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flyingrose
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Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2006-Sep-29 06:51
I know this is a challenge that many are facing so I'd like to get some great advice from those who have the knowledge and experience. Here's the scenario:
You have an old site just screaming to be brought up to date. It is generating some income and has decent traffic and excellent positioning in the search engines but the old look is limiting an abundance of great potential.
You built it long ago in FrontPage (groan) and haven't learned Dreamweaver, CSS, or any new programs for designing and maintaining sites.
It was originally built in FrontPage 98 because it is a directory and has an enormous number or external links to manage so the new solution needs to have a way to do that OR a separate solution can be used.
You've read the simply awesome book Don't Make Me Think and have specific design details in mind that you definitely want incorporated into the new design. (If you're reading this and you haven't read that book I highly recommend this be your highest priority before touching any site.)
You basically need three page types which could be templates - a home page, a category page, and a page used for the end product, information, or article. They will each use the same design and navigation.
Given the above, do you:
1. Learn new software to do it yourself and if so, which one(s)?
2. Find a template that is close and modify it somehow?
3. Get someone else to create several templates so you can add your content?
4. Another option I haven't mentioned?
I suspect the third option would be most time-effective and easiest to implement for someone who loves writing and creating content but does not wish to be a Web site designer and has little talent, time, or patience for graphics.
All comments, suggestions, programs or issues to avoid, etc. greatly appreciated.
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kaulbr
Joined: Mar 15, 2006
# Posts: 275
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Posted: 2006-Sep-29 14:32
If you have the money, hire someone who knows how to build a site right. You can get someone to design you a site and create an admin control panel where you could update your site and I'd bet you could get all that done for a grand or so. Not really that much. You'll save lot of your own time and you'll end up with a better end result. Otherwise you're going to have another site you're unhappy with in 6 months because you're so new to building sites. Just my opinion.
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g1smd
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Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10438
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Posted: 2006-Sep-29 20:15
Coding wise, get rid of all font, and br tags. Make sure that all content is in "containers". These are headings, paragraphs, lists, tables (for tabular data), or forms. Use CSS to style those containers, and use classes for any that will be non-standard, such as the navigation list or the footer paragraph.
Take out all the center tags, and change them to align="center" attributes on the tags they affect, or use CSS to do the alignment. Get rid of all 1-pixel spacer GIFs, and set margins on the block level elements to get the layout right using CSS. Add alt attributes to all images.
Try to use breadcrumb navigation. Make sure that every page links back to the root index page as http://www.domain.com/ and that all links to all index pages omit the actual index file filename from the link, ending just with a trailing / on the URL.
Fix up that 301 redirect from non-www to www and you might as well also add one for */index.html to */ too.
Make sure that every page has a DOCTYPE and a character encoding tag, and then make sure that every title tag and meta description is different on every page.
Run some sample pages through the W3C HTML Validator, and then run the whole site through Xenu LinkSleuth to make sure that all is well with site navigation.
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2006-Sep-30 08:20
That would be great if I had a clue how to do any of that. Alas, I do not. I don't even know what program I would do that in or have any clue how to get the basic look and navigation created.
If you had a FrontPage created site with about 1,000 pages and wanted to move and update all of the data on the current to a beautiful new site design and only knew how to use FrontPage and no other program and nothing about CSS what would you advise?
Learn Dreamweaver? Hire someone to build some templates that could be edited? (Would that work?) Do both? Something else?
I know what I want to do design-wise but don't know HOW to do it at this point. Most Web designers know less about usability than they know about SEO and usually very little about either.
Brent - if I wanted to hire someone and knew what I wanted the design to look like, where everything belongs on the page, etc. what is the easiest way to convey that to a designer?
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kaulbr
Joined: Mar 15, 2006
# Posts: 275
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Posted: 2006-Sep-30 15:21
Visually would be the best way. Can you use photoshop? You could mock up a design and give that to the designer. If not, you could even sketch it out. If you need stock photography, you could look around and get that yourself too. That would really keep your costs down and you know that you are getting exactly what you are looking for.
If you're just looking for someone to build one working html page from your designs, I'd bet you could get that done for a couple hundred bucks.
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excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14512
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Posted: 2006-Oct-01 04:01
Hey, I think that you should hire someone to build the template pages. The best way to do this is by using a standard website design project specifications document with a hand drawing of your layout ideas.
You will need to specify the main navigation and your sub navigation that will need to go on every page.
Don't restrict the designers creativity, but specify the items that you need and the items that you do not want.
i.e. you don't want flash, javascript or other indexable navigation, you don't want slow loading heavy graphics.
You can also get the design checked by an SEO expert right here in the forums to ensure the templates created are going to be cross browser compatible, user & search engine friendly and that they validate to W3C standards. I would recommend this before adding content.
PM me your e-mail address if you want me to shoot over a couple of example spec documents and give you an idea of where you might find a suitable designer.?
Also, as much as I cringe at the very thought of anyone using FrontPlague, in this case I would most likely recommend that you continue to use it for your new design purely because you feel comfortable with it and it will do the job you want if you have it set up right.
If you don't know all the ins and outs of coding dreamweaver or other authoring tools are not going to really help much either.
Another idea could be to locate a designer that can set you up with something like Macromedia Contribute. They can lock down the design elements that you don't need to touch or that could hurt the website if meddled with, yet leave you free to add edit or change your content.
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excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14512
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Posted: 2006-Oct-01 04:47
Hmm - if you are talking about the equine website then you maybe should consider the following:
Have the template pages designed, sliced and coded but then consider implementing directory & classified ads software that will easily help you to manage all those categories and links.
The base pages can be managed in frontpage and contextual ads and other paid for advertising can run throughout all pages of the site.
A website set up like this could be a rather larger investment than previously mentioned figures, BUT if it is more user & search engine friendly, more attractive and easier on the eye - the ROI could be very rewarding!
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2006-Oct-06 02:57
Thanks for all the suggestions. I've been tied up with client's work lately but will get back with you. Excell, I'm dropping you a PM.
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