Ten Web Publishing DOs

As a website designer and web publisher myself, i know the importance of ‘must-do’ things online. If you follow some basic rules on things you definitely should do, and be careful of the things you shouldn’t do, your sure to be successful at it.

In the first part of 2 articles, here are ten things you should definitely do when publishing online.

DO Think About Your Target Audience

Who is your Web site targeting? A little thought along these lines can make your pages much more appealing to your visitors. Before you begin creating your Web site, choose the right look and feel and a style of presentation that is appropriate for your audience.

For instance, if your target audience is your family, keep your site simple and fun; but if it’s a business site, keep the personal stuff well separate.

Include links that your visitors find interesting, not just the ones that you find interesting — unless that’s the point of your page, of course.

DO Use Good Sites as Models

To say that the web has many good sites is to make a huge understatement. Therefore, it is also an understatement to suggest that ignoring those good examples when designing your own site is not the best idea. Take a look around and find the designs that work. Many top-rated sites have settled on relatively simple designs. Think about why each design you like works well. Is it

• The use of colour and the layout of the Web page?
• The fact that the site loads quickly?
• The well-organized content?

Google is a good example of a site that is well-focused around a key observation: speed matters. The Ford site, which could hardly be more different, also does a good job for their customers - by giving cars pride of place.

Note what works and why, and then strive to duplicate that effect in your own Web pages. Look for conventions in presenting information that web users have grown accustomed to, neat design ideas, and various types of content.

DO Think Before You Create

A surprising number of people just jump in and start throwing around text and HTML tags with no clue about where they’re going or what they want to accomplish. That approach is fine if you just want to play around; in fact, it can be a lot of fun. But if you want to make a good impression on the Web, sitting down and thinking about a few things ahead of time really pays off.

Sketch your ideas on paper. Then describe them to someone else and ask for feedback. This prep work forces you to consider things that you may not think about otherwise:

• Page layout
• Graphic design
• Target audience
• Content structure

All these issues and more, when properly considered and acted on, can make your site a first-class net surfing experience.

DO Get Permissions for Content

You can easily peek at the HTML source of any Web page, and that’s legitimate, and a good way to figure out new design techniques. But you can also easily grab any content that exists on the web, even privately owned content that belongs to others. However, the fact that you can easily grab others’ content does not make doing so right or legal. It’s also not necessary.

You can find a great deal of public domain content, and getting permission to use some private content is not all that hard to do. If a Web page doesn’t explicitly say that its content can be freely borrowed, assume that it’s copyrighted or otherwise protected, which means you should ask before borrowing any of it. Many people are happy to let you use their content as long as you provide proper attribution and reciprocal links so that they can gain exposure to new web users who visit your pages.

DO Use Links to Outside Sites

No matter how great your content is, you’re wasting the most important feature of the web if you don’t include links to sites outside your own. No matter what your topic, you can find complementary sites out there. Giving your visitors links to those sites is not only courteous — its part of the foundation on which the web was built.

If you research your links carefully and organize them well, your links can be a valuable resource for others. In your own web surfing, you’ve probably found that one of the best experiences on the web is the chance of stumbling upon some cool site that you had no idea existed. Give your visitors that same experience.

DO Use Graphics and Multimedia

A prime attraction of the web is that it’s designed to present graphical information; yet there are still many beginning web authors who are intimidated by graphics and shy away from using them. Include pictures, icons, bars, and graphical menus in your web page. Go ahead, try out transparent GIFs. Multimedia is a great addition, too, where appropriate;

The bottom line is that sites that carefully use graphics and multimedia are much more interesting than purely text-oriented ones. Give it a go.

DO Test Your Pages

Testing your pages is easy. You probably don’t send out a memo without spell-checking it. Similarly, you should not put up your web pages without testing them. That means looking at your pages on your own machine before testing them on the web - follow links, see how graphics and text fit together, and so on.

Also, looking at your pages in different browsers doesn’t hurt. If you can’t do it, ask a friend or even a stranger to help. And, of course, don’t forget to spell check your pages.

After you upload your files to the web, test again on your own machine, your friends’ and neighbour’s machines, any machine you have access to - you may be surprised by the differences you see.

DO Publicize Your Site

Nothing is more frustrating than putting up a site that no one visits. Fortunately, there are many ways to publicize your new website on the internet. Although most of the quality and quick promotion services do cost money, if you’re willing to do a bit of the hard work yourself, you will be rewarded with new visitors and search engine rankings in the long-run. checkout our recent article, Online Marketing Techniques – An In-Depth Look for some great ideas on marketing your website.

DO Ask for Feedback

Put your e-mail address on your home page and ask for comments. You’ll be amazed by what people say about your pages. People who have never before seen your site can offer a good, fresh perspective and give you feedback on things that you may not have previously thought about.

Everyone can benefit from outside input. Criticism by your prospective audience is not only useful, it’s also educational. You can learn a lot about what people expect and want. Criticism can’t hurt anything but your pride, and listening to it almost always improves your site.

DO Update Your Site

A static site is a boring site. True, it works for some purposes, but in general, if you want people to continually revisit your site, you must keep it updated. The best sites are those that continually provide new and interesting content. Include pointers to information that’s frequently updated, like “Thought for the day” or “Links to new, cool sites.” Let users know how often to expect updates and be sure to showcase new content.

In addition to updating your site, update yourself! Broadening your knowledge of Web design, new trends and technologies, and what’s “cool” at the moment can only help in improving your site.

In our next article, we will be looking at the 10 things you shouldn’t do when publishing to the web, so be sure to sign up to our RSS feed to be notified when the article is published.