Building Web Sites All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 3. Organizing Your Content

In This Chapter

• Establishing and sharing file management conventions

• Developing Web site content

• Keeping best practices in mind

Book II, Chapter 2 helps you figure out what content to include on your site. Although, by now, you might have collected much of it, your content will evolve as you develop it. Web site content actually continues to develop throughout the life of the site. For this reason, planning and building a good organizational structure is very important, and that's why we devote this chapter to that topic. As you collect information, it's tempting to just dive right in to the artwork part of designing your site. Resist the temptation. The following pointers can help you organize the content (and save yourself some headaches in the process):

• Keep all site files in one set of folders. Typically, you have pictures, text documents, and other things, such as PowerPoint files and Excel spreadsheets. Some of these files will end up directly on your site and others just provide information. In either case, keep the original files together in a set of folders. Keep this set of folders in the local copy of your site. A local copy refers to the version of the site that's on your computer hard drive. You work on these files and then publish them to a Web server.

• Do first things first. It's actually important to start with designing the structure and maintenance of your site first. If you start with creating artwork first, you're likely to design ...