How to Develop a Website
Organizing and developing your website into a logical structure

Developing your website

One of the best ways to do this is by the construction and maintenance of a website outline. This is where you will keep track of the physical data that comprises the website and it helps you to keep control of your growing website structure.

As your website grows it will become more and more difficult to remember where everything is, therefore time spent on organizing and developing a website outline will make the job a whole lot easier. The following examples of a website outline will give you an idea of how to accomplish this.

Website File Organization

1) Keep your website organized on your hard drive just as you organize it on the internet. This simple step will save you hours of wasted effort.


2) Keep files used on your index page and files used repeatedly in your root directory. But don't overload your root directory. Make use of sub folders that link to main pages in your root directory. (see website diagram)


3) Create a subdirectory for each series of related pages. Keep all relevant information together in individual sub folders. This will help you and the search engines find threads to follow and provide easy access to information for your visitors.


4) Plan for expansion. If you think a page on a particular theme will expand into a number of pages, create a subdirectory for it. And populate it with relevant data on that particular subject.


5) Keep files that belong on each page in the same subdirectory. Don't put files from your root directory into these folders, keep them separate and link them to the sub folders.


6) Name your subdirectories and files in an easy to identify manner. Make good use of your keywords when naming sub folders and files. This will unite the content of your website. They should all tie together in a logical way.

Creating Website Files

If you do have to change an address after your website is up, then place a redirect page or link in the old location. This will help your repeat visitors find the information they are seeking with a minimum of effort and direct new visitors to the modified address.

Search engines are critical of broken links. They will downgrade your search position if they detect too many dead links on your website. So, from the beginning be sure to name your webpages in such a way as to insure they will not have to be renamed in the future.