Playing with Web Design

Website Essentials

Website Essentials

There are certain sections (or pages) that every web site should include. Call them what you want, but every site should include the following elements:

Home Page

Your home page should tell visitors a little bit about the site and what's available for their viewing pleasure. There are probably as many ways to greet visitors as there are web sites. Well... maybe not that many but there are a lot of ways to do it.

For example, you might present a title graphic with or without a description of your site and an invitation to "Come on in!" Or you might present a site index with full descriptions of each section in your site. You might use a combination of these two elements.

By the way, if thoughts of flashing background colors and automatic re-direction are swimming in your head, please don't! It was cute and interesting the first time someone did that, but now? Old hat. Find something else new and exciting for your front page.

Site Index

If you don't use your home page as a site index, you should probably include a page that just lists and describes the various sections of your site. The idea is to make it easy for visitors to see what you have to offer.

Make visitors wander randomly from page to page, and most people will give up and head for parts unknown, never to return! Whether you call it a menu, a site map, an index or whatever, make sure people can find what you're offering.

Oh, and if you want to include a JavaScript menu or one of those drop-down lists, that's great! Just make sure you offer a plain text version of the information as well. There are still people who turn off JavaScript for safety reasons.

What's New

Call it a Site Journal, call it News, Ramblings, Musings, or just Stuff I Want You to Know, make sure you have some location where you tell people what's new and what's changed. Part of the reason for creating a site in the first place is to get people to visit you more than once... isn't it? Make sure those repeat visitors can tell where they should place their attention.

Resources

If your web site is about yourself, you might not need a "resources" or "links" page. On the other hand, most people who have a web site have found some other site they want to share with their visitors. Even if all you want to share is links to your friends' pages, a links page is nice.

Of course, it's possible to go too far!

Unless the main reason for creating your site is to act as a resource to other sites that cover a certain topic, don't overdo it. There are search engines for that sort of thing.

Also, make sure you tell people more about the sites in your list than their URLs! Take a look at my links page as an example. I won't include a site there without a description of what the site has to offer and, if I have a strong opinion about the site you can be sure I'm going to tell you that too.

Contact Form

Contact forms can be an invaluable tool in gathering information from your guests. This is particularly true if you are selling goods or services. A form the visitors can fill out to ask for more information can sometimes make the difference between making a sale and having the potential sale "sail" away on the tide.

About

This could be About Me, "About Us", or whatever. Many people, including me, like to know a little bit about the person who designed and/or owns the site they are visiting. If your site belongs to a company (yours or the one you work for) this page should include general information about the company. Another important thing to put here is how to contact someone. Of course, if this is your personal site, that someone should be you. Just make sure the e-mail address is correct!