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      Website Design Tips

      Miscellaneous suggestions

      • Add meta keywords to the head section of your main pages. This way search engines will be more likely to list your site with the proper keywords. For example, the meta description of the index page of this site is:

        Since some search engines don't use the meta keywords, it's a good idea to include important keywords as text somewhere on your page. A sneaky way to do this is to have a one pixel by one pixel blank image at the top, with an ALT description including a nice informative description of your site, and the entire list of keywords as well. Your visitors won't see it, but it will show up on search engine listings. WebsiteGarage provides a free service that creates META tags for your site for you. For more information see the HTML Goodies Tutorial on HEAD Commands.

      • The visitors that really count are the ones that come back time and again. You can encourage this by making it obvious that you update your website regularly. This doesn't have to mean adding a whole new page every week - a simple "Quote of the Week" [or joke, or whatever], or monthly article will do. When you add new articles, mark them as "new" or better yet put the date next to the link to that article. If you have a "What's New" section it should show a history of regular updates. Another way to encourage repeat visitors is to include a form for them to fill out, asking to be notified when you update your page.

      • Give your visitors some way to contact you. If you don't want to put your email address on your website, you can have the GeoGuide which includes a "Mail Me" link but does not tell the world your email address. This way you can be reached when there are problems found on your website - and also when people really like it!!!!

      • Take a look at what other people have done. Don't throw out your own ideas for a copy of somebody else's site, but browsing great sites will give you ideas. You can see how the html code is used on a site by using your browser's "View - Document Source" menu. The html code on other websites is normally copyrighted, but this will show you how to set up tables, sound files, etc. You can also get help from HTML Goodies Tutorials, QuickStart, and HTML Helper.

      • And of course, it's always a good idea to ask an experienced person to give you a site critique.


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