Great Online Resources for Webmasters
By S. Housley

As the web becomes increasingly more crowded, it is
important for webmasters to take the extra step to make
their web sites user friendly. There are a number of free
resources available to webmasters:

What is a Favorite Icon - Favicon?
Favorite icons, also known as favicon, appear in the URL
bar. When a user bookmarks a specific Web page, that Web
page loads a customized icon into the user's browser,
typically a tiny version of a company or Web site's logo.
Because the favicon is usually displayed next to the web
site address, it can act like a small logo or an icon that
visitors can use to remember the web site or the site
address.

The favicon is displayed next to the Web site's name in the
Favorites list and can also be displayed in the Links
toolbar. When a site has not created a favicon, IE will load
the IE logo into the browser by default. When a user
bookmarks a page, the browser will request a favicon.ico
file from the directory of the Web page. If such a file
exists, then the Web page is using a favicon and will return
the file to the browser. Many browsers support favicons
including all current versions of the major browsers support
favicons, including Internet Explorer 5/6+, Firefox 1+,
Mozilla 1+, Netscape 7+, Opera 7+, Konqueror 3+, Safari and
more. If a particular browser doesn't have support for the
favicon feature, it'll simply ignore the favicon and the
presence of a favicon won't affect that browser.

Webmasters can establish branding by customizing a favorite
icon. The free service from HTMLKit
http://www.html-kit.com/favicon



Custom 404 Pages.
Urls are often mistyped into browsers. When a domain is
correctly entered, but the web pages full url is entered
incorrectly, it is possible to display a custom error page
to web site visitors. By providing users a navigational bar
or assistance rather than a generic error page. The
customized error page will help keep prospective customers
on your site providing them alternatives.


Webmasters should also routinely check their log files and
correct any pages that result in errors. Most log analysis
software will provide the referring document information for
a webpage (the page that the user was at prior to the
current page). Use the web log to track faulty links, if the
links are out of the webmaster's control (a 3rd part),
consider setting up a re-direct and forwarding the traffic
to the appropriate webpage.

Sample Custom 404s -
http://www.web-search-engines.net/error-page or
http://www.puzzle-place.net/error-page


Navigation
Clear and intuitive navigation is important so that web
surfers can locate the material of interest. Many web
surfers will enter your website and land on a variety of
pages. It is important that they navigate your site
regardless of the webpage they landed on. Links on the site,
should contain text that relates to the linked webpage's
content.

Consider recruiting a child or inexperienced adult to test
your website's navigation. Webmasters can often learn how
others view their website, by just watching.

Webmaster Tools
There are a number of freely available web tools that will
evaluate a site for a variety of things. Most of the online
tools will generate a report and highlight the positive
aspects of the website and possibly the negative aspects of
the website, as it relates to the evaluation.

Web Analyzer Tool -
http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/web-page-analyser.shtml
Search Engine Assessment Tools -
http://www.submitcorner.com/Tools/Assessment/

Take a few extra steps to make your site stand up and out
from a competitors.



About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon
manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a
wireless text messaging software company.