WEB 101

The information provided on this page is to help you understand what is involved in creating web sites. It should assist you to provide the information your designer or web developer may require or what is involved in programming your site to optimize the content while making the experience a pleasant one for your online visitors.

Basic Web Site Structure

A basic web site template consists of the following main section areas

Header Area
A header normally contains the following items:

• your corporate logo or company name;
• tag line;
• key messages;
• Login
• Search Function;
• identify a new sub area within your site;
• corporate address and telephone number; and
• a general contact email address info@guymercier.com

Main Navigational Menu
It is important to identify the main sections of your site. The Home button will let your visitors go back to the first page of your site.

This page is always named index followed by the extension of the file type. Examples: index.htm; index.html; or index.php

Other Main Navigational Menu buttons could include: About Us, Products, Services, Order Form, and Contact.

Content AREA
This is the content of your specific web page. Additional areas can be added for the following items:

• breadcrumbs;
• side columns for sub menu areas or additional key messages or graphics; or
• additional scripts or programmed items such as: forms, slide shows, animations, or login and registration forms.

The Content Area can be divided into columns such as: a left menu column to identify to your visitors they have reached a sub section of your site; to inform them of other key messages; to provide a Call to Action E.G. Register Now; to list features & benefits, sidebar information; highlight testimonials & quotes; or any other information you feel is appropriate for the page they are viewing.

Another example, would be including a table of contents in one of your optional columns for long pages. These can become page anchor links to let your visitor quickly get to where they want to be. I also like to add a Return to Top of Page link every now and then on long pages to let the visitor get back to the top of the page.

Additional navigational links could be added to make it easy for your visitors to get to the next or previous page of the document they are viewing. These are added when the content needs to appear in a specific order while giving the visitor quick navigational buttons to go back, forward, return to the table of contents, or return to the top of the page.

Footer AREA
This area generally contains the following items:

• copyright;
• trademark statements;
• links to Privacy or Disclosure documents;
• login/logout
• Repeat of the Main Navigational Menu in regular link format;
• main contact email address;
• corporate address;
• phone number;
• return to top of pages;
• modification date; or
• a site map.

The items listed for the footer can vary. I listed the most common ones. They do not all have to be there. It is at the clients discretion to choose what to include in this area.

Here are a few examples of the most commonly used structures. The content area names are generally the editable regions of the template.

It is important to identify what your preference are for displaying your content.

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