Web layout starts before you get near your editor
- Plan your marketing campaign first
- Write your pages in your word processor
- Edit them - repeatedly
- Convert them to HTML
- Analyse them from the point of view of the search engines
- Re-write them to attract the search engines, but still be user-friendly.
Write your pages in a word processor
After all - you are probably more familiar with your word processor,
and it has a good spell-checker. Then you can copy and paste into the
appropriate place in your HTML template.
I like to hit Enter twice to separate paragraphs, then when I have finished
I can tell my word processor to find all the paired returns and replace them
with </p><p> Better still, don't replace them, just add the code
to each pair, because double linespaces are ignored by HTML, and it is easier
to see the start and end of paragraphs.
Use your HTML editor to alter the appearance of your text. Make it
easy to read. Break it up into paragraphs that are no longer
than four lines. Have lots of sub-headings for the benefit of visitors
who scan the sub-headings without reading the text.
I like to use my free "Arachnophillia" HTML editor, which
has a built-in spell checker. You can use it with
Windows or Macintosh or Linux, or any operating system that will run
Java.
Click here to download it It is freeware in a self-extracting file.
Edit, edit, and edit some more
If you can persuade a friend to read through your web pages do so. Ask them to tell you about everything that they don't like, because then you can change it.
See if your pages will load quickly on Netscape. See if they will load
quickly on Explorer. If a page only works with Explorer, you are losing
many of your visitors - and the money they bring. I have been told that
Front Page makes pages designed not to work with Netscape.
If a page takes more than ten seconds to load, visitors will click the
back button. You will have lost them for ever. Remember, most people
still don't have ADSL broadband internet.
Analyse pages for search engines
The free download of "Make Your Site Sell" probably doesn't cover this subject, so you will have to get the full version.
The same company has now released a package deal that includes hosting your site, and software to help you lay out your pages so as to attract the search engines and still be user-friendly, and very much more. Click here. to read all about it.
What about "user friendly"? Sorry, you'll have to get the complete "Make Your Site Sell" book and read through the hundreds of pages about that.
Re-write
I just spent several hours re-writing a page to be search-engine-friendly. It would have taken much longer, but I used software to analyse, re-write, analyse, re-write.... until the analysis had no more complaints.
Why bother? If the search engines can't find you, you will have to pay out
lots of money to get people to visit your site. Search engines are free.
Statistics show that most visitors to your site will come from the search
engines. Not banner advertising, not free-for-all link sites, not
advertisements. But they will come only if you can get listed by the
search engines.
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