Creating a Main Web Page


This week's article follows on from last week looking at creating a web site. This week we shall look at what is needed to set up your own web page so that you too can have a presence on the Internet. The topic covered will be:

· Creating your main page - index.htm

When you visit most web pages, you enter an address like "www.whatever.com" and an html page appears. The REAL address of the page is www.whatever.com/index.htm (or the index.htm may be replaced by default.htm) but when you visit a web site and a specific page is note mentioned in the address (the URL), then the browser will look for index.htm or default.htm. When creating a web site then, it is important that you start with this page - index.htm

index.htm

So the first page we need to create in our web is index.htm. This will be the first page visitors to the site will see unless they provide a specific page address. Consequently it is important that our opening page abides by a few simple rules if we want to attract (and keep) visitors to the site.

Your main page should:

· Contain the minimum amount of information on it - just enough so that a visitor knows exactly what is on offer

· Easily guide the visitor as to how they get into the rest of your site (by having clear links)

· Be small in size so that it downloads quickly. If your main page takes ages to download then visitors will lose interest and move on to somewhere else.

· Be simple and straightforward. Keep the "flashy stuff" inside your site.

Now these points in a bit more detail...

At first sight, you might think that you should have, as much information on your main page as possible so that everything is on the main page, but doing this will produce a large page that will take longer to download. The longer it takes, the more likely visitors will not bother and someplace else. If nothing appears on a visitor's screen within 15 seconds, chances are they will move on. Therefore it is essential that your main page downloads quickly.

It is also important that a visitor can tell from the main page what the site is about. It needs to catch their interest and it needs to confirm that they have come to the right place. Most people surfing visit a page for a specific reason (rather than aimlessly wandering around the Internet). Depending on what your site is about will depend on how you convey this. Here are a few examples.

The copyright of the article Creating a Main Web Page in PC Support is owned by Chris Cruickshank. Permission to republish Creating a Main Web Page in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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