Creating a five-page wonder website

(Note: This page doesnt give away any trade secrets. If these are good tips, they are tips I discovered or researched myself and are therefore mine to give away. Enjoy!)

Ive recently put a website together for our ensemble. Its a really simple site, a five-page wonder. Nothing complex, no sign-ins, no guest book or other complications. Just a shop window, so to speak. Its terribly easy. (If youre working in Yoomla, Yola or Wix, its even easier as you simply drag and drop.) You use what youd have on your business card for a home page: In our case, the logo and details. Then you stick up an about page, saying in a short blurb what you are about. Do you sell salted fish? Are you the Local Circus or perhaps the Animal Health Initiative? Tell people who you are and what you can do for them. Step three: They need to be able to contact you. If youre programming in html and are not versed in forms and php, then simply put a link to your email address. But it is nicer to have a php form where people can put their request into the block and click a send button. Apparently (so I read) people are more inclined to fill in a quick web form than to email an address on a site. The crawlers and bots on the other hand like crawling the addresses and putting unwanted stuff into your mailbox. Hum. That is really all that is needed, but if you want to be really effective, put up another page with a mailing list form. And, voil, theres your mini website. With your website, you need to focus on some things. Firstly, whom are you addressing. You cant please everyone; so pick who is most likely to benefit from your site, and design it for them. Secondly, keep it functional! Test your site in several browsers. There are older versions of some browsers that make hash of a lot of our neat little web tricks. But you need to test in all these browsers anyway because a cool half of your clients still use some outdated old thing. A good rule of thumb is to keep it simple, and not to use too many shortcuts when programming in hard code. Some old browsers dont get the shortcuts. Thirdly: Focus on your product. (Oy, if I only listened to my own advice!) Is it an artists portfolio, or a single concept youre presenting, or are you setting up a little spaza shop online? If you actually want to sell stuff from your website, thats another matter and then youre in for it. Youll need a whole shopping setup. I recommend either a good template or a professional designer. Now go for it what are you waiting for? ;)