Returning visitors should always check What's New first.
This site provides tips on designing and developing web sites and administering the computers they run on and the networks of which they are a part. It includes tutorials on several topics. These were written mostly in 2001 and 2002. Much has changed since then, but the basics are largely the same. I've tried to order the topics from the least dated to the most dated.
opinion pieces:
and case studies:
I hate the "Home Page". It's supposed to be the most important page on a site but I've never figured out what to do with it. For big sites that change constantly, it's an ideal place to highlight new stories, features, topics, products, or whatever. My site doesn't change quickly enough for that kind of use. The What's New page serves this function much better and is the page any repeat visitors really should book mark.
Some sites use a home page as an essential menu page to help users find their way around the site. I'd like to think I have the most comprehensive and usable navigation aids of any site I know, as a standard part of every page. I do use the home page as a menu but as the content increases, and what I say about each section linked to from the home page decreases, the home page increasingly looks like a rehash of the site map.
I know that most visitors don't enter the site through the home page. Those that do seem to be mostly return users who've booked marked the home page. At least very few who start with the home page have a referrer and I'm not sure what else might account for this. All search engine results and links from other sites lead to specific content pages and not the home page.
The book, Guide to Building an Association Web Site, will never be completed. More or less completed sections are on-line. Clearly interests in security and open source products pushed aside things I planned to do when I first set out on my own.
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