Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites

Table of Contents

CSS is a technology that uses the elements of HTML (and/or XHTML) to define display properties for a website. CSS can be used to tell what fonts, colors, borders, etc. will be used for an entire site from a single document. This makes it much easier to change these properties across an entire website than with just the use of HTML. Many developers used HTML tables to create complex and visually appealing designs, before the acceptance of CSS. The problem with that approach was that there was no separation between content and design, which created problems when information needed to be extracted for other applications. CSS is also likely to be a long-term solution because it allows for more streamlined code that downloads quicker than the large convoluted mark-up of table-based formatting.

XHTML is a language very similar to HTML. There are only very minute differences that careless programmers will most likely not even notice. XHTML is a way to prepare sites for the emerging technologies of XML, and reduce the amount of work required when those technologies become available. XHTML is more a “transition” language that should be used until XML based applications become more widely available and reasonably priced.

Once the general location of information is agreed upon preliminary coding can commence. An initial Style Sheet (CSS) should be written for use with the rough drafting of a design. The first draft is important to the layout position in order to correspond with the proposed rough draft visual layout. This CSS code will be added to and rewritten later, but it should be developed simultaneously with the visual layout. Initial code layout should be checked and validated (see pg. 38 for validation information) for cross platform use to make sure that as many web-browsers as possible will be able to view the site while staying within reasonable time and budgetary constraints.

Appendices
(All in a single document) Appendix 1-1: Overture Search Term
Research Tool

Appendix 1-2: Wordtracker Search Query Research Tool

Appendix 1-3: Google Sets Website Theme Research Tool

Appendix 1-4: Reach/ Acquire/ Convert/ Retain

Chart Appendix 2-5: Zehnder’s of Frankenmuth Information Architecture Flowchart

Appendix 2-6: Search Engine Themes Pyramid Information Architecture Example

Appendix 2-7: Webpage Download Time by File Size Chart

Appendix 2-8: Expected Locations for Common E-commerce Elements

Appendix 2-9: Website Usability Checklist

Appendix 2-10: Text Vs.Code Ratio/ Content Near the Top of Souce Code Examples

Appendix 3-11: Overture Bid Price Tool

Appendix 3-12: Webalizer Website Visitor Tracking Tool

Appendix 3-13: AW STATS Website Visitor Tracking Tool Appendix

3-14: Clicktracks Website Statistics
Analysis Tool

References
Author Notes

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Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites Table of Contents

Planning, Developing, and Promoting a Successful Small Business Website

Writing Website Code for Small Business Page 23

CSS and XHTML

Planning, Developing, and Promoting Successful Small Business Websites

Table of Contents

Writing Website Code for Small Business
Page 23