Register :: Lost Password
Username:   Password:  
Home -> Articles -> What's in your website?
What's in your website?

profile picture Posted by Webline ( profile )
Date/time: Friday, Sep 3, 2010

( Print this article )

Forget for a minute all the major aspects of your website. You've done layouts, and color selection, and custom graphics, and more layouts. Content reading and re-reading and proofreading, call to action testing, beta testing and SEO optimization. And, probably more layout changes. All of the major parts of getting your site just right are in place. All of the major headaches are over with.

We all know about that stuff, so let's just toss it aside for a minute. Let's see what else is in your site. You know, the little things you might not think of that could make a difference.

Let's start with a robots.txt file. Is yours set up properly? Is it current? Do you even have one? Your robot file is basically a guide that tells search engines where not to go on your website. This can include both files and directories, and can be tweaked to allow some search engines into certain areas while denying others, or even keep certain search engines completely out. You can also determine how often your site gets crawled.

What about an htaccess file? This is a text file that does many things that are beneficial to your site. Within this file, you can stop "hotlinking" (other websites linking to your images and stealing your bandwidth), password protect directories, and set up redirects (like http://example.com to http://www.example.com). You can also rewrite urls to make them not only nicer looking, but search engine friendly. Which looks better, http://www.example.com?id=2388&title=testarticle.php, or http://www.example.com/2388/testarticle?

I'm guessing you have your sitemap in place as well. Sitemaps can be set up in 2 variations; one, an XML file for search engines, and 2, as a regular page on your site. Sitemaps are basically an index of all the pages within your site you want people to be able to find.

Favicons aren't going to make or break your site, but they can be a nice little detail to add. Favicons are those little 16px x 16px images that appear in the address bar of the browser of some websites, just like the "SC" image you'll see when you look at our url in your browser. They also get stored in your visitors bookmark areas of their browsers, so they offer a quick visual reminder for your users when they aren't even on your website. They're easy to make, and easy to add.

CAPTCHA is a must when you have forms on your site. A CAPTCHA is usually a short set of random numbers and letters set against a background image, and users need to enter the code into a text field for the form to process. These are designed to prevent unwanted content, or spam, from flooding your email inbox, your forums, and other places where user content is added.

Privacy Policy and Terms of Use pages are pretty much required anymore. OK, not legally required, but they can set in place your sites basic usage guidelines and rules to protect yourself down the road, as well as let your users know what you do, and don't do, with their information once you have it. Plus, it gives your site a more professional look.

This is not a complete list of all of the other things to keep in mind, but I think they may be the most important. By adding even small stuff, you create an even better website in the long run, for both you and your visitors. Look at it this way; no matter how nice that mint condition '57 Chevy looks, it just isn't right without the fuzzy dice.


Share this article.
  • ADD TO DEL.ICIO.US
  • ADD TO DIGG
  • ADD TO FURL
  • ADD TO NEWSVINE
  • ADD TO NETSCAPE
  • ADD TO REDDIT
  • ADD TO STUMBLEUPON
  • ADD TO TECHNORATI FAVORITES
  • ADD TO SQUIDOO
  • ADD TO WINDOWS LIVE
  • ADD TO YAHOO MYWEB
  • ADD TO ASK
  • ADD TO GOOGLE
  • ADD TO SPURL