5.Hard to read

Is your message easy to read? Easy reading is more critical onscreen than in print. Problems that might be overlooked on paper are critical online. • Long lines of text are difficult to read and make it easy for visitors to lose their place at end of each line. Limit line length to 2/3’ds width of screen. • Keep sentences and paragraphs short, and add extra space between paragraphs. • Frequent subheads break body copy into short, bite-sized chunks. Each subhead “advertises” following text and provides an additional point for visitors to begin reading your message.

6.Hard to print

Do you make it easy for visitors to print important articles and descriptions? Links to “printer friendly pages,” correct line-and page breaks—add perceived value to your message and make it easier to share and read your message offline. You don’t need to offer a printer-friendly link of every page, just key articles or important products or upcoming events.

7.Hard to share

Do you make it easy for visitors to pass-along important articles to others? An “E-mail this to a friend or co-worker” link can expose your message to others who may join your opt-in e-mail list.

8.Hard to contact you

Do you make it easy for visitors to contact you? Do you include full contact information on every page, i.e. phone, fax, e-mail, and postal address? Avoid a single “contact us” link that only loads visitor’s e-mail program. Give visitors multiple chances to call, fax, or mail a letter!

** Toolkit Item 3 – WS FTP ** This is a great tool for moving your files back and forth from your pc to your server. Dreamweaver has a feature that allows you to connect directly to your server to download and upload html files and images for your website. But I prefer to have more control over moving files back and forth from my local pc to my server that houses my website. Therefore, I use WS FTP (FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol). This tool enables me to move my files with ease and with complete control. Get it at http://www.tucows.com.

FTP Trick: This is more of a suggestion than a trick. To make changes in your html files, always download latest file(s) from your website’s server down to your local machine first. Then make your changes, edits or updates, save your work, and upload file(s) back to your server. In other words, do your entire html editing on your local machine and upload latest version after your editing back to your live server. Try to avoid editing files directly on your server. This methodology will help ensure that your site visitors don’t see files ‘in progress’ or errors.

** Toolkit Item 4 – WebTrends ** This tool is vital for anyone wishing to conduct intelligent e-marketing campaigns and has interest in improving one’s website. It allows you to analyze your website statistics. It tells you how many people visited your site, how they got there, where they went once they arrived and a huge amount of other critical data. Get it at http://www.webtrends.com.

** Toolkit Item 5 – WebPosition Gold ** If you want to know how your website is ranking in search engines, this tool is a must have. It allows you to set up a profile for your website asking you to enter keyword phrases and choose search engines. By running program after you complete your profile, it will tell you where you rank for each engine for each keyword phrase. If you find that you’re not ranking well, you can make changes to your website and run program again in a few days or weeks to determine if your rankings have improved. Get it at http://www.webposition-gold-2.net.

If you purchase these tools and learn to use them properly, you’ll have everything you need to create and manage a website. Your toolkit will be complete. I am sure there are other great tools out there, but these are ones I use, (and I have no affiliation with any of these companies). I’ve found them to be extremely helpful. Another webmaster ‘trick’ I use is to utilize great websites that contain excellent tips, tricks and resources for creating and managing websites. Below is a partial list of websites I visit regularly.

Webmonkey – http://www.webmonkey.com HTML Goodies - http://www.htmlgoodies.com World Wide Web Consortium - http://www.w3c.org Webmaster Directory - http://www.webdevsites.com Free HTML Validator - http://www.feedvalidator.org Webmaster resources from Webmaster Toolkit. - http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com Webmaster.org - http://www.webmaster.org The Webmaster's Reference Library - http://www.webreference.com SitePoint : New Articles, for Web Developers and Designers - http://www.sitepoint.com Webmaster's Color Lab - http://www.visibone.com/colorlab SiteProNews - http://www.sitepronews.com Webmaster Tool Collection - http://www.webmaster-tool-collection.com