Building Business Websites

Lesson 2: Code, Graphics and Navigation...oh my!

Page Layout

Now let's think about how we want our pages to be laid out.

I was going to talk about the "cookie cutter" approach to site building a little later in our lessons, but I changed my mind, and I think now is a good time to review it.

There are a zillion companies out there that will provide a site template for you at a fairly low cost. Sometimes, they even provide one stop shopping. They'll build your site, host it, and maintain the content for you. And, if you don't mind giving someone else control of your site, then this might be the way you should go.

There are, however, certain drawbacks to this method. First, customer service varies from one company to another. I've known of instances where site owners waited for weeks for content of their site to get updated. If you have timely product issues, say for holidays and whatnot, this can be quite a problem. Secondly, they may charge additional maintenance fees once the site is up and running. These fees are in addition to hosting costs, and you may get charged whether you make any changes to your site or not. Lastly, these templates are very often based on three or four template styles, thus the term "cookie cutter"-they all look essentially alike.

I have provided links to just a few of these providers in case you want to explore this concept further. All I did was type in "web templates" in my Google search bar, and this is what was returned. I don't endorse any of these companies or their products, I'm just the messenger!

http://www.4templates.com
They have some sleek products that you can purchase for between $4.99 and $25.99. These templates do, however, require knowledge of HTML.

http://www.elated.com
These templates are free. You can download the template and all of it's images in a zip file, including the original Photoshop files so you can manipulate images. This requires knowledge of HTML, Javascript, Winzip and Photoshop. Don't know Photoshop? It's a wonderful piece of software that runs about $600.00. Not ideal for the hobbyest. But I have a free solution we'll discuss later.

http://www.easyimaging.net
This site groups their template by industry, such as "Dentist," "Hardware," "Garden and Flowers," etc. These can be purchased for around 40 bucks. They also offer an installation kit for PayPal (a shopping cart application) for $99.00.

http://www.helendesign.com
This site provides VERY nice looking templates for around $50.00. When you click on a template's image, you are taken to a page that details exactly what you get with your money. For example, I clicked on a finance and accounting template, and got the following: "this template comes with welcome page, content page, Macromedia Dreamweaver template, and PSD file. Link (buttons) are in html text; CSS style; professional photos/images; easy to modify and add your own content." As you can see, you will need knowledge of HTML, cascading style sheets (CSS), and image manipulation.

http://www.godaddy.com
One additional type of template I'll mention here. This relates to our earlier discussion about software for editing. The nice people at godaddy.com have a plethora of services (and we'll be exploring more in depth later). One of their products called "Website Complete 5.0" is a completely template-driven application. You need very little HTML experience to take advantage of these templates. And the software includes among its many assets an events calendar, a shopping cart, and a guest book. You can either download it from the Godaddy site, or order the CD for $14.99 plus a one time licensing fee of $35.00 if you actually publish your site.

Let's say the people at Silly Soap reviewed a bunch of templates and downloaded the Godaddy software (at $14.99 why not?) but they still couldn't find anything they liked, or that they felt would best represent their company image. They decide to do a basic page layout on their own. Lucky for us they're doing this and we can learn from their experience, huh? Again, take a pencil and a piece of paper, and draw how you'd like your basic pages to look. This is what Silly Soap has decided to do:

They're using their logo prominently on all pages of the site. A good idea that one. Believe it or not, people surfing the Web sometimes forget where they are. The company logo is a good reminder.

Silly Soap decided to keep their primary navigation and secondary navigation at the top of all pages. Primary navigation being all those major pages like "Products" and "Silly Soap News." Secondary navigation are all those pages that "live" underneath the major pages, like "For Your Pet" lives under "Products."

Finally, they're leaving plenty of space for their content, whether it's product images, PDF files, or the games they're creating for their kids' section. What we don't see here is a place for a search capability. Does Silly Soap really need to be searchable? Probably not. Their site is small, and the navigation is always available. If, however, your site is going to be bigger than 10-15 pages, I'd recommend getting someone to help you set up a search feature. Your host can likely help, and we'll discuss host later.

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