We receive many questions from people designing their own web sites!
Here are answers to commonly asked questions and some helpful advice.
| Alt Tags Also see: Meta Tags | ALT Tags allow you to give an alternative to people who have the ‘view images’ function turned off in their browser. Let’s say the navigation system on your website is a series of buttons that link to other pages on your site. If you don’t have ALT Tags, people who have the ‘view images’ function turned off will be unable to navigate through your site – in place of your button they will just see an empty space.But an ALT Tag allows you to tell those people what that button does. For example, if the button is a link to your ‘Site Map’ you could insert the following ALT Tag: <IMG SRC=sitemap.gif BORDER=0 ALT=”Click here for Site Map”> ALT Tags also allow you to raise your keyword density. |
| Browser | Software that allows you to view, find, and manage information on the World Wide Web! Most good web browsers are available free and should be updated whenever a new version is released to take advantage of the latest technologies. Latest Versions Click HereBrowser Compatibility – Designers should look at their websites through other people’s browsers. ANYBROWSER – http://www.anybrowser.com |
| CookiesAuthor Steve Nash More… | A “cookie” is simply a small piece of text information which a web server stores temporarily with your web visitor’s browser. (Note: cookies are *not* programs.) This means your visitor’s browser remembers some specific information which the web server can later retrieve.So cookies simply allow your site to store information on your visitor’s computer for later retrieval. A basic example of a cookie in action can be found here – http://members.rediff.com/lc/cookies.htm Another example is the “online shopping mall” that uses cookies to add items to a user’s “shopping cart” as they browse. And I use cookies on my own website to make sure a pop-up window loads ONCE ONLY ( http://www.shoptour.co.uk/webmaster.shtml => WHY YOUR WEBSITE SHOULD USE COOKIES Basically, cookies allow you to improve a site visitor’s experience of your website. I’ve listed a few examples to show how this can be achieved: * Cookies can store visitor preferences. This means you can present customised information to your visitor, as per their own requirements. (This is how portal sites like MSN work.) * Cookies can pre-fill form fields for your visitor. * Cookies can automatically login visitors to your site * Cookies can provide visitor statistics and therefore help you understand your visitor’s needs. Cookies can provide site metrics like unique visitors, average number of page-views, (Do remember though, that people sometimes share computers; some browsers are set to reject cookies; and cookies can be erased.) So not only are cookies an efficient way of keeping track of information, they also help personalise your site visitor’s experience of your site. And that’s the point with cookies – how can *you* help your site visitor? (No, it doesn’t mean how can you invade your visitor’s privacy! The use of cookies can be abused by site owners, but => USE THIS COOKIE RESOURCE CookieCentral is an excellent resource dedicated to all things Cookie. The site’s described as providing “information of persistent cookies, HTTP cookies, cookies with JavaScript, magic But don’t worry if that sounds too technical for you, CookieCentral really is a great place to learn about the pros and cons of using cookies. From the concept of cookies through – http://www.cookiecentral.com/content.phtml?area=2&id=1 => OR VISIT THESE SITES TO LEARN ABOUT COOKIES If you want to know more about how cookies work, then visit these sites: We thank Steve Nash for his excellent article More… => OR JUST DO IT YOURSELF! As ever, the web is filled with free programs and scripts that allow you to use cookies. Whether you want to use JavaScript, CGI/Perl, PHP or ASP – there are free resources that help you JavaScript cookies CGI/Perl cookies Developing a User Personalization System with PHP and Cookies ASP and cookies => READ MORE… You can find out a great deal more about using cookies on your site from the following excellent resources. Just do a search for “cookies” and off you go! http://www.workz.com |
| Domain name | The unique name for a Web site – www.ripefruit.com – names are registered (for one to two years) and remain your property. You can register more than one name and link them together all pointing to your main web site. More Info [ click here ] |
| Free Software | is it any good? Some of the best software is available free because the product either promotes other software or includes banner or promotional advertising while you use it. The best free software on the net Click Here |
| FTP | File transfer protocol is the technique of transferring files from one location to another. Typically you design web pages on your computer at home and then FTP the files to the internet. One of the best FTP software programs (that enables you to FTP) is available free! Click Here |
| Hosting | Hosting is like parking your car in a car park. The car park is the internet and the car is your web site. You pay a company (like us) to host your web site on a server so that it can be seen on the internet by entering your domain name. You transfer or upload your web pages to the server using a technique known as FTP. More information and great deals on name registration and hosting Click Here |
| HTML | Hyper Text Mark-up Language is the language used to create web pages. With the introduction of software like FRONTPAGE and DREAMWEAVER (WYSIWYG) web pages can be designed without having to learn one line of HTML! More Info [ click here ]Always check the validity of your HTML. Some Search Engines give lower rankings to pages that have poor quality HTML (such as incorrect nesting of elements).Here are some free online validators: HTML HELP BOBBY WATSON |
| HyperlinkBroken Links | are the highlighted words or images on a Web page that allow you to jump to another page. This is a > hyperlink <About 5% of all links on the Internet are broken. A site that contains broken links gives a bad impression to visitors and is a frequent cause of lost sales. Also, the major Search Engines and Directories will not list your page if it contains any broken links or missing images. Here are some free link validators:LINK SCAN http://www.elsop.com/linkscan/quickcheck.html NET MECHANIC |
| Internet/Net | the world wide collection of interconnected computer networks |
| ISP | Internet Service Provider, a company that provides you with access to the Internet. You connect through the company via a modem or cable to the internet. A comprehensive list of Australian ISP’s [ Click Here ] |
| Load Time | A slow-loading index page is one of the main reasons for lost sales. The generally accepted maximum time for a page to load is around 15 seconds. Here is a free service that tells you how long your web page takes to load:NETMECHANIC http://www.netmechanic.com/cobrands/FutureQuest/load_check.htm Your pages should be no more than about 30Kb in size. To calculate the size of your web page, highlight the HTML document and then click on ‘File’ and ‘Properties’ and note down the file size. Then do the same for any graphics you have on that page. Then add those figures together to get your page size. If your page is less than 30Kb and takes more than 15 seconds to load, the problem is most likely with your web host. The solution is to change web host. Here are 2 services that will check the speed of your web host’s server and compare it with other web hosts: HOST COMPARE CNET WEBSERVICES |
| Meta Tags | Meta Tags are so important. The most important Meta Tags are the Title Tag, the Keywords Tag and the Description Tag.The Title Tag should be no more than 64 characters (longer than that and it will be cut off in some Search Engines). The Keyword Tag should contain about 5 to 10 keywords Separate your keywords with spaces (not commas). This The Description Tag should be no more than 200 characters. Here are some programs that will generate your Meta WEBSITE GARAGE META MEDIC MULTI-META-MAKER |
| Off-line | After you disconnect from the internet, the processes which may be computerised, but not running on the Internet is known as off-line. |
| On-line | After connecting to the internet through an ISP. |
| SSL | Secure Sockets Layer – the industry-standard basis for establishing security of information on Web sites |
| Search engines | A facility that enables you to find what you are looking for on the internet by using words and phrases to search for it. |
| Surfing | the process of moving around the internet using a browser |
| Unzip & Zip | To enable fast transfer of files and software over the internet, files are compressed (zipped) to make them smaller. Then they have to be uncompressed (unzipped) to either view or install. Free Zip Software Click Here |
| URL | Universal Resource Locator, a Web address (ie = www.ripefruit.com) |
| WWW or World Wide Web | the entire area of the Internet you can access with a browser |
| Web site | a collection of pages on the World Wide Web (internet) under a common domain name |