Ingredients of a Great Website
In stirring up the latest batch of sites I thought I’d extol the main sifting, sugars and shortening of making a website. Nobody wants to lay an egg in this critical domain market. The proliferation of minisites makes me wonder where the line is drawn between full web sites and “minisites”. So as I begin a new site, look over my shoulder and see what the secret is. If your mouse is your mixing spoon, preheat your hosting account to 360 degrees and let’s begin.
Assignment of the domain to the proper hosting resource and name servers is essential as greasing and flouring the pan. While the registry servers and name records “preheat”, get your mixer ready to churn some code. Now, choosing a recipe. Open source apps and blog engines generic and specialized. What to do, what to do. Some recipes work with some ingredients and with some others the cake falls flat.
The basic flour of any website is its content. This can be pre-sifted, keyword dense, flaky, or sweetened with adsense. Shortening keeps many readable blurb choices on the front page instead of having one entry overmaster the entire landing page. Too much of any domain flavor gets old, keep the stirring brisk. Site browsers can “crack the surface” of the site with links and categories to the side. Images can soften hard columns of prose. SEO chips and text emphasis to taste.
The site architecture answers first of all to the web administrator. Ease of use is critical when pounding out submission, editing, publishing RSS and user management tasks. These tasks will always take more time than you think they will and will almost never be done until the next month end or week end. Then the cycle starts anew. Sites with aging content make me sad. The web hates a quitter.
I recommend selecting an app you know like the back of your hand. Hobby applications learning can be done on downtime. WordPress hides the fact you have only one channel of update a day. DotnetNuke and Joomla have many portals of publications and many containers for collaboration and mass publication. MovableType or Serendipity or DruPal only if you love the interface. I don’t.
Next consider nutritional value of the website. Mixing proteins with healthy carbs and necessary fats is required. Some ads, lots of healthy content and some high-protein blurbs can make a balanced meal of a website. Some people are strictly meat and potatoes browsers who want density and a strong keyword mix. Some like the carb dishes served up next to graphics and widgets. Website fats are videos and sound bites.
Combine the elements, mixing them together so they rise to the occasion in the application engine and form a sticky site. Leave a few lumps to catch the eye. Don’t over mix. The batter will be textured and more than one color. If the taste of the raw material in the text form is different from the finished product, consider packaging the dough in a less high-finish shape.
Get some domain tasters and fellow chefs to give some feedback on the new recipe. Mix in batches. Stir in more video, some Youtube, some tunes or product tie ins. Take a survey regarding site appeal. Everyone agrees every dish can be improved or spiced up a little. And no enterprise lives up to the maxim “too many cooks in the kitchen” like web site design.
Serve as desired.
