Commercial websites are built from templates. A template constructs each part of a typical webpage, with a "hole" in the centre for the unique page content. This takes many hours to build from scratch, but it's worth it. Now you can create page after page from the template. For each webpage you'll insert a page title, meta tag content (see Point #7 below), a headline, and the text content, each in its appropriate spot.

Take a look at the sample webpage below. It's simplified here, but the article content is surrounded by four sections, each of which is shown when a web browser comes to the webpage:

top.ssi -- inserts the masthead graphic, a banner ad, and some of the "tabs" navigation system at the top of the page. This is a separate file, called "top.ssi" that is inserted at the top. menu.ssi -- inserts the complex left-side menu plus a database search feature. bottom.ssi -- inserts a subscription form for a newsletter, plus more navigation links, copyright and trademark information. right.ssi -- inserts cover shots of books, plus links to purchase e-books and affiliate links to products and services in the field of web marketing and e-commerce .

Each of these files is called a Server Side Include (SSI) file. On the webpage a single line of code calls one of these files and places it where it belongs on the page. Here's what it the code looks like:

<!--#include virtual="/ssi/top.ssi"-->

This command inserts about 50 lines of HTML. SSIs can be used to call the left-side menu, top graphic, a line under a page title, a banner ad, and the text and image map, copyright information, etc. at the bottom of the page. To change the left-side menu, you don't have to touch the Web pages, only a file.

The beauty of this kind of modular system is that a site built with SSIs can be modified or completely altered by just changing one of the SSI files and uploading it to the server. Now all the webpages in the entire system reflect the change.
This will cut maintenance time dramatically. For more information see my article "Server Side Includes (SSIs) and Navigation Systems," Web Marketing Today, 8/1/1998 (www.wilsonweb.com/articles/ssi.htm).

It is possible, of course, to use a template for your pages that doesn't employ SSIs. But if you anticipate a site that could grow to more that 8 to 10 pages, you're much better off building your site with SSIs.

Modern websites control the font sizes and colours using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). When you change the font size on a single master CSS file, it changes the fonts and colours in all your webpages.
Build webpages using a single CSS file, since it saves maintenance costs in the long run.

The design decisions that you need to consider here are many, since they involve every detail of the look and feel of your basic template. Employ both Server Side Includes (SSIs) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that make your entire site easy to modify and maintain. Also consider features available with XHTML.

• Technical Tips About Ssis: