Architecting a Website

Architecting is just a fancy way of saying how to plan out your content and properly nest your folders and files.

Directories

Giving some thought to the directory structure will make it easier to make updates in the future.

  about
  articles
  links
  images

Assets Directory

Create a directory to contain your images. You could just place them directly in your root folder, but this will keep the directory structure cleaner. At the very least, I recommend putting your images in an images folder. My assets directory for an advanced site that intends to use a wide variety of medis would look something like this:

assets
  audio
    music
    podcasts
    sound
  images
    animations
    icons
    illustrations
    logos
  video
    commercials
    clips
    movies

It’s not always clear cut. Do animated GIF banner ads belong in the images directory, the animations directory, or in video/commercials?

Types of Web Pages

As you code more and more pages, you’ll notice certain patterns emerge in the types of pages that you need.

  • Base Page
  • Landing Page
  • Index Page (Directory, Feed, Glossary, Links)
  • Content Pages (Read Only)
    • Article Page
    • Documentation (Articles/Tutorials)
  • About Page
    • Profile Page
    • Contact Page
    • Colophon
  • Application Pages
    • Generator Page
    • Dashboard Page
    • Wizard Page
    • Search Pages
      • Entry
      • Results
  • Server Response Page
    • Not Found (404)
    • Server Error (500)
    • Redirect (302)
    • Login Required (401)
    • Authentication Failed (403)
    • I’m a Teapot (418)