Site Design

Whether you're redesigning your website, or building something new, there are several best practices you should consider when architecting the structure of site to ensure long-term flexibility and help maximize opportunities.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are the backbone of good site design.  Regardless of the look and feel you're trying to achieve, and regardless of how your site is architected, CSS provides the power to build a site with maximum long-term flexibility.  Major face-lifts can be made to your website by simply changing a single CSS file (or a few CSS files).  The golden rule of CSS is to use it everywhere, all the time!

Server-Side Includes

When it comes to management efficiency over the long-haul, server-side includes offer unmatched benefits.  Use server-side includes wherever it's possible to externalize content that's re-used in various places.  For example, headers that are used on all section pages (or globally on the entire site), footers, global navigation, etc.  Server-side includes can be updated once, but affect large sections of the website with a single publish.  Control the schedule of when a global design element is published, and you have a powerful way to time major changes to your site.

XML/XSL

If your goal is to design for maximum flexibility, you should consider tapping the power of XML and XSL.  OmniUpdate provides a built-in XSLT transformation engine to process XML and XSL stylesheets allowing your site to be reconfigured easily (templates allowing the ultimate separation of content from design), and output multiple files simultaneously (content repurposing).