Datasheet

22
Part I: Create a Web Page Today
 Monitor usage. Investing time, energy, and money in a business Web
site requires a trade-off among the Web site and other things that those
resources could go to. One of the crucial questions you may need to
answer in order to justify Web site maintenance or expansion is how
much use the site gets. Investigate ways to measure the use of your site.
A good way to start is a basic hit counter, such as the free one you can
find at the following URL: www.statcounter.com.
 Seek out additional resources. This book focuses on hands-on creation
of single Web pages and simple Web sites. For a larger business site, you
need access to additional information to help you with the planning,
hosting, and maintenance of the site. Consider purchasing HTML, XHTML
& CSS For Dummies, 6th Edition, by Ed Tittel and Jeff Noble, for more
information on the HTML specification, and Web Marketing For Dummies,
by Jan Zimmerman (both books from Wiley), for more information on
planning and creating a business Web site with a marketing bent.
Having a Web site that’s too obviously “handmade,” rather than professionally
created, can be embarrassing for a business. However, many sites are going
“back to the future” with a simple, clean look that’s light on graphics. So how
do you decide whether to make your look fancy or simple? The best way to
get a quick reality check is to look at some competitors’ Web sites and make
sure that your initial site looks roughly as good as theirs. And remember:
Often the most embarrassing thing is having no site at all.
Entertainment sites
Entertainment is one of the top few reasons why people use the Web, and
the number of entertainment sites continues to grow. Humorous pages and
shared games on online services are now a major presence on the Web.
People have high expectations of entertainment sites — which can make
them some of the most demanding to create. Here are a few suggestions for
creating entertainment sites:
 Don’t start here. Don’t try to figure out Web publishing by creating an
entertainment site at the outset. It’s a very demanding task. Try another
type first and edge your way into entertainment.
 Keep it fresh. How funny is a joke the second time you hear it? You have
to either frequently update the content on your entertainment site, or
allow participants to provide new content through their interaction with
one another — neither option is easy.
 Push the technology. Interactivity is also key to entertainment, which
means going beyond HTML and static graphics. You probably need to
figure out and use at least one more advanced Web technology, such as
Flash, to make a fresh and interesting entertainment Web site.
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