Website Structure

[skleiner]

Id like all your opinions on a question that was presented to me..

Website Structure & It's Elements I shall call it.

In your opinions, what is the most valuable piece...better yet, a breakdown of the importance of the pieces of the structure.

Taking a few elements such as:

Home Page - Text & Content
META - Keywords - Descriptions
Content
Title Tags
Page Titles
Update of Content

I know that each of these pieces must work together and with out the continuity between all factors, you ain't got much!

I am trying to show the importance of content, as well as content update and I am working with a "designer" who wants things to be "pretty"

My next question is.. if you have that "pretty" home page (when I say pretty, Im talking all images) and you fill the inner pages with correct & valuable content and all of the above, how does that work, and effect the entire site?

Thanks in advance, any info is appreciated!

[PaulR]

For wordpress, pages sit on top of posts so you should put your best content on pages then write a post announcing the page and link to it, and make a post every time the page gets updated.

[skleiner]

Thanks Paul.. how's your coffee intake doing..? Mine is minimal today!
I asked Rob if I could post this, its more about a website structure than a blog.

[Nadzmc]

Well, to me, I believe META Titles and Keywords play a great role, and the content next and the design right next. You might have a great design, but you need content to pump in visitors. You might have great content, but you MUST have done some optimization on your blog to be ranked good in the search engines to actually drive the visitors in - i.e. if your niche depends on search engine traffic. You can read this article here to get some insights on to doing some basic powerful SEO on your blog.

Good Luck!

Cheers!

[enterpriseJM]

My order of importance and comments:

1. Home Page - Text & Content - Content includes text and images. Your designer won't be doing you any favors by giving you a home page with only, or primarily images. Content is King, but search spiders feed mainly on words. The home page must be first on the list because, obviously, you don't have a website without one. It makes no difference if your home page is a static page or bloggeries.
2. Content - You can still have a functioning site without all the rest - not a great site, but a website none the less. Content is King. Good content, well formed, structured and balanced rules. Use proper markup with a combination of head tags (<h1>, <h2>, etc.), paragraphs (<p></p>) and good use of alt and title attributes on links and images will make your content easy for humans to read and spiders to follow and index.
3. Page Titles - a page title to me is the top of the content or bloggery that is encased in top level head tags - <h1>Title of Only Content on the Page</h1> or <h2>Title of Each Bloggery in the List</h2>. This is all part of well formed and structured content. If you confused it with "title tags" then please do continue to learn more about website construction.
4. Title Tags - although this is an important part of the construction of a website, it can be forgotten or left out and still the page will be readable and function properly for the human visitor. It does provide a clue for the reader when they glance at the top of the browser and see the title of the page they are viewing, which is also displayed on the tabs when using a tabs capable browser. It also adds important information to your listing in a search engine. The title tag is located in the head portion of a document and is properly used as <title>Title of Page</title>. Many people confuse the title tag with the title attribute, which in my opinion, is more important that the title tag (although I wouldn't leave either out). The title attribute can be added to many elements of a page, but is most often used as part of the markup for hyperlinks and images. It is read by both humans and search spiders. For the human, it gives you a kind of tool-tip popup when you hover over it that provides you with additional information about the link or image.
5. META - Keywords - Descriptions - not all search engines use this information and it doesn't add anything for the human, but it does have an important function in the construction of a web page. The description can often be used in the search results listing and is also used by some directories as the the descriptive text that is used in the directory listing. I feel it is important to include only those keywords that actually appear in the content of the page, but I have seen some who saturate their keyword meta information with words that might be relevant to the overall focus of the entire website. This is a mis-use and possibly one of the reasons it has less relevance that in days long past.
6. Update of Content - this is important, but isn't as important as all the rest. I've seen many web pages that continue to rank high and have high user satisfaction levels and haven't been changed or updated ever. Updating your pages keeps them fresh and search spiders like fresh content. The problem comes when you have great content on a page, it gets indexed and someone searches for that content, finds your site and then can't find the content they wanted. What did you do with it? If you simply moved it, then be sure to use methods that will direct the user to it. If you replaced it, why? Add content, don't replace it. Annotate content with updated information, or change the content in such a way that reflects the new information without entirely eliminating the copy that brought them to your page. At the very least, provide the visitor with a way to find relevant information on your site when you have made changes.

The above is my own opinion and certainly not gospel. I don't know all the answers because the answers keep changing and I am still learning. A wealth of information about building effective websites and web pages exists. It's prob'ly far wiser to search out this kind of info from web creation professionals than it is to ask those who can write well, but are more apt to leave it up to the applications they write in to structure it. I know that's not true of all the members here, but a good many wouldn't know the difference between a title tag and a title attribute if it wasn't explained.

Best R'gards,

Jim

[skleiner]

Thank you all for contributing to this.. it certainly will help educate some of the parties involved who have no idea. In their eyes, its all about the Flash..and I keep tellin' them not a good idea!

Again - thanks