 |
|
|
 |
The Home Page
The
home page acts as the site
guide, it is the page presented to website visitors who do not directly
specify a web page but simply enter the website domain name.
As it is usually the way most visitors enter your website it is,
without doubt, the most important page on your website. What A Good Home Page Must DoThe Home page must tell new visitors what to expect from the website- what is in it for them! This it should accomplish within the first 2 -3 paragraphs. It should then provide clear navigation to the rest of the site for new and returning visitors. What a Good Home Page Must Not DoYou must not try to put product details, details about yourself, your company etc on the home page. You must not try to sell directly from the home page and should not try to put all your website on the home page. Home Page File Name and TitleHome page file names are by convention either index.htm, index.html, home.htm, home.html, default.htm or default.html for html pages. For PHP pages the home page is usually index.php Usually your web hosting provider will tell you which to use, if not use index.htm as it tends to be accepted by most providers. It is possible to have multiple home pages files like index.php, index.htm etc. Which one the visitor sees as the default page is determined by the server settings and may not be configurable from the control panel but if you have access to the .htaccess file (I only recommend hosts that provide this) then it can be set there usung the DirectoryIndex command e.g the line DirectoryIndex index.php index.htm index.html will set index.php as the default home page if present if not then index.htm if present, if not then index.htmlTo test that it works ok just connect to your website using the domain name like www.build-your-website.co.uk and the home page should be displayed. The page Title and other Meta Tags should follow the standard rules for optimized web pages i.e. it should include your site keywords.
|
|||
|
|