Webpage Tips

As a working mother of two, I must admit that sometimes my house isn’t ready forcompany. Yes, you might trip over a few pairs of shoes when you walk in and youmight have to wait for dinner while I dig around for some frozen pot pies and someclean dishes to serve them in.However, as Web Mistress of http://www.allparody.com, I’m always prepared tohave company come into my “home. Here I can easily hide all the dirty socks underthe bed but the only thing you’ll see is is my best foot forward. When you present awebsite for your readers, you are inviting them to observe your house to take partin your metaphorical meal. To keep company in your house, you'd better makesure that the coffees hot and the service is fast and good.Julia Child did not become a successful chef without using her tools of the trade toprovide a visual, culinary masterpiece. Brando wouldn’t have been able to screamat Stella without his script, staging, lighting and the direction! Bill Gates wouldn’thave been able to build Microsoft without being a programming geek!But where do YOU, as the novice, find the tools of the trade? And are theyexpensive? The beauty and wonder of the web is ANYONE has access to FREEyou need to put together a truly terrific website. You’ve registered with the top search engines, such as yahoo.com, excite.com,google.com. Your site is advertised in newsletters, bulletin boards, guestbooks, linkexchanges, top site lists and more. Customers hit a key word and find themselvesat your site. Now the question is, are they STAYING, or does your site become a 5 second pitstop in the Internet raceway?Terrific graphics are wonderful, but guess what? They are passé on the net if theyare slow loading! Did you know that Yahoo.com’s splash page loads in under 6seconds, even on a 14.4 modem?? There’s a reason they are so successful!Let’s say you are the owner of JimBob’s Fishing Hole, selling quality lures andhooks. A fisherman will wait patiently for hours for a catch. On the net, the samefisherman will wait an average of 8-12 seconds if the site doesn’t load quicklyenough. The average Joe doesn’t want to wait three minutes to see the jpeg of that22" bass you caught on Lake Kokomo! This potential “fish” is going get awayunless you masterfully bait the hook.Gif crunching is the answer!(www.gifcruncher.com) A gif image has a series ofoverlaying colors built into it, far deeper than the average human eye can see. Whata gif cruncher does is minimize the unnecessary colors making your picture loadfaster. There is a sacrifice of some quality in most cases, but isn't it better tosacrifice a little than to whine about the one that "got away"?In real estate, the key to success is the three L’s: Location, location, location! Thatsame formula applies to your website. Do you want your readers to find theirinformation quickly, or to roam around endlessly like the S.S.Minnow on athree-hour tour? Organization and clear, concise links to your information is the keyto success. Your reader should always have an idea of what they are getting into.Avoid at all costs undefined links, such as “click here for a surprise”! If I wanted asurprise, I’d go buy a box of Cracker Jacks.Bigger IS better! Make your font size BIG enough for people to read. I’d like tostill think I’m twenty-four, but in reality I’m forty something. Although still sexy, myeyes just aren't what they used to be! If you make me squint and feel old, I’ll goaway. While incredibly small fonts can seem stylish and room saving, they tend toannoy readers. Pick a safe font as well, like arial or courier. Sure, your snazzy,unique EuroTrash#45 is a beautiful flowing font. But what good is it if only 10% ofyour readers actually see it, while the other 90% see a generically ugly default font?In summary, quick loading, ease in navigation and viewing, organized links and ofcourse, excellent content will get the readers who do happen to hit your page tostay there, and bookmark the page and return. Return visitors will make your site asuccess. Once you develop an audience that comes back for more, you have themakings of hit Broadway show.