How To Design Your Site For Massive Traffic
In order to tap into the power of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) elements, you first need to know what they are. In HTML, elements are bits of markup that tell a web browser to display or format parts of web pages. For example,
means paragraph, and means bold – there are plenty more. These elements are used constantly when writing web pages. You should basically think of your HTML elements as the organizational and visual formatting of your HTML document.
By learning HTML, you can tap into the power of HTML elements and create a more interesting website as well as tipping off search engines as to what the most important information on your web page is. Many people starting out on the web just use ‘easy editors’ (also known as WYSIWYG for what you see is what you get) that show the page as it will appear, without ever looking at the code that the page is actually made from. This is fine if you intend to distribute and are only interested in the look of the page. Visually artistic people are often drawn to using WYSIWYG (pronounced wise-ee-wig) editors when creating their web pages because it allows them to see exactly what they are doing and frees them from the time consuming task of learning HTML.
The structure of HTML is based on logic, order, and syntax and is, therefore, relatively simple to use. To make a heading, you use the heading elements (, , , and so on up to ). To start a new paragraph, you use a paragraph element (
). To format a list, you use a list element (start with
then use - ). In order to learn HTML it is a good idea to go to www.w3schools.com As XHTML is gaining more and more popularity among web masters (and search engines) it may be a good idea to learn that instead. XHTML is basically a more standardized version of HTML and it is worth learning. If you learn XHTML along with CSS, you will have be able to make extremely powerful web pages.
Once you understand that all you’re doing is providing these simple structures, you realize the understated power of HTML. You see, once your HTML structure is in place with the appropriate markup, you can add CSS (Cascaded Style Sheets) for visual presentation, using a graphics design program. Good elements provide meaning and structure to your content, making it simple to add whatever design you want afterwards.
That said, the most important HTML elements (also called tags) that you will run into are and (through ). Whatever you put between and is what appears in the blue margin at the top of the browser. This is also what search engines use as the link text to your site. Your title should be relatively descriptive and include as many key words as it can without becoming abrasive. Seven or eight words is generally a good length for the title of a web page.
It can be much easier to put www.domain.com/article.php?num=1 than www.domain.com/articles/article1.html. A search engine can easily locate the prior so there is no real need for the latter. The only time that you will see trouble is if you have things like www.domain.com/article?num=1&userid=2424 where “userid” changes for each user. If this sort of thing happens you may run into trouble and should arrange so that the “userid” isn’t completely necessary (unless, of course, you want the page password protected).
Another tag that is very important is the tag (or anchor tag). This tag is used to link to other web pages and it is invaluable to your web page because search engines like to see relevant links on your web site. Make sure that you only link to relevant sites, and while your at it, try to get a return link so that your page rank increases.
So how can you keep the functionality of your dynamic website, and make it search engine friendly at the same time? Well, suppose you have a website with products, and instead of having each product on one page you’re using a dynamic, searchable database. Searching returns a list of products that meet the search criteria, and maybe a small picture – clicking the picture shows the user more information about the product.
Some Guidelines for Using HTML Elements. While the BLOCKQUOTE element is intended for longer quotations and Q is intended for shorter quotations, the Q element causes all sorts of problems because it’s not very widely supported. You shouldn’t use it at the moment – hopefully next-generation browsers will support it.
The BR element is one of the more abused ones. If you understand how HTML works, you should realize that its use is rarely justified: use the P element for paragraphs instead of using the BR element to provide paragraph-like breaks. Now that you’re armed with some simple information, you should consider learning more about HTML and how to use it. You used to need to learn HTML before you could create a web page, and that gave a lot of people the edge when it came to more advanced web design and development later on. If you want to catch up, you need to know what you’re doing on the technical side of things.
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