Website Tips -under construction

to Websites .............. to Index

(The mistakes I made - or things I am learning)

Page Title	Load in speed	Web Page Checking
Popularity	Files for Download	Forms - Creating
What not to include on your site	Using JAVA applets	Forms - re-formating returned forms

Page Title, Keywords & Description

When you have made a home or index page using a web page builder such as Word 97, then the HTML code is written for you.

Whilst you may have sent the page to your ISP website server, as say, Index.html, this is not the Page Title that search engines such as Yahoo, Infoseek...etc will register.

They get the title for their listings from the HTML <Title> code on your page.

I was mortified to find that on checking the Search engines to see how they had listed my site to find it registered under Index.

If you are using Word97 then View your page in HTML source, otherwise get to the HTML coding.

You should have between 5-15 words for your Title...e.g:

<TITLE>PC Relief - a professional, caring and supportive Computer Company</TITLE>

whilst in your code be aware the META NAME="Keywords" can also be up to 1000 characters so make the most of Keywords which give more information for the Search listings. E.g:

whilst in your code also be aware the META NAME="Description" can also be up to 15 words so make the most of your description which gives more information for the Search listings. E.g:

Note: I could add more lines to the above

Loading in speed - getting your index or home page to load faster

Your home page may take so long to load in that users stop the page and leave your site.

The best way to avoid long load-in time is to store your images as GIF files and have the colour decreased to 16 bit.

This is not always possible if the GIF is animated as reducing the image colour may lead to the animation stopping.

Also ensure that you do not have links on the home page that are 'dead' - (the linked site no longer exists).

Web Page Checking - Free Tune Up

You can have your home page checked on-line and a report given back on-line and emailed to you. From the results of the tune-up, you can fix errors and adjust your home page accordingly.

To get this free tune up go to: http://www.WebSiteGarage.com

Popularity

The number of links you have to your site from other sites often judges this. At this time I have very few so that you could say my site is NOT popular.

I can fix this problem by adding my URL to every site on the Internet that will allow me to freely add a link to my site, or pay for links to be included on major sites. -- I'm still working on this aspect.

There is however a point I had not considered at first 'putting value into the site'

A site that offers value to the user must eventually become popular because of its value.

I'm sure if I put sex images on my pages, it would become popular overnight - I've no intention of doing so - not that I disapprove but I want to keep my site suitable for all users.

To increase value, give information that the user might need, or files that the user can download. Put links to useful sites on your web pages but keep most of these off your home page so that the time for it's loading is minimised.

Giving the user Files to download

No problems here, just sensible actions such as making the files ZIP files so that your web space is not used up too quickly. A 1 MB file could take up to 15 minutes to download if the user has a slow modem, the same file zipped will take considerably less time. BUT Don't do what I did:

With Winzip:…..The program download I offered was zipped up .. How could anyone who had'nt got it, possibly obtain Winzip from my site when I'd zip the setup program - UH Big Red Bus - I felt really stupid when I discovered what I had done….If you got caught by this, then please accept my most profound apologies….

Forms

Forms are on-line forms that the user can fill in and send (via email) to you.

You can use any program that can generate a form, but Microsoft Word97 will do nicely.

A quick way to do a form would be to load-in and amend an existing form.

Using Word97

1 On the File menu, click New, and then click the Web Pages tab.

Double-click Web Page Wizard and follow the instructions in the Wizard. (Note If you don't see the Web Pages tab or files, the Web page authoring component may not be installed. Run Setup again, and then select the Web page authoring components)
Select one of the 3 forms available, then continue until completed.
When the form is completed, you can amend the form's object titles, and properties using the Control toolbar (View, Form Design Mode). See below

Form Design/Redesign

In form design (if form design is disabled click the top left tool on the Control Toolbar), click on any form object e.g. a Text box, Drop-Down box, List Box..etc (see definitions of these below).

Next click the Properties button on the control Toolbar (top right button).

Drop-Down Boxes

The Drop-Down box, drops-down a list from which the use can select a value. In the Properties window, place in Display Values, the values to be display in the drop down box. Separate each value by a semi-colon (;) e.g:

Display Values England;Ireland;Wales;Scotland;N.Ireland

Give the object (here a drop down box) a HTML name so that when the data is returned it will use that name as the field for the data e.g:

HTML Name Country

When form emailed back to you: Country=England

Note the Values field (at the bottom of the form) will revert to Display Values when returning later to the Properties window, so you don't need to worry about this at the moment.

Text Box

The Text Box is a simple window where the user can type in a response. e.g.

Enter your First Name: Michael ' Michael ' is placed in the box

The HTML name should be the reflect the text you placed to indicate what the user should place in the box e.g: FirstName for the example above.

The length of the window in characters can be left as default (50) or changed

The Value field can be given a default value if that value is likely to be the most common response.

Submit button

For the completed form to be sent back to you need to place a submit button on the form (usually at the bottom).

Move to the bottom of the form. Select 'Submit' from the Control Toolbar. Resize the Submit button. Next set or reset the properties for the button.

HTMLName place a name for the button e.g:

PostForm1

Action: <here place Mailto: followed by your email address> e.g:

Action: Mailto: michael_small@lineone.net

Method: <here place Post: e.g:

Action: Post

Dealing with the returned form

The form is returned to you via email.

Use File Save to save it (Eg: Postdata.att), then open the file in Word or Excel.

In Word, the resulting format will appear like:

InterestArea=Hardware&Buy=on&Firstname=John&Lastname=Smith&Streetaddress=123+The+Driveway&Area%2FTown=Seven+Kings&Town%2FCity=Ilford&County%2FState=Essex&PostalCode=IG3+8LB&Country=UK&Phone=01815992303&Fax=01815973040&E-mail=johhny@somewhere.com&EmailtoPCR=Send+this+Form

Tip:

You can remove the = signs and/or the & signs and enter a new line after each, to make a more readable list format giving:

InterestArea

Hardware

Buy

…..etc

Tip: You can record a Macro as you do this, so that it can be automated for all future 'att' documents. A more efficient macro (saving repeat coding made during the record) would call subroutines. For an example of this based on the sample form above, see: Sample Code .

Next convert this to a 2 column table (Table, Convert text to table). To give a format like:

InterestArea	Hardware
Buy	on
Firstname	John
Lastname	Smith
Streetaddress	123 The Driveway
Area%2FTown	Seven Kings
Town%2FCity	Ilford
County%2FState	Essex
PostalCode	IG3 8LB
Country	UK
Phone	01815992303
Fax	01815973040
E-mail	johhny@somewhere.com

Finally, if you are familiar with Databases you might like to link the tabled data in Word or Excel to an Access table so that your form responses can be added to a database. This is an advanced topic for this page. Check out my advanced database pages (under construction) or contact me for more info (michael_small@lineone.net)

Resizing Form Elements

The objects and columns in the form can be resized as you would normally resize picture/columns.

What NOT to include in your website

Keep it simple:

Do not include heavy, over large or complex graphics or animations on your homepage - this will make the page too long to load in, and people browsing may give up and then move on elsewhere without ever seeing your site. You can still keep the homepage simple yet graphically attractive.

Don't Mislead when registering your site with Search Engines, and don't lower the tone of your site:

Some websites are registered under sex links when there is nothing like that on their site. This is just a ruse to get people to visit the site - All it will do is annoy people and lower your reputation. Unless your site is a sex site, then don't try to use sexual items on the site. There is nothing wrong with the odd amusing yet clean animated gif, but don't overdo it on any page.

Variables - Dates - Tech Data

Don't use specific dates and other variables on your site, unless you are prepared to consistently update the pages. Technical data (especially in Computing) needs constant updating. Only use this type of info/data on your site where there is no alternative to doing so. My site(this site) is really difficult to update because there are over 400 pages to keep an eye on and so I try to keep variables to a minimum eg:

If pages deal with Windows software, then where the information I give applies equally to Win95 and Win98 and shortly Win2000, then I learned quickly to just state Windows (and not the number after it).
Catalogue lists and other listings: Try to avoid date specific headings, unless necessary. This way if the listing hasn't changed but dates have, you don't have to make an update.

I'm sure that you will find other ways to avoid excessive updated…its up to you, just remember, don't give yourself too much updated work to do.

Using JAVA applets

Whilst my site was virtually all created with WORD, the search tree and word search on my homepage were not.

These items were JAVA applets offered on the Internet. At the time, I knew nothing about JAVA (don't know much more even now - I admit), but I was looking for some way to put searching into the homepage. When the free site I had with the ISP did not offer any way to search my pages (apparently I needed to get access to CGI - Common Gateway Interface - and free sites do not offer this, only domain sites) then I was stumped. *

I found that JAVA could help do this on my free site. I looked and found what they described as Applets which when downloaded and ammended, could do the job.

I downloaded the required applet and the instructions to personalise it so that it could be applied to my site. I found the instructions simple yet strange to understand (as is the way with anything new) and.. after a little persistence managed to personalise them according to the instruction with the result that, the search tree actually worked.

With confidence now restored, I later tried again with a word search applet…it worked to.

So give it a go - you have nothing to lose - and a better web page to gain.

I got my applets from http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/www.simtel.net/simtel.net/win95/index-win95.html then under the J - Java Programming header.

(Link last checked: April 2000) In case of difficult just try http://www.simtel.net

- check it out

* Lineone now offer 3 tools which access CGI: The Date, Clock and a Counter (hit - visitors count). The Hit Counter is useful as the page your counter is on doesn't need to link to an external counter (eg: pagecount) and therefore your page will load in quicker as a result……Let's have more access to your cgibin Lineone ??!!

Check it out http://www.lineone.net

Sample code to reformat a returned email form (green entries are comments only)

See below on how to insert this code as macros in your .att document

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.

Sub ConvertPostData()

For iter = 1 To 13

Call ClearEquals

Call ClearAnd

Next iter

' note the following code should be on one line (delete the spaces after =True, and after =False or use a _ mark at the end of the line(s) e.g =True,_ )

Selection.WholeStory.Selection.ConvertToTableSeparator: wdSeparateByParagraphs , NumColumns:=2, NumRows:=13, Format:=wdTableFormatNone, ApplyBorders:=True, ApplyShading:=True, ApplyFont:=True, ApplyColor:=True, ApplyHeadingRows:=True, ApplyLastRow:=False, ApplyFirstColumn:=True, ApplyLastColumn:=False, AutoFit:=False

ActiveWindow.ActivePane.VerticalPercentScrolled = 0

Selection.Find.ClearFormatting

With Selection.Find

.Text = "+"

.Replacement.Text = " "

.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindAsk

.Format = False

.MatchCase = False

.MatchWholeWord = False

.MatchWildcards = False

.MatchSoundsLike = False

.MatchAllWordForms = False

End With

Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

End Sub

Sub ClearEquals()

Selection.Find.ClearFormatting

With Delection.Find

.Text = "="

.Replacement.Text = ""

.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Format = False

.MatchCase = False

.MatchWholeWord = False

.MatchWildcards = False

.MatchSoundsLike = False

.MatchAllWordForms = False

End With

Selection.Find.Execute

Selectio.Delete Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1

Selection.TypeParagraph

End Sub

Sub ClearAnd()

Selection.Find.ClearFormatting

With Selection.Find

.Text = "&"

.Replacement.Text = ""

.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Format = False

.MatchCase = False

.MatchWholeWorld = False

.MatchWildcards = False

.MatchSoundsLike = False

.MatchAllWordForms = False

End With

Selection.Find.Execute

Selection.Delete Unit:=wdCharcter, Count:=1

Selection.TypeParagraph

End Sub

------------------------------------------------------------

How to insert and run in your .att document

On the Word Menu: Tools, Macro, Visual Basic Editor.

When the edit opens, double-click on 'This document'

A blank code sheet appears.

Paste the above code in to this sheet.

Once pasted in, the code should all be in black, apart from key commands in blue and a comment in green.

If any code appears in red there is an error. For a broken line place a _ mark at the end of any command line that has broken down to the next line.

Click on the Word document on the Start bar to return to the Word document.

Save the File, 'File, Save'

On the Word menu, click on 'Tools'

click on 'Macro'

click on 'Macros'

Click on 'ConvertPostData' in the list

Click on 'Run'

Provided their are no errors in the pasting in of the code, it should remove any = and + characters and any blank spaces (""), and leave the results formatted in to in a 2 column table.