Tips for Beginners

Bypass common blunders.

 

Opinion page by Duane Alan Hahn.

 

 

Below are various tips that should help you save some time and avoid unnecessary aggravation.

 

 

Copy and Paste

If you don't know how to copy and paste, take a few minutes to learn because that ability is one of the most basic requirements when using computers. I was shocked when I found out that there are people who have been using computers for months or years who still don't know how to copy and paste text. They retype everything, from plain text to HTML.

 

Besides the two main ways to do it, you can also highlight some text, hold down the Control key and press the c key. Left click on the spot where you want to place the text then hold down the Control key and press the v key. It's easy to remember because the c and v keys are right next to each other. The keyboard shortcuts are nice to know because some software won't let you use the common ways to copy and paste.

 

 

 

 

No Retyping Necessary

If you use a WYSIWYG editor and want to change the font, style, or size of a chunk of text, you don't have to retype the whole thing. It's a lot like a word processor. All you have to do is highlight the text and make your adjustments. The selected text will instantly change with no retyping.

 

 

 

 

Clear Your Cache

This is one of the main reasons why so many newbies have such slow-loading web sites. They pack their pages full of slow-loading images and animations and then don't understand why their pages don't immediately load for visitors who bother to complain. The reason why those pages load so fast for the creators of those web sites is because all of the images are sitting in their browser's cache instead of coming off the Internet.

 

If they would clear their cache, they would see how slow their pages really load, at least for visitors who use a similar Internet connection. A web site such as NetMechanic can show people how fast their pages load using various connection speeds.

 

 

 

 

Your Main Page

It's amazing how many people still don't name their main page index. It lets you have a shorter address. For example, using www.mysite.com is much better than using www.mysite.com/homepage.html or any other thing you might name your main page.

 

To be clear, I'm talking about the file name of the page, index.html, not the display title of the page.

 

 

 

 

Smarter Page Titles

If your site is called Nose Pickers Anonymous, that's what the display title of your main page should be. Don't use something like home or Welcome to Nose Pickers Anonymous because it makes it harder for people to find it again if they bookmark your web site. Giving your main page a proper title is also better for search engines.

 

 

 

 

No Spaces in File Names

Avoid using spaces in file names. That's file names for your pages, images, music and so on. For example, if you name a page using spaces, it won't look like this to your visitors:

 

my pet mongoose.html

 

It will look like this:

 

my%20pet%20mongoose.html

 

Most people who know about this problem either have no spaces or they use a hyphen or an underscore (low line). Here are a few good examples:

 

mypetmongoose.html

my-pet-mongoose.html

my_pet_mongoose.html

 

 

 

 

Use Lowercase File Names

You never know if you'll have to move your web site to a new host and many hosts do not allow uppercase letters in file names. If you always use lowercase, you can feel confident that your pages and files will work with any host.

 

 

 

 

 

Use Relative URLs

If you want to be able to browse a copy of your web site on your computer or if you think your web address might change in the future, use relative URLs. A relative URL does not include all of that 'http://www.mysite.com' stuff at the beginning of the address. It's just the name of the file and the folder or folders it might be in. The 'http://www.mysite.com' stuff turns a relative URL into an absolute URL. Absolute URLs are needed when linking to other web sites, but you'll usually want to stick to relative URLs when it comes to pages of your own web site linking to other pages of your site.

 

 

Below are a couple of links that have more detailed information about relative and absolute URLs:

 

Web Developers Notes: Relative and Absolute URLs

 

WebMonkey: Linking

 

 

 

 

Creating New Pages

This is a tip for people who are not using generic templates. If you are making your own unique web site, once you have created a page that you feel is as perfect as it can be and you're ready to create another, make a copy of your 'perfect' page. You can then make changes to the copy, but your logo, navigation, and other things you want on every page will always be in the same place. Similar to people who retype text instead of using copy and paste, some people create every new page from scratch which wastes too much time and almost ensures that their pages will look irregular and unpleasant.

 

When making new pages from a 'perfect' one, be sure to change the page title, description, and keywords along with other things you are changing. It can be easy to forget to change those things if you're not paying attention.

 

 

 

 

Be Consistent

I have been to so many web sites where the title or logo bar is a different size or in a slightly different position on just about every page. I've seen even more web sites where the global navigation is in a different order on some pages and is often a little lower or higher or too far to the left or right. Those aren't the only things that people do to make their pages look inconsistent, amateurish, and untrustworthy, but I hope you get the idea.

 

 

 

 

Faster Loading Images

In case you don't already know, you can have two images that seem to look the same in every way, but one can be thousands or even hundreds of thousands of bytes smaller in file size which means that it will load much faster. To learn more about this subject, read my page called Optimize Your Images.

 

 

 

 

Pop-Ups

You probably know that most people hate pop-up ads of all kinds, but you may not know that another thing they hate are unnecessary pop-up messages where they have to hit an OK button to continue. One thing that creates those stupid pop-up messages are no-right-click scripts. If you really think that you need one, check out the kind I talk about on my Hotlinking is Theft page.

 

 

 

 

Text

Instead of repeating everything here, just check out my Text Tips page. You'll find useful information that takes many newbies years to learn about on their own.

 

 

 

 

Music

Another thing that many newbies love is music that plays automatically. Bad idea. It takes too long to load (even using a fast connection) and an unexpected loud noise is not usually welcomed by anyone. Most people won't like your choice of music, and there is a good chance that many people will never come back to your site after experiencing your sneak attack. If you must have music on your web site or you'll just die, give your visitors a choice. Let them turn the music on if they feel like listening to it.

 

 

 

 

Protect Your Web Site

Many newbies think nothing will ever go wrong. Even if you don't delete a page by mistake or make a change you wish you could reverse, there's a chance that you could get a computer virus or your hard drive could die.

 

To protect your web site, make a backup copy of your web site folder before making any major changes. Copying the folder to another place on your hard drive is better than nothing, but it's best to save copies to something other than your hard drive if you can. When you backup your site regularly, you'll get the bonus of having a record over the months and years of how your web site has changed.

 

 

 

 

Copyright Date

Make sure your copyright date is updated at the start of each year. A web site with an old date gives the impression that the owner is sloppy, unprofessional, or has abandoned the web site.

 

 

 

 

Browser Compatibility

All browsers are not the same, so cross-browser compatibility is important. Since you can't test your pages with every browser out there, checking with a few of the most popular browsers should give you an idea of what your pages will look like to most visitors. Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera seem to be the most popular browsers at this time, so you'd be wise to check your pages using all three.

 

 

 

 

HTML Verification

Some HTML errors cause noticeable problems, but you can have many hidden errors. Those errors may not mess up the display, but they might cause problems with search engines. If you use a program such as Namo WebEditor, you can check your pages for errors any time you want with the built-in HTML verifier. If you don't have your own HTML checker, you can use the free limited one at NetMechanic or the extremely picky W3C Markup Validation Service.

 

 

 

 

Spelling and Grammar

Poor spelling and grammar can scare people away no matter what kind of site you have, but that means lost sales for business web sites. I have a major problem with this one because I'm bad with both spelling and grammar. I can't do much about grammar, but I do have Namo WebEditor's built-in spell checker which saves a lot of time compared to other ways of spell checking. If you don't have something like that, you can check your spelling using various programs or free online tools such as SpellCheck.net.

 

I've visited many small business web sites that have a lot of obvious spelling mistakes and there's no excuse for that with all of the tools that are available, so be sure to use some kind of spell checker since most everyone makes mistakes. You can also check out my Common Grammar Related Errors page if you feel you're a little weak in that area.

 

 

 

 

Contact

It might seem obvious that people should be able to contact you, but there are a lot of web sites out there that have no way to contact the owners. Whether it's normal e-mail, an e-mail form, or a guestbook, your visitors need a way to contact you. Sometimes things can stop working, so remember to check your web site at least once a month to make sure people can reach you.

Back to Top

 

 

Background Color Changer