Oldest Website Online Gets Facelift
Small business website reviews should be an annual event. Your personal sites may need a review and makeover, also.
My longest running custom designed website, and one of my first projects, has been neglected for years because of the personal theme. The Degerstrom International Family Page documents all known persons who share the Degerstrom surname, and includes people from Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the USA. The site was first launched in 1996 on Compuserve and then moved to free hosting on Earthlink, and then finally to the current dot ORG www domain in 2001.
The last design was an upgrade using tables for layout with older HTML code, and the newest version is in XHMTL with CSS and zero code errors per W3C's validation. The slimmer code of XHTML has taken one page from over 300 lines of code to just 126 to create the same content with larger text and an improved look. Less code means pages load faster, and using XHTML to design the website means it will unlikely need a makeover for another 10 years.
Six separate family branches are documented on the site with no connecting root ancestor. The genealogy and personal history of the Degerstrom family has been sitting stagnant for about 3 years and was long overdue for an upgrade. In addition a custom matching forum was added on June 16, and family members are slowly beginning to sign up.
My advice for small business commercial websites is doing a review every year to make sure your content reflects your current business. Personal sites deserve no less, and upgrading the Degerstrom International Family Page reflects my ongoing commitment to learn the latest coding standards and apply them to all projects including the personal ones.
TAGS: advice small business advice website redesign website design custom website design
My longest running custom designed website, and one of my first projects, has been neglected for years because of the personal theme. The Degerstrom International Family Page documents all known persons who share the Degerstrom surname, and includes people from Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the USA. The site was first launched in 1996 on Compuserve and then moved to free hosting on Earthlink, and then finally to the current dot ORG www domain in 2001.
The last design was an upgrade using tables for layout with older HTML code, and the newest version is in XHMTL with CSS and zero code errors per W3C's validation. The slimmer code of XHTML has taken one page from over 300 lines of code to just 126 to create the same content with larger text and an improved look. Less code means pages load faster, and using XHTML to design the website means it will unlikely need a makeover for another 10 years.
Six separate family branches are documented on the site with no connecting root ancestor. The genealogy and personal history of the Degerstrom family has been sitting stagnant for about 3 years and was long overdue for an upgrade. In addition a custom matching forum was added on June 16, and family members are slowly beginning to sign up.
My advice for small business commercial websites is doing a review every year to make sure your content reflects your current business. Personal sites deserve no less, and upgrading the Degerstrom International Family Page reflects my ongoing commitment to learn the latest coding standards and apply them to all projects including the personal ones.
TAGS: advice small business advice website redesign website design custom website design
Jim Degerstrom 
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