Thinking of building a personal or small business Web site? Then, this article is for you. It can help you avoid making some common mistakes.
While personal Web sites aren't the rage they were back in the early days of the Web, they're still popular. And more and more small businesses are embracing the Web as a marketing tool and as a virtual office. In either case, the Web can be a powerful and efficient way to present your ideas, sell your goods and services, and to distribute information.
You'll notice that I wrote "can be". In the drive to create a Web presence, the execution rarely matches the vision. Many peronal and small business Web sites leave much to be desired. But with a little planning and work, you can build a site that is an indispensable resource.
The Problems with Web Sites
Personal and small business Web sites tend to fall flat in these areas:
The misuse of HTML
Content
Design
The misuse of HTML
There are two common ways of dumping (literally) content onto the Web. One involves linking to a non-HTML document which will either be opened in a Web browser or in the application that created the file. The second way is to build a file in a word processor, export it as HTML, then to post it to the Web.
Neither option is the way to go. The first option does have its appeal: documents retain their original formatting, which often cannot be translated into HTML. But to view the document, visitors to a site must download it, then open the file in another application. The files will take time to download or render. On top of that, the files can take a long time to download and open. Sometimes the process will crash your visitor's browser.
With the second option, the results will need heavy editing. Don't believe me? Save a Microsoft Word document as HTML, then open the converted file in an HTML or text editor. If you're using Word 2000 or XP, the top portion of the file will consist of gibberish that controls the look and feel of the Web page. And it often makes up a huge chunk of the file. In Word 97, headings will often be replaced by tags like <FONT SIZE=+5>, and any tables and indents will be mangled.
HTML It Properly
It's the Web, remember? As Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the
lingua franca of the Web, why not use HTML? While HTML can be
intimidating to the uninitiated, but it is fairly easy to learn.
It's worthwhile to have at least one person in a department learn
how to properly format Web documents. Classroom and online courses
abound. If you're on a tight budget, buy a book. I always
recommend HTML and XHTML: The Definitive Guide, from O'Reilly and Associates.