elements
principles
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Before doing anything else make sure that you have answered the following questions:
1. What is the goal for your website?
2. Who are your primary and secondary target group?
3. What makes your offer unique - define your selling position
Some things to consider for better results with online marketing
When selecting a domain name make sure it's memorable and not too long.
If possible use the targeted keywords in your domain name.
Don't use underscores in domain names. If necessary use hyphenations instead.
Make sure that your website works properly across multiple browsers and platforms.
Let your visitor know what page they are on.
Be consistent in your use of colours and font types.
Try to keep each page layout as consistent as possible.
Make sure that important links and actions are enhanced visually.
Give understandable names to your images and external files.
Try to avoid animated graphics unless it's essencial for the visitor's experience.
How about your web credibility
First of all take care of all the errors, however small they are. Whether it's typos or broken links.
Don't get carried away with too many flashy things. Focus on what's useful for your visitors.
Keep your site updated.
Make it look professional, match the visual design with the purpose of the site.
Make it easy for your visitors to contact you.
Enhance your trustworthiness using real images or texts.
Unless it's absolutely essencial try to avoid ads on your site. If you must have the ads do keep a balance between ads and your content. Remember also that, according to the research, pop-ups are hurting your credibility and are annoying for the visitors.
1. What is the goal for your website?
2. Who are your primary and secondary target group?
3. What makes your offer unique - define your selling position
Some things to consider for better results with online marketing
When selecting a domain name make sure it's memorable and not too long.
If possible use the targeted keywords in your domain name.
Don't use underscores in domain names. If necessary use hyphenations instead.
Make sure that your website works properly across multiple browsers and platforms.
Let your visitor know what page they are on.
Be consistent in your use of colours and font types.
Try to keep each page layout as consistent as possible.
Make sure that important links and actions are enhanced visually.
Give understandable names to your images and external files.
Try to avoid animated graphics unless it's essencial for the visitor's experience.
How about your web credibility
First of all take care of all the errors, however small they are. Whether it's typos or broken links.
Don't get carried away with too many flashy things. Focus on what's useful for your visitors.
Keep your site updated.
Make it look professional, match the visual design with the purpose of the site.
Make it easy for your visitors to contact you.
Enhance your trustworthiness using real images or texts.
Unless it's absolutely essencial try to avoid ads on your site. If you must have the ads do keep a balance between ads and your content. Remember also that, according to the research, pop-ups are hurting your credibility and are annoying for the visitors.
Custom Error Pages with SiteSpinner for UNIX servers
There are quite many tutorials on making custom error pages but while creating one for my own site I stumbled upon few specific issues that have to be addressed when using SiteSpinner. Just so you don't have to search for instructions how to create custom error pages let's start with the steps how to to do it.
Create the .htaccess file Some webhosts provide an option to replace standard error pages with custom ones in the CPanel. In case your webhost does, you won't need the .htaccess file and can jump to paragraph 2. If your webhost doesn't provide this service do continue reading. If you already have an .htaccess file, simply add the following line to the existing file. If not, open your text editor (my personal recommendation is NotePad. Important! If you use text editor that uses word-wrap make sure it's disabled! and type the following line:
ErrorDocument 404 /error404.html
You can use whatever name and extension you like so feel free to substitute the 'error404' with a name of your choice and use your preferred file type.
Create the Custom 404 Error Page
Create your page using SiteSpinner the same way you've created other pages for your website. Add whatever content you would like a visitor to see when they hit a missing page or file. Make sure to rename the new page to the same name that you stated in the .htaccess file. In my example it's 'error404'.
Publish your Custom 404 Error Page to Disk
Unless you have a tool that allows you to edit files on your server you'll need to edit the html code on your page, which you can't do in SiteSpinner yet. You need to change the relative link paths to absolute and changing the save option in SiteSpinner project won't take care of this issue. The reason for that is that if you use any kind of images or external files on your custom error 404 page like your logo, the image(s) might not show up as the path to the image(s)/file(s) will be wrong. Here is an example why: if your logo image is in the 'image' directory created by SiteSpinner that resides in your root directory on the server, SiteSpinner generates a relative path to the logo image that looks like this:
<img id="GLogo" src="./image/Logo.jpg" alt="">
If the missing page or file that your visitor requested was not in your root directory but in a sub-directory, i.e. http://mysite.com/otherdirectory/lostpage.html, the error 404 page will actually be served from the 'otherdirectory' folder.
For that reason it's necessary to publish the error404.html page to disk, open it in a html or text editor and manually change the links from relative to absolute. The above code example should be changed to:
<img id="OLogo" src="http://mysite.com/image/Logo.jpg" alt="">
Upload your Custom 404 Error page and .htaccess file to the server
Now that you have your .htaccess file and your custom error 404 page ready it's time to upload both to your server. I find it easiest to use an independent FTP client to do that. Start with the custom error 404 page and then the .htaccess file. You might have noticed by now that the file you created in the text editor has the extension .txt. Many times it's not possible to change it on your computer but when the file is uploaded to the server you can simply rename it to .htaccess and you are done. From now on if somebody lands on a missing page they'll be met by something more personal and friendly than a standard 'Page not Found' message.
There are quite many tutorials on making custom error pages but while creating one for my own site I stumbled upon few specific issues that have to be addressed when using SiteSpinner. Just so you don't have to search for instructions how to create custom error pages let's start with the steps how to to do it.
Create the .htaccess file Some webhosts provide an option to replace standard error pages with custom ones in the CPanel. In case your webhost does, you won't need the .htaccess file and can jump to paragraph 2. If your webhost doesn't provide this service do continue reading. If you already have an .htaccess file, simply add the following line to the existing file. If not, open your text editor (my personal recommendation is NotePad. Important! If you use text editor that uses word-wrap make sure it's disabled! and type the following line:
ErrorDocument 404 /error404.html
You can use whatever name and extension you like so feel free to substitute the 'error404' with a name of your choice and use your preferred file type.
Create the Custom 404 Error Page
Create your page using SiteSpinner the same way you've created other pages for your website. Add whatever content you would like a visitor to see when they hit a missing page or file. Make sure to rename the new page to the same name that you stated in the .htaccess file. In my example it's 'error404'.
Publish your Custom 404 Error Page to Disk
Unless you have a tool that allows you to edit files on your server you'll need to edit the html code on your page, which you can't do in SiteSpinner yet. You need to change the relative link paths to absolute and changing the save option in SiteSpinner project won't take care of this issue. The reason for that is that if you use any kind of images or external files on your custom error 404 page like your logo, the image(s) might not show up as the path to the image(s)/file(s) will be wrong. Here is an example why: if your logo image is in the 'image' directory created by SiteSpinner that resides in your root directory on the server, SiteSpinner generates a relative path to the logo image that looks like this:
<img id="GLogo" src="./image/Logo.jpg" alt="">
If the missing page or file that your visitor requested was not in your root directory but in a sub-directory, i.e. http://mysite.com/otherdirectory/lostpage.html, the error 404 page will actually be served from the 'otherdirectory' folder.
For that reason it's necessary to publish the error404.html page to disk, open it in a html or text editor and manually change the links from relative to absolute. The above code example should be changed to:
<img id="OLogo" src="http://mysite.com/image/Logo.jpg" alt="">
Upload your Custom 404 Error page and .htaccess file to the server
Now that you have your .htaccess file and your custom error 404 page ready it's time to upload both to your server. I find it easiest to use an independent FTP client to do that. Start with the custom error 404 page and then the .htaccess file. You might have noticed by now that the file you created in the text editor has the extension .txt. Many times it's not possible to change it on your computer but when the file is uploaded to the server you can simply rename it to .htaccess and you are done. From now on if somebody lands on a missing page they'll be met by something more personal and friendly than a standard 'Page not Found' message.
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