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Before you begin on designing your website, you may need to resort to pen and paper or a whiteboard for the planning stages. Yes, scary isn't it :).
Web sites grow rapidly
Web sites have a tendency to expand beyond the original idea, "growing" pages at approximately the same rate that rabbits breed! Taming the Beast was originally 4 pages, 8 years ago. It is now contains thousands.
By drawing a map of your intended website, in the same format as the Windows Explorer layout, (folders, subfolders and files) it helps you to visually plan and categorize current and future development of your project.
I have observed many site owners believing that they would be easily able to "sort things out" after their site was finished. This invariably leads to confusion, broken hyperlinks and placeholders where images should appear in the finished product. Just as damaging is the impact a poorly thought out file base can have on search engine rankings.
File naming considerations
The root directory of your site should only contain one file wherever possible, your home page plus whatever files your server puts in there once it is published. It should be named either index.htm/asp/php etc. or default.htm/asp/php etc.
The reason for this naming convention is that most Web Servers are configured to serve particular documents by default. When you type www.tamingthebeast.net, the server is configured to automatically look for the appropriate files called index or default. This saves the user having to type www.tamingthebeast.net/index.htm. If I had named the homepage file, homepage.htm, it would not have been displayed when a user typed in www.tamingthebeast.net. A HTTP 404 error - File Not Found would have been displayed. You should check with your host as to what the home page file should be named, but sticking with index.htm, html etc. is usually the safest bet; especially if you change web hosts in the years ahead.
All images in your site are best off in one folder, called images (how about that!) This central location makes it easy to manage your image files, and considering that some images are often repeated on a site, it is a good deal easier to locate them during the design process.
The basic guideline for anything in terms of structure is this:
Relevant files should be given relevant names and stored in relevant folders.
Make your file names relevant
Relevant filenames are very important. Give your files a name that relates to the content of the document. If you name your files, for example, 001.htm, troubleshooting in your rapidly expanding site can be a real headache as you will have no visual cue to remind you of the contents of that page. Relevant filenames can also assist in search engine rankings.
Do not use spaces when naming your file. To create the illusion of a space, use_the_underscore_key or-dash-key, but use it sparingly. Do not use &,% etc. This can cause error messages in publishing, display and retrieval.
Name your folders in much the same way. For example a small business website might contains folders such as admin, contact, images, product, order and about.
If using a software application such as FrontPage, do not delete or rename any of the folders that FP creates when you start a new empty web. These folders (and other hidden ones you don't see in the FP folder display window, but can see in explorer) may contain crucial elements regarding site functionality.
Following these simple guidelines will cut many hours of troubleshooting from your web development time.
If you do find that your site is becoming a nightmare in terms of file base problems, before you start moving, deleting or changing file/folder names that you have a strategy in place for preserving search engine rankings. The best method is to use a 301 redirect .
Related learning resources
Creating custom error pages
Basic ecommerce web site design
The importance of anchor text
301 redirect tutorial - saving search engine rankings
Michael Bloch
Taming the Beast
http://www.tamingthebeast.net
Tutorials, web content, tools and software.
Web Marketing, Internet Development & Ecommerce Resources
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