Webmaster Tips

A good webpage has to be eye catching, in order for people to notice it at first glance, then take the time to surf and spend as much time as possible on it. If someone just happens to surf by, has a glance at the layout and leaves, then no one will ever go to your site. It has to be visually entertaining, but simple at the same time.

Fancy Stuff
Try not to scatter your site will all the java scripts or DHTML or junk that you find online. Carefully choose which scripts are suitable for your website in order to avoid making it into some crude and garish masterpiece of yours. Be mindful of the loading time of things like music and flash movies, as well as which scripts might cause your website to lag.

Layout
Your layout should be really simple, and easy to navigate around. I suggest tables using tables, not frames because frames can be often appear non-professional unless you are able to manipulate them and integrate them into your website.

Graphics/Images
As for pictures/images/graphics whatever you want to call them, don't put too many on your site. Remember that graphics take time to load, and the longer the reader has to wait for the whole page to load, the more fustrated the user will be. Also, your graphics should be of good quality - crisp clean lines, reasonable resolution, and pleasing to the eye. Graphics tend to be the best tool to draw a reader to your page, so be sure to take some time to plan your layout.

Fonts
When making a website, try using fonts that most computers come with, such as Verdana, Arial, Times New Roman, Tahoma or Georgia. These fonts are commonly found on most computers, and are simple and easy to read. Even if the website might look nice on your computer when you use fancy fonts such as Cheri or Joker, other computers will probably not have the font and will instead see Times New Roman, which might not be the effect you want viewers to see.

Colors
Once you've finished the layout of your website (not the whole site), try sticking some text in it with the colours you are planning on using, and view it in a browser. Do not forget your links as well! This is where your commen sense and color judgement comes in: obviously, bright red does not go with bright blue, and neither does bright yellow and white.

HTML
Learning HTML is extremely useful in making a good website for quite a few reasons. Many times, you will find bugs in yoru site that simply cannot be fixed with programs such as Dreamweaver, therefore making it imperitive for you to open up Notepad and go through the code line by line and looking for the source of error. Another good reason to learn HTML is so that you are able to read the code of other websites. Often, when you see a site which you really like, it doesn't hurt to view the source of the site and learn how the webmaster achieved the specific effect. One good place to start out learning HTML is Lissa Explains - that is where I first learnt my HTML!

Content
The first and foremost reason people go to most websites is for the content. Without content, there is simply nothing to see on your website and the reader will immediately move on to another one. Be sure that the content you have is original, or if you decide to use someone else's content be sure to give credit, or even better ask for permission to use the content.

Overall Feel
Once your website is finished, open it in a browser. Pretend that you are a reader which has just stumbled across the site, and list down what exactly you like and do not like about the layout. If what you see on the screen is what you wanted, then it's done. If something is bugging you, or what you are seeing just doesn't look right, go back, do something about it, and open it up again until you feel that it is complete.

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