Tip #1763 - Organize Your Website
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WorldStart
Before you
jump right in to build your website, take a few moments to arrange it in an
orderly, logical way. I don't know about you, but I hate it when I go to a website
and all the information, and I mean all of it, is on the main page.
I
realize that people are excited about their information and they want it all
up front. However putting everything on one page just makes it hard to read.
There is too much going on for visitors on your site to focus on any one thing.
This is especially true if you make someone scroll down forever to view your
info. Also, having all your info on one page makes that page load a lot slower.
So,
organize your information into different pages and provide the links to these
pages from the main page of your site. By providing links to the other pages,
you let the user choose which information they want to see. Your main page should
have the links to the other sections of the site and a bit of information that
describes the purpose of the site.
I'm
going to stay with the example of a site dedicated to my dog Lily to demonstrate
the organization and building of a site. I want the site for Lily to include
information on how I got her, what type of dog she is, some pictures of her,
some of her favorite things and activities, and how about weekly diary or something
like that. Yeah, a weekly diary sounds like fun because it will be a page where
the information gets updated frequently. A site with frequently updated information
gives visitors a reason to come back again and again. I'm going to break down
the information that I just listed into different pages for the site. Here's
how it will look:
Main
Page
-About
Lily (what type of dog, how I got her)
-Photos
(photos of Lily, her family, friends)
-Lily's
Picks (favorite toys, food)
-Weekly
Report… (diary page, updated weekly)
Okay,
that's enough. I'm going to put these pages into a tree diagram. A tree diagram
is nice because it shows the layout of the site and how the pages should be
connected to each other. This isn't such a big deal when there are only 5 pages
total but if you have 30 pages it becomes very helpful. Here's how this looks
when you put it into a tree diagram.
Here
is what the site tree would look like if I added a few more pages. Let's say
I'm adding two pages in the Photos section, two in Lily's Pick and one in About
Lily.
Okay,
the site is organized and I have a plan for the layout, so now it's time to
design it. Next time we meet I'll show you some design basics, tips and some
tricks. So, until then, do your homework and have your site organized
~
Kim
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