Website Tips:
1. Understanding what your visitor logs are telling you.
- 200 OK (page and all contents loaded in visitor browser)
- 206 Partial content (Either the visitor left that page prior to full load or there is a problem with the page. Either way you should test page load times to be sure visitors are not leaving page due to slow load times.)
- 301 Document moved permanently (No worries but try not to have too many redirects- search engines do not like them.)
- 302 Document found elsewhere
- 304 Not modified since last retrieval (Page hasn't been updated since the last time that visitor came to the website. Visitor still has the same cookies on their computer since the last visit.)
The next three could be a sign of broken links.
- 400 Bad request
- 403 Access forbidden
- 404 Document not found
- 500 Internal server error (contact your hosting provider)
2. Website organization:
- Think of your favorite websites. What do you like about the navigation and placement of information? What aspects of the website keep bringing you back as a young person? Go to one of your favorite websites. Next in web browser select view then scroll down to and select view source. There you will see the source code for the website. If they use an open source (free template and pre-built Content Management System code) you can see which one. Drupal, Wordpress (wp),
DotNetNuke and Joomla are the most common. If you are very very new to website construction they might be good to use and to learn from.
- Now think like a business owner. Your company website is the first impression of your company that clients will see and experience. You have only 1 or 2 pages to get as much information about why your company is the best choice for that website visitor and encourage them to read further. What does this mean to you? It is important that any website visitor is only one click away from substantive information no matter what page they land on after being directed from the search engines. Always assume that the website visitor is totally new to your company and be careful not to overwhelm the visitor with too many links.
- Finally- Combine the above and have fun creating a user friendly design that informs and entertains and most importantly includes a call to action on every page. (Consumer Reports as seen on Fox 2 News suggests that once bombarded with information about a company's products or services the dopamine levels increase at first for five minutes during which time the customer is most likely to act.) Example: If the team Accepts donations through PayPal make sure every page includes a PayPal donation button. For Team573.com the call to action is the FIRST Logo and sponsor logos. We want our visitors to click on it and visit the FIRST website or visit our sponsors. So the FIRST Logo and sponsor logos are on every page of the website.
3. Using Website Creation Software- When using website creation software there are a few things you need to understand about Cascading Style Scripts and basic html code. Most website design softwares will guide you through the basic design process but the code will still need to be tweaked. Goto http://www.w3.org and goto http://www.hypergurl.com/htmlscripts.htmlfor help with tweaking the code.
4. Using CMS -
- CMS stands for content management systems. They are fun to use and simple to set up if you are using available Open Source Content Management Systems such as JOOMLA and DRUPAL. For the beginner they make it simple to add your own graphics and control modules.
- Getting into the code to create custom Scripts for these CMS systems can be a little dicey and time consuming for the beginner but once you have experience with customizing the css and other scripts you will have learned many things that can be carried to other non open source projects. When using any web database, php, asp etc... securing your server is very important. If you are using Joomla or Drupal their websites provide current information about security issues and they usually provide information about how to secure your website and server.
Congratulations You Are a Publisher- Owning a Domain name and creating content for the public to read and view makes the website a recognized form of media and makes the owners publishers.
The above was written by a current Brother Rice High School student and Team 573 member who was so inspired by the experience he gained from designing the websites for his FRC team 573 that he started a website design and hosting business.
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