I set out the following Goals:
- Ease of maintenance
- Doesn't require frequent updates.
- Easy to setup minimum and expand when I can be bothered
- Pure html, not backend needed
Audience:
- Most people will come once only and check for 5 minutes
- Some people will have a look every week or so
- Index of regularly updated web pages, news sites, webjournals, iconz new-domain page,
tv-programs, MOTDs . Have comments as well - Usenet related links
- diablo software.
- Interesting links,
- Likes: Tolkien, music, movies, books,
- "Off Topic" - General articles, rants, whatever.
I had a good look at a piece of software called Daily Update (It has now been renamed to News Clipper ) which let you make a portal of headlines and other information. However this software went semi-commercial and I also decided I really didn't want to go down the trying to grab traffic path anyway.
Look and Design
The design of the site is very heavily based (and using page source copied from) Jokob Nielsen's site www.useit.com. I liked the simple colours, navigation and small page size.I worked out an overall map of how I would arrange files:
top -+- interest --+--- usenet.html
| +--- comp.html
| +--- misc.html
| +--- links.html
|
+- 1999 ------+--- 19991101a.html
|
+- about ---+--- bio.html
| +--- sitegoals.html
+- search.html
+- old +--- offsite.html
| +--- output.html
|
+- images ---+---
Search Engines
Internally I am using www.searchbutton.com to help people find stuff on my site (although these isn't much content so far). As far as possible I am trying to use keywords and summary meta-headers in each page. This is for internal and external search engines.Externally I am checking what search engines I should inform about my site. Looking up myself in a find that most references to me are FAQs I write or email/articles I have sent to mailing lists and newsgroups. Therefore it would seem important to make sure the URL is in my signature and FAQs so both people and search engines can pick it up. Having multiple links to it will also bump it up in any rankings.
Checking via www.searchenginewatch.com I picked out the top dozen search engines I would submit the site to: yahoo, infoseek, msn, lycos, excite, altavista, looksmart, snap, hotbot, goto, askjeeves, google, Fast Search, northernlight and Open Directory. I have decided to wait until the site is up before submitting to most and until I have a bit more content before submitting to yahoo and Open Directory.
Update March 2000
The site is now on most search engines with the exception of google and the directories. Google keeps hitting a bad page every few weeks ( I am unable to get the originating site to update their link ) and I don't think there is enough content for the directories.I am still in the process of finishing the content of the site, most of the things I want are here but still need a little fleshing out. I have added a couple of small pages and am spending about 2 hours per month on the site. I have made a couple of minor changes to the design of each page to include copyright and "See Also" links.
Visitor numbers are fairly low, apart from web spiders and other automated programs I get about 1 person per day looking at the site and another who will look at a single page and then leave.
Update January 2003
The site is now well indexed by most search engines. I've been a lax at adding new content (only around 1 article per year not one per month) so I've decided to change the format of the front page a little.I think the site needs to concentrate around 2 things. The first is general information about me, my interests, resume, projects, and favourate movies, links and other self-centred stuff. The second is for content I might provide that others will be interesed in.
Update August 2005
I think the site is due for a tidy up. Obvious things to do include going to a CSS based layout, updating content more often, perhaps a RSS feed (if only for learning purposes) and removal of old content.