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Creating Your Website Toolbox
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Jim Moore
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Dec 22, 2002 12:44 PST
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Getting a Website - Part 3:
Creating Your Website Toolbox
The Six Steps to Get Started
By Jim Moore, Owner of Phoenix Technologies
Member - International Assoc. of Webmasters & Designers
Up to this point, if you started with Lesson #1, you haven't really
begun creating a website - you've been copywriting.
You may think you're ready to call in a web designer or start actually
creating the site yourself. Don't jump the gun!
Stop for a moment and imagine you're a carpenter building a house.
What's the first thing you need? A toolbox!
Here are some of the things I include in my toolbox for every website I
design:
- a hit counter
- a tracking service
- spam-proof email tool
- search engine registration tool
- navigation buttons
- copyright notice
- free updating content
- necessary artwork
- artwork protection
For examples of the above tools, look below and also click here. Other
tools might be needed, depending on the nature of your website.
For example, if I'm designing a more complex site for, say, a magazine,
I would want to add various polls, email forms (such as for
subscriptions), etc. But for now we'll keep it simple so your eyes don't
glaze over. If they do, just stop and take a break.
Let's look at these tools one by one. You don't have to know yet how to
use them or insert them in your pages, but it's useful to know what they
do.
- HIT COUNTER: While not a real reliable indicator of how many visitors
you have, it does provide a quick glance to show you how relatively busy
your site is from one day to the next. I like FastCounter by
bCentral.com (http://fastcounter.bcentral.com/fc-join); it takes up only
a tiny bit of space and it's free. Hit counters generally tell you how
many "page views" you have, not actual visitors. We'll discuss the
difference later.
- TRACKING SERVICE: This is the heart of your Internet marketing engine.
Personally, I prefer Hitbox. It's (again) free and it provides over 100
reports from an hourly to an annual basis. I could write a whole series
about each separate HitBox tool, since this is an entire toolbox by
itself.
What I find most valuable are "page views", "unique visitors", "most
popular pages", "time spent on the site" and "time spent on each page."
Let me explain. If a visitor logs in three times in one day and views 3
pages each time, you've got at least 9 "page views" (hits) - but only
one "unique visitor."
"Most popular pages" tells me just that, which pages are most popular. I
can weed out those that aren't and bolster those that are. I can tell
what subject matter is of most or least interest and add more of the
topics that are popular.
"Time spent on site and pages" tells me whether visitors just skip over
headlines or if they actually read the pages. If you're losing your
visitors within the first 20 seconds, you've got a problem that needs to
be fixed. Most visitors don't stay long at a site, so don't be too
disappointed to see 85% of them leave within just a few seconds. They
may have found you through a search engine and quickly decided you
didn't have what they were looking for.
Other tools within the HitBox tell you your "loyalty index" (how many
come back time after time), search engines and keywords used to find
your site, rush hours and days, and circulation index (similar to the
loyalty index).
Keep in mind that, on a national average, only 2% of visitors return to
a site, and as a rule the vast majority of them (less than 5%) will stay
longer than 30 seconds. This varies according to the nature of your
website and how well you've packaged it.
The best way to understand how powerful this tool is, is to look at a
real HitBox. Feel free to browse around, you can't hurt anything. At the
left is a little gold/gray box called Site Statistics. By moving your
mouse over the choices, you see a new list of all the possible reports.
Look at any of them you want. Later, we'll come back and sign you up.
- SPAM-PROOF EMAIL: Spammers these days use sophisticated software to
scan the hundreds of millions of web pages, collecting all the email
addresses they find. That means yours! There's a way to trick them
through a simple tool called a Javascript that renders your email
address in a form so this software can't recognize it. On the surface,
your "eddress" looks and acts like normal; no one will normally ever see
the difference.
There are hundreds of websites devoted to Javascripts, but unless you're
pretty comfortable with HTML & Javascript programming you don't want to
know too many details. That's a whole different toolbox!
- SEARCH ENGINE REGISTRATION TOOL: You'll no doubt see pop-up ads
offering to get you registered with 15,000 or 25,000 search engines -
for a price. Ignore them. Can you name off the top of your head just
ten? Neither can anyone else. Most people limit their searches to no
more than five - and you can get registered on these without cost. If
your website or business is highly specialized or highly-targeted, you
may want to search out those search engines that cater to your
particular market.
One word of caution: After the Great Dot-com Bust, many search engines
are charging for top rankings. They have to pay the rent, too. If you're
really desperate you go this route, but there are many, many cheaper,
more effective ways to get the same results.
Another tool you may want to consider for a large site is a search box.
- NAVIGATION BUTTONS: Personally, I don't like to use them. They take up
space (each one is a separate piece of art) and make a page
slower-loading. I prefer text links. But if you really want to get artsy
- at the risk of losing visitors - there are thousands of free Internet
sources for buttons, clip art and any other kind of graphic you can
imagine. Just do a search for "free clip art" (be sure to put it in
quotation marks) and you'll see what I mean.
- COPYRIGHT NOTICE: This is an essential tool if you don't want your
site ripped off, and even that's no guarantee, but you've at least
legally established your copyright ownership by posting this notice.
- FREE UPDATING CONTENT: No matter what the subject of your website, it
can always use fresh, updated articles or features to keep your visitors
coming back for more - even if it's a localized weather box
(www.undergroundweather.com).
Some of my favorite sources are www.freesticky.com, www.womans-net.com,
and www.websource.com. In a later lesson, we'll see how to use this free
content.
My own flagship website (http://westviewnews.virtualave.net) is one of
the largest - if not the largest - online newspaper in America, and I
make very heavy use of free content in virtually every section - far
more than you'll ever need!
- NECESSARY ARTWORK: We touched on this under "Navigation Buttons." Some
artwork, such as your company logo, is yours and yours alone. You will
also want some artwork to spice up the page and give it some break from
the text ("gray matter"). If yours is a service business, like a
heating/AC company or doctor's office, I suggest using small photos of
your staff. Give your website a human face and let visitors know there's
a real, live business behind that cyberspace illusion. You may even want
to take a picture of the outside of your store, office or shop. Make
sure the photos are done professionally, even if you take them
yourselves.
Amateur-looking "snapshots" will give the impression you are an
"amateur" business.
The whole topic of photography (cropping, composition, lighting, etc.)
is another learning curve you can either tackle yourself or you can turn
to a professional photographer or even a talented amateur.
Henry Ford, who only had an 8th grade education, was once called on the
witness stand in a trial and the questioning attorney made fun of his
lack of education. The old man snapped back, "Look, I may not know
everything, but in five minutes I can find someone who does."
Moral of this story: Don't try to learn and do everything on your own.
If you do, the results will be disappointing.
- ARTWORK PROTECTION: It's so easy to just right-click on a website
photo and steal it; it's done a million times a day. One of the tools in
my own toolbox is a little Javascript that prevents that. Try it! I dare
you! Right-click on any picture you choose. You'll get a little warning
box and copyright notice.
- COOKIES: Most people are afraid of cookies because they've been badly
abused - and, no, I'm not talking about those little Keebler elves!
Cookies are invisible little programs that, used properly, can help you
improve your website. They're also used to store information about your
name, user IDs, passwords, etc. so, for example, when you log on to
Amazon.com they instantly know you you are, what you've already bought
and what your interests are.
Here's an example of one (harmless because it disappears from your
computer when you log off) that can help a web designer know what kind
of screen size most visitors have ... this one tells you what browser
you are currently using.
NEXT LESSON: Part 4 - Getting ready for the big leap online!
Jim Moore is manager of Phoenix Technologies, a website design and
promotion service in Williamsport, TN, where he also serves as online
editor of TennTimes - the News (http://westviewnews.virtualave.net),
America's largest online newspaper. He has won numerous writing and web
design awards, is a member of the International Association of
Webmasters & Designers and for eight years produced, directed and hosted
"The Omega Report", a popular hour-long TV documentary cablecast into
1.5 million homes from Nashville to Boston.
He publishes a free monthly newsletter, "On the Go!", for busy people
like you.
Subscribe here, or send an email to OntheGo-s-@topica.com.
He may also be reached at Phoenix Technologies .
Copyright 2002 by The Phoenix Foundation. All rights reserved.
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