1. Give your home page a great name.

The right page name will help search engines like Google and Yahoo find your site. Use two to three specific words to describe your site, like.
a. “Scottish Highland Dancing,” not “Home.”
b. “Lawn Bowling,” not “My Club”

Wrong Way: Right way:

2. Keep your home page text short.

Long home pages are overwhelming; keep your home page length to less than 2 screens. Example:

3. Put 4 to 5 links on your home page to other pages on your site.

These links will help readers quickly find what they’re looking for.


Wrong way—no links! Right way—with links:

4. Tell people what they can do on your site.

A Wetpaint site is all about collaboration and contribution, but new visitors may need encouragement. Ask them to leave a comment, post a photo, share a story, etc, like:

• “Add a video of your favorite pet doing a trick.”
• “Email this page to 10 of your friends and ask them to share their stories.”
• “Do you know more about bowling? Add what you know to this page!”

Example:

5. Add lots of photos and videos.

Images make any page more fun for your readers. Get creative!

6. Add links and descriptions to your photos.

People love to click on photos! After you place a photo, add a hyperlink and a brief description of what it is.

Here’s how to add a link:
Highlight your image, and click “image” in the EasyEdit Toolbar. Type the full web address of the page you want your image to link to:



Now, add a description.
This is what readers will see when they hover over the image with their cursor:

7. Avoid blank pages.

Readers who come to a blank page won’t know what to do! Type a brief note to explain what you need help with, or what readers can expect to see.

8. Use headers and subheads.

Put short descriptive phrases in larger fonts to introduce new topics. This also will help readers quickly scan and find information they need on any page.
Example:

9. Use keyword tags on every page.

Keyword tags help your users—and search engines—search your site to find information. Tags are clickable and are found in two places on your site:

To add tags, start in the shaded bar at the bottom of every page:

10. Keep your site’s navigation menu simple – no more than ten or twelve main pages.

A simple navigation menu with clear page titles will help direct your readers where they want to go:

Sidekick.wetpaint.com brickiwiki.wetpaint.com www.wikipregnancy.com




Tell your friends about your site—email your friends and ask them to contribute to your site! Here’s how:

In the EasyEdit Toolbox, click “Email this page,” or “Invite others.”



Email a page to a friend: Invite others to your site: