All of the websites I have created during the past few years are powered by WordPress. There are a few reasons why I use WordPress, and they are detailed below:
- Ease of Use
- Search engines such as Google really like WordPress
- It is possible to change the design of the whole site just by changing the theme
- There is a huge community of people working on plugins to make WordPress even more powerful than it already is
- I just like it!
Most of my older sites were created using Dreamweaver. If anyone were to ask me today which I prefer, I would certainly say WordPress.
Recently I decided to change the design for my company website and whilst creating the new site it occurred to me how important it is to think about the directory structure before starting. It is possible to move files using Dreamweaver and for the links and data within the pages to be changed in accordance with the file move, but setting everything out before you start is a better option. This will ensure that all of the files are stored in a logical location and will not clutter up the root directory.
One of the most important factors to think about is how the site will grow and how the site architecture will accommodate that growth.
A typical folder structure for any type of website would be something like this (assuming this is the root directory) :
- css
- images
- video
- blog
- information
- services
- forms
- newsletter
- articles
- downloads
Each of these folders can have sub-directories for appropriate material, but should remain formatted in a logical manner.
The folders should be given an obvious name as I have done here.
There is no doubt as to what each folder is for. You can use abbreviations if you wish – “img” is an appropriate abbreviation for the images folder, but “art” (for the articles folder) may cause some confusion later on.
Folders can very quickly fill up with content, particularly the images folder. I would recommend creating sub-directories within this folder from the start. These folders can hold (for example) images that are used across the site such as your logo, buttons and anything else that you would consider part of the design such as backgrounds and the like.
Other image folders can be created for specific projects or categories.
There is one thing to be aware – do not place important pages too far down the directory as there is a feeling amongst those in the know that the further down the website structure a page is, the less it is likely to be ranked well with search engines.
This is likely to be unture for pages that are linked to in great numbers, but I would always err on the side of caution and keep page files in the second directory. If this is not possible, then do not go any further than a third directory.
