When I am talking about ’stickiness’ (in the context of a website,) I am talking about how long and how often people visit your website.

When you have a real ’sticky’ website, people will spend more time on it, come back often and will bookmark (add to favorites) your site.

If your website is not sticky, it’s almost pointless to make any effort to get traffic to it.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO MAKE A WEBSITE STICKIER?

It comes down to a few things:

1. Keep the website layout simple.
2. Keep the website layout consistent throughout the site.
3. Have concise and clear writing.
4. Have interesting and entertaining content.
5. Stay on topic.

I think the first 4 points speak for themselves – we all know that you should have your ‘home’ button and other navigational elements in the same spot on each page …

That said, I think point #5 needs to be expanded on a little.

WHY STAYING ON TOPIC IS KEY.

One mistake website owners can make, is to try and cover many diverging topics on the same website. This may seem like a good idea, but all it does is confuse your visitors, presents a bigger challenge in terms of organizing the content and finally, it dilutes search engine traffic.

I AM GUILTY OF THIS ERROR

I knew about staying on topic years ago and because of this, I started creating micro-sites that were topic specific. But then, I went nuts …

Killersites.com started to grow in all kinds of directions … soon I had:

• PHP articles
• Photo galleries
• Web design articles
• Web site monitoring
• Page Rank meters

… and all kinds of other stuff.

I should have kept it clean and simple and concentrated on the thing that killersites.com was all about: web design and creating killer websites.

MICRO-SITES

Because of the content-creep found in killersites (it has too much stuff buried in deep dark holes,) I’ve started to create my new and topic specific micro-sites.

Each web site deals with a particular topic and does not diverge. So far I have these websites out:

• www.killerphp.com -> teaches web designers php.
• www.killerajax.com -> teaches you how to use ajax.
• www.killeractionscript -> teaches, yep … Flash Actionscript.

… I still also have the classics:

• www.how-to-build-websites.com
• www.csstutorial.net
• www.secretsites.com

MICRO-SITES ARE ‘STICKIER’

To prove my point, I can share one very interesting web statistic with you: the percentage of people who bookmark my websites.

Consider these numbers:

• killersites.com -> 18%
• how-to-build-websites.com -> 33%
• killerphp.com -> 90%
• csstutorial.net -> 92%

There are many factors that go into affecting these numbers, but a major factor is found in the focus of the content.

For example:

The majority of people bookmark (add to favorites,) killerphp.com because the website is ONLY about php … and that’s why they are there.

Contrast this to killersites.com, where a relatively small number of people bookmark it … we get too many people looking for too many different things … the content is too divergent.

MAKING KILLERSITES.COM STICKIER

It’s not going to be easy, but I am now cleaning things up, moving things to micro-sites, simplifying the pages – sometimes spring-cleaning comes in late summer!

The Pragmatic Programmers’ Guide

This is the famous ‘PickAxe’ book that Ruby nerds talk about. A very well written book that is concise and to the point.

A COUPLE OF COMMENTS:

This is one of those books that reads very well. I had a hard time putting it down even though the coverage was deep – you’ll learn a lot about Ruby and maybe more about programming in general.

I never give the TOC of a book (that you can easily look up,) but I should mention 2 major divisions:

1. Part 1 is a tutorial that leads you through the core Ruby language.
2. Part 2 goes into the Ruby environment – the tools that you have available with Ruby. There’s a lot and they work well.

There is much more (advance Ruby concepts, Ruby reference) but I will leave that for you to look into.

FINAL COMMENTS:

What can I say … if you are using Ruby or you want to learn Ruby, you need to get this book.

Not a bad book for people who have a little PHP knowledge … but if you are a total programming novice, you will need to get another book … or better yet, my php videos for novices! I don’t usually plug my own stuff … but what the heck.

The thing that stands out for me, is the way the author is able to cover various PHP topics in a concise manner. He has also chosen topics that I think would interest most PHP programmers – they are practical.

Some highlights:

• The section on string manipulation is very good.
• Great coverage on the powerful sprintf function – something you don’t see often.
• HTML form processing (chapter 5) shines.

My only complaint:

… though the book says that all you need to know is HTML, this is clearly not the case. Most web designers will have problems if they try to tackle this book from scratch.

Final comment:

If you have a little PHP background, this is a good book to get. I’m happy to have it on my nerd-book shelves.

Killersites.com was first made famous about 10 years ago (1996) when it taught web designers to use design principles when building websites.

In those days, dancing mice and ‘under construction’ animated gifs were common …

Years later (2002-2003,) web designers started to become very aware of the importance of good code, separation of styling (CSS) from structure (HTML/XHTML), usability, accessibility etc…

This may be surprising to some (who may be new to web design) but before then, most web designers barely understood HTML!

WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP?

Today I think the next challenge for web designers, is to learn to program.

I know, I know … many of you are probably have a 1000 reasons why you have no need, and no interest in learning a programming language like PHP or JavaScript.

But consider these few simple points:

• Learning even a little programming will open you to a whole new world of possibilities with your websites.
• Learning to program will teach you to think in new ways that can have great benefits in all aspects of life.
• Learning to program will improve your understanding of web design – it will deepen considerably.

Besides what is listed above (with each being reason enough,) learning to program will give you a very marketable skill … you’ll be worth more!

MY GOAL

I’ve been dancing around the whole programming thing for a while with: the occasional article, video or podcast.

I’ve been slowly ‘priming’ you guys for the big move … the move into highest level of nerdom: programming.

…

My goal is to teach total non-nerd and artsy web designer types, how to write PHP. Not theoretical stuff; useful PHP that you can use in your own web projects.

Don’t worry, I am going to take it slow and do everything in my power to avoid nerd jargon. Or as I like to call it: ‘nerd-speak’.

KILLERPHP.COM LAUNCHED

To get the ball rolling, I’ve created what I call a ‘micro-site’ – a website dedicated to one narrow subject.

In this case, www.killerphp.com is dedicated to teaching web designers (not programmers) how to create database driven websites with PHP.

WHAT ARE DATABASES?

Databases are programs that are built to store and manage information. You can think of a database as a virtual filing cabinet – with extra bells and whistles.

Types of databases:

There are several types of databases used today. The most common being:

1. Relational databases.
2. Object databases.
3. Flat file databases.

You can think of each type of database as a different way (conceptual and practical) to store and manage information.

Each type of database has its advantages and disadvantages. That said, by far, the most popular database type is the ‘relational database’. That’s why we concentrate on them here.

WHAT ARE ‘RELATIONAL’ DATABASES?

As I hinted at above, each database type has a different concept on how data/information should be stored and organized.

A relational database stores (and organizes) its data/information by creating relationships between different pieces of information (stored in virtual containers) that are … uh, related to each other.

To illustrate the point: if you had a brother, your mother would be the ‘key’ that forms the relationship between you and your brother.

With this analogy in mind, we can say that a relational database stores and tracks data by establishing relationships by using ‘keys’ (in this case, your mother) that are consistent between two pieces of information – you both have the same mother.

Popular relational databases include:

· MySQL (often used with PHP because it’s free)
· Oracle
· Microsoft SQL Server

WHAT ARE VIRTUAL CONTAINERS?

We all know that it’s much easier to store and find stuff/things (in your home) if you put the stuff into boxes and then label the boxes … much better than just leaving all your junk on the floor.

Though naturally a messy bunch, nerds have picked up on that fact, and realized that computer information should also be stored in boxes (virtual containers) that are labeled. In a relational database, we call these ‘boxes’: tables.

In a nutshell: the virtual containers in relational databases are called ‘tables’ and information is stored in tables.

MORE ABOUT TABLES

Database tables are virtual containers designed to hold and organize data. In many ways they look like spreadsheets where database tables have both rows and columns.

The difference between a spreadsheet (like Excel,) and a relational database table, is that the spreadsheet is designed (has built in capability) to manipulate data for the purposes of presentation – creating charts and reports etc.

Where on the flip side, a database table is designed (has built in tools/capability) to organize and maintain information and it can hold much, much more information than a spreadsheet.

So yes, you can store information in a spreadsheet, but it lacks many capabilities (and capacity) that you would find in a database.

We will learn more about the makeup of a table (purpose of the rows and columns) when we actually build one.

THE ‘RELATIONSHIPS’ IN RELATIONAL DATABASES

As I mentioned above, a relational database stores information in tables (the virtual containers) and then creates relationships/connections between the tables (and thus the data that is stored in the tables.)

This system/method of storing information (by creating relationships,) is efficient because of a few reasons; the most important being is that this style of storing information (in tables that are related to each other,) helps to prevent information from being duplicated needlessly.

A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF DATABASE DESIGN

One of the fundamental rules in database theory/design, is that information should not be duplicated:

… if you have multiple copies of the same information floating around, it takes up more disk space and can easily become a nightmare to organize.

By storing information in different tables, and linking that information to each other (that are related,) you avoid duplicating information. This will become clear when we actually build our first database … I know (that for now,) many of you are probably unclear about a few things … have faith, it will come!

Part 2 coming out soon …

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook