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May 09, 2008

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Extra Website Goodies to Consider
ruby slippers nce you've decided on the audience, content, structure and design of your site, you might want to add what I'm calling some extra goodies. These are things that aren't the founding parts of your site but will generally enhance a visitor's experience when visiting. As with everything on your site, there should be a good reason for adding them. Just to have them is not a reason unto itself. Here's a list of goodies you might want to explore:

Audio & Video clips There are various ways of including multimedia in your web site. The most common method is to place an audio or video file on your server and then to create a link to it. When the visitor clicks on the link, the download of the file begins. Keep in mind that these kinds of files are generally pretty big. They can take significant amounts of time to download and may require a browser plug-in depending on the file's format. You may be charged extra money by your server if the server charges downloads that tax their server after a predetermined limit.

Javascript Javascript is a great tool to do a variety of things. Through specialized coding added to your web pages you can add calculators, clocks, some forms, and a variety of image effects. They are made up of text which is contained inside a page's HTML coding. This means that Javascripts won't tax your server.

CGI Common Gateway Interface is a method for running programs on a Web server based on information fed to it from a web browser. CGI scripts allow your viewers to interact with your web pages and your server. They can do things like search a database, leave comments on your site or create a chat area where visitors can "meet" to discuss subjects of mutual interest.

Animation There are two kinds of animation to choose from; animated GIFs and Flash files. Animated GIFs will work on any browser but usually come with some mildly-large files sizes. Flash files are smaller, more exciting and stream in so that they begin playing right away. Flash files require a plug-in but it's free, readily available and most browsers already have it.

Counter Counters track how many people have visited a particular page or site. You can get them in many shapes and sizes and can either run them from your own server or take advantage of one of the free services on the web. Counters don't look very professional. Professional sites should utilize server tracking reports.

Guestbook A guestbook allows visitors to leave information posted on your site. This information usually contains things like their name, where they heard about the site and any comments they may have.

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