLive6\Settings\UserAgentProfiles\AdobeGoLive\. Find the line that says [var name-?dpi? value=?96?/] and change it to [var name=?dpi? value=?72?/]. Quit and relaunch GoLive.
Hidden Elements Disturb Table Measurements (Tables)
If your table cells contain any invisible elements-a Hidden form element, a comment tag, an image map, a floating box, or any other GoLive placeholder which the program previews with a tiny icon onscreen but isn't shown in a browser page-the table's measurements may be off. GoLive includes those invisible items as part of its calculations for a table's legal size. The simple solution is to select 'Hide Invisible Items' from the View menu. By default, all of these placeholders are categorized as 'Invisible Items', and are removed off the screen but remain in the code.
Offsite Graphics (Images)
Many Web sites offer affiliate or click-through links that include graphics. Instead of providing you with a graphic itself, they offer up a small bundle of HTML that you need to insert in your page. GoLive only previews local content in the Layout Editor. To view the image that the Web site provided to you in HTML, which is actually stored on their site or a partner's, preview the page in a browser. The browser should successfully retrieve the image over the Internet. If it doesn't, check that you pasted the HTML correctly.
Levels of SQL Access (Dynamic Content)
GoLive 6.0 users have stumbled into a permission issue with MySQL databases and GoLive's Dynamic Content feature. Each user of a MySQL (or any SQL) database is assigned certain privileges. A user can be assigned read-only access to a given database or even a single table in a database, which allows them to create dynamic pages, but not to create, delete, or modify records. If you're using the record changing features in GoLive 6 to update or add records in a database, make sure you have these permissions from the database administrator before you go nuts troubleshooting the problem from the GoLive side.
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Promote Your Site
Tell your friends
One of the best ways to inform your friends about your online home is by word of mouth. Include your URL in the e-mail signature file that goes with your mail. Most e-mail clients and Web-based e-mail services such as Yahoo! and Hotmail allow you to create signature files that go with your e-mail. Add your URL and every time you mail someone you will be informing the recipient about your site at absolutely no cost.
Meta tags to mobilise your site
Meta tags are HTML tags that carry descriptions about your site. Keywords that search engines look for are usually placed inside the Meta tag of a Web page. To analyse whether your Meta tags are useful, visit http://www.bcentral.com/products/metatags.asp, enter your URL in the space provided and click on the 'Check Metas' button. The Meta tags in your site are analysed and results are displayed.
Use the site's Meta tag builder tool to build better tags that will rank you higher in search engines.Given below are examples of how the Meta tags can be used:
Keyword Meta tag:
Description Meta tag:
Image indexing
It's not only title and Meta tags that help you get indexed on search engines. Some search engines use the image tag's ALT attribute to index and rank pages. The attribute shows a tool-tip kind of text when you hover the mouse over the image. This descriptive text can help you get listed in search engines that use this feature for indexing and ranking. Of course, this does not work across all search engines, but you could definitely give it a try.
Get linked
Most traffic to your site would be directed from links that people click at other Web sites. So you need to build your online network and get listed on other sites that could provide a link to your page. You can exchange links with other people by visiting www.123link.com or www.reciprolinks.com. Link exchange involves something called reciprocal links. This means that you need to list a particular site in order to get yourself listed on that site. While choosing a link exchange site, choose one that pertains to your content.
Check your stats
Check your stats and other log details regularly so that you can watch which pages are visited the most and which aren't. This will help you figure out which are the popular sections of your site and you can start providing more of the relevant content to your visitors.
Don't do's to promote your site
Say no to spam: If you start mass mailing frequently, you can be sure that your site will soon be ignored.
Submit right: There aren't more than 30 to 40 effective search engines. So don't waste money on sites that offer to get you listed in 500 search engines. Use auto-submitters and then make manual submissions to directories that interest you and are relevant to the content of your Web page.
Perfection gentlemen: Do not host an incomplete site. If there are dead links or 'under construction' pages, visitors may not return. Complete the site in all respects and then upload it.
Play it safe: There are a lot of sneaky tricks available on the Internet that claim to increase your Web traffic. Do not fall for any of those. Use normal Meta tags and description tags as suggested earlier in this section.
Don't stop if you are finished: Site promotion is an on-going process and is never to be stopped. Once URL submissions are made to search engines, make sure that they are working. Check again after a month or as frequently as possible and resubmit URLs if required. Check on services such as link exchanges and banner ads. Keep updating your pages regularly with newer content and that will keep your site alive and the visitors coming in.
NOTE : This material is taken for the magazine Digit
