A.P. Lawrence

Poor Richard's Web Site

Order (or just read more about) Poor Richard's Web Site

See also Web Site Usability

and Poor Richard's Internet Marketing and Promotions

A well-written, even funny book that takes a no-nonsense approach to both how and why you'd build your web site. Readable even by folks who aren't actually going to do the work themselves. This is a new (February 2000) revised edition, with 432 pages of updated advice.

Peter Kent (also the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Internet) makes one point consistently throughout this book:

The Internet is a giant jobs program for computer geeks

These words of wisdom help remind us that our web sites usually have some other purpose than demonstrating technology, and that we should think very carefully about whether anything we add contributes to that purpose or if it actually detracts from it. That's something too many commercial sites lose track of in their quest to be "cool".

This is not a book on how to write HTML. OK, there is a chapter about that, but it really is just an overview. This is not a book about RealAudio, animation, or Java. What it is about is design, promotion, analysis, maintenance: the things that really matter if your web pages have a business purpose.

I'd recommend this book to anyone with a web site. Even if you feel you already know everything you need to know, read this so that you can wave it at the next person who seeks advice from you. Read it just because you will ENJOY reading it.

As would be expected from a book about web sites, all the links mentioned in the book are online at http://www.poorrichard.com/