- Replace the text Add your site slogan here! in the gray box in the Site Slogan section with your site slogan. I'm going to set it to Build your own website in a day!
- Pull down the select options for the font face just above the title and set it to the font you've chosen. I'm setting it to Georgia again.
- Next, pull down the adjacent select options for the font size and set it to 4.
Why 4? I didn't pull the number 4 out of a hat. I chose it because size 4 is a size smaller than size 5, the size of my site's title. If your Site Title is set to a size other than five, choose one size smaller than the size of your site's title.
- As with the Site Title, don't select a color for your Site Slogan. We'll come back to it in Chapter 3, as promised. And stay away from the B, I, and U buttons as well. Your Customize Header dialog should now look something like this:
- Click the OK button at the bottom of the Customize Header dialog. It closes and you arrive back at the Site Designer.
- Click the View button in Site Designer.
Note
You'll be using the View button, and the Save button next to it, quite often. When I want you to click the Save button, I'll simply tell you to save your work. If I want you to click the View button, I'll tell you to preview your website. Whenever I refer to these buttons, directly or indirectly, you now know where to find them.
- A pop-up message asks you whether you want to save your changes. Click OK.
- A preview of your site comes up in a new browser window. Notice that the site now displays the new title and slogan, as shown in the following screenshot:
- After you've admired your handiwork long enough, close the preview window and return to Site Designer.
You added a slogan to go along with your site's title. Why so much fuss about simply setting the title and slogan? In a word: findability.
Note
Findability? I didn't make that word up, by the way. Honest! Well-known web usability expert Jakob Nielsen did. A site is findable if it's easy to find; that is, it appears near the top of search engine results when a person searches for relevant terms. You can find great advice about building usable websites on Mr. Nielsen's website at http://www.useit.com.
Search engines attach considerable importance to the title of a web page. It tells them what the page is all about. But that's not the only thing they look at. They also try to determine whether the text on the web page has anything to do with its title. Because the slogan appears on every page with the title, a strong correlation between the two and their correlation with the text on your web pages will determine your web page's ranking in search results. To put it mildly, if your site's title and slogan stink, so will its ranking in the search results!
Therefore, don't take these settings lightly. If you don't put enough thought behind them, you risk relegating your web pages to obscurity.
Although I handed down the edicts on setting the font face and the font size for the Site Title and the Site Slogan, by no means are my recommendations cast in stone. Although following my recommendations will save you a good deal of time and heartache, you'll do a disservice to yourself if you don't experiment on your own. Depending on how long your Site Title or Site Slogan is, you might find a better combination of these settings if you try out a few variations. Here are a few suggestions:
- If you've set your font to Georgia, you might want to try Verdana.
- How about Georgia for the Site Title and Verdana for the Site Slogan? Or vice-versa?
- Although I've recommended that you set the font size for your Site Slogan a size smaller than the font size for your Site Title, you might want to try a font size two sizes smaller than the size for your Site Title, especially if you've set different fonts for the title and the slogan.
- Verdana is a wide font. If your site title or slogan has several wide letters like W and M, Verdana may not be the right choice. You might want to try a similar but narrower font, such as Arial.
Try out a few variations and settle on one that you like the best. You might want to get an opinion from a friend or a co-worker. And remember, you can come back and play with these settings any time.