Website Building Checklist

Key Elements

• Logo: Your logo, besides its function as a design element, a picture is always worth a thousand words and having an image is critical to branding and site recognition.
   

• Banner: A banner adds a graphical element in which you can state the purpose of your website, your slogan, your name.
   
• Date last edited: This element will tell your visitor that you keep your pages fresh and living.
   
• Title: a general title states the content of the current page and is the primaray element that search engines will read when crawling your website.
   
• Categories and content: Divide your content into a few categories. Have general sections that are content relavent allowing a simple navagation menu.
   
• Navagation Menu: Have a clearly defined navigation menu on each page that allows a user to get to any major section on your website.
  
• Copyright message: Usually found at the bottom, this element stresses that you work hard to deliver useful content and that you want to keep it yours. 
   
• Counter: A counter keeps track of your visitors. If you want people to realize how busy your website is and how many people are using it. People may see a more visited site and a better website.
   
• Links to other sites: Have a links page to other relavent sites. Exchange links with other people in your industry.
  
• Graphics: A few well-chosen graphic elements will enhance your page and make it astecticly pleasing and more enjoyable to readers.
   
• Link to homepage: Make sure you include a link to your homepage on every page. People will access your site on any of the pages, you always want to get them to the homepage.
   

Things you can add

• Member entrance: If you want to protect a section of your site (for example, allowing vendors access to prices that you do not want their buyers to see), you can "pass word protect" it using .htaccess files (apache only).
   
• Date today: A current date, often placed in the top right corner, will establish a feeling of "this site is up-to-date". Of course this does not mean you don't have to update the page often! Use a dynamic script to input the date in the page.
   
• Search this site: If your site is large, you should be able to search the entire website for content.
   
• Put in favorites: Visitors can click this link and the page will be added to their favorites using a Javascript-based script.
   
• Email page: Visitors are encouraged to let other people know that your site contains something of interest for them.
   
• Print this page: Especially if you have a content-rich site with a good layout, visitors will like to print your webpage for further reference.
   
• Downloadable material: Compose downloadable material and put it on your website. Not only freeware counts, also documents, templates, graphic material, and other stuff people are interested in.
   
• Contact information: If you're not afraid of giving away personal information, put your email address at the bottom of each page.
   
• Guest book: A guest book allows your visitors to leave a comment about you or your site. Can be ugly if you allow anyone to post commets, vistiors are not always nice.
   
• Link to us: Explain to your visitors that you are ready to exchange links with them if they want to. Have banners or images ready with linking codes that people can copy and paste to their website.
• Affiliate Programs: Have a ay for click thru program that affiliates can sign up for and send you traffic. You can pay them directly or exchange traffic on a 1:1 ratio.