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News and Views Internet Technology |
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Adding Features to Your Web Page |
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I also stressed that launching a web site is much easier than many may imagine. The content in this article depends upon your understanding the terms and concepts reviewed in the previous articles. For those of you who do not have immediate access to previous editions of The Independent Practitioner, you can find downloadable versions of the articles on my web site (just type in “independent practitioner” in the search engine that is on my site). In this edition I will be describing what I am calling Profile #3. I will also articulate three steps you can take to enhance your web site’s position on Internet search engines. For Profile #3 you may add any combination of the following to your web page: a flash page, rollovers, motion, sound, and QuickTime movies. The materials needed for Profiles #1 and #2 are also needed for this profile. To add some of these glitzier elements, a program such as Adobe LiveMotion or Macromedia Flash is needed, in addition to your HTML program (e.g., such as GoLive or FrontPage). If you are already working with GoLive, Photoshop, Illustrator or After Effects, you will likely enjoy the linking features offered by LiveMotion. For reviews of LiveMotion, that compare it to Flash, see one of the following sites: If you are a busy clinician, who doesn’t particularly enjoy web page authoring, either Profiles #1 or #2 will suffice. Either of these profiles will allow you to host an effective, elegant and professional looking clinical web page. However, for those of you who enjoy web page authoring, have some additional time to devote to it, and wish to take the next step, there are a number of features that you can add to enhance the look and functionality of your page. A “flash page” refers to a multimedia animation sequence. Typically these pages transition into the site’s home page, but not always. CHADD, one of the support association for AD/HD, has a web site that offers a flash sequence. It can be found at www.chadd.org; click on the “continue” button to see the illustration. Well-constructed flash pages offer the viewer a chance to skip the show, as is the case on the CHADD website; exceptions are those flash pages that are very brief (e.g., www.jackdial.com). If you decide to create a flash page it is a good idea to offer a link to the flash plug-in (www.flash.com) in case your visitor’s browser lacks that feature; also, be sure that any links that you’ve embedded in your flash page can be found elsewhere on the same page. A “rollover” refers to actions that occur when you roll your mouse over portions of a web page. Rollovers can initiate a change in the text’s or object’s color (e.g., www.gulfcoasthypnosis.com), launch of a list of subtopics (e.g., http://cyberpsych.com), cause a picture to change (e.g., www.renjilian.com), create the visual appearance of a button being pressed (e.g., www.drheller.com), and generate sounds (e.g., www.kidtherapist.com). Creating rollovers is not as involved as creating flash pages. Including them in your web site can facilitate a professional appearance and can aide your visitor in understanding how to navigate your site. The same programs that create flash pages can produce rollovers; some HTML programs also include this feature. Another advantage of a program like LiveMotion will be evident to those of you who have experience with HTML programs. Basic web page authoring programs can stifle even average graphic creativity because of the limited range of positioning options that are available. If you would like to be able to position pictures and text wherever you’d like about the canvas of a computer screen, then you will enjoy programs like LiveMotion and Flash. It can be liberating to be able to position elements wherever you wish without having to invest excruciating amounts of time trying to manipulate tables. These pages can then be exported into a format that your HTML program can import. If you’ve spent any time on the Internet you’ve undoubtedly seen plenty of animated graphics interchange format (GIF) files. These are graphic images that move in a looping pattern. An example of a GIF file can be found on Barry Erdman’s humor page at http://www.bouldertherapist.com/html/humor/Humor.html. If used judiciously, animated GIF files can spruce up a page a little. The Internet is full of sites offering free animated GIFS; for instance, see www.eclipsed.com, www.animatedgif.net and www.animatedgif.net. You need no special programs to use animated GIFS. Simply left click and hold if you’re a PC user and click and hold if you’re a Mac user. You will then be given the opportunity to make a copy. After doing so, simply paste the GIF where you wish to place it in your HTML file. You should then be prompted to save it as a file on your hard drive; be sure to save it in the same folder as all of your web page elements. Also be sure to upload the animated GIF file when you upload your revised page to your host server. The GIF file won’t display it’s animation as your working with your HTML file, but it should move once you’re in preview mode or once it is in place on the Internet. The one caution I would add about these animated GIFs is to not use too many of them. When I first learned how easy it was to use them I peppered them all over my web site; as I got used to them, and became more experienced with style issues, I realized that this created a sophomoric look. Would you like visitors to be able to view brief videos on your web site? For instance, offering a brief introduction of yourself or your site might create a more welcoming environment. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this task. Here I will describe the easiest method. This method requires the following hardware and software: a digital camcorder, an external microphone to connect to your camcorder, a computer with a FireWire port and an entry-level video editing program such as QuickTime or VideoWave. The steps are as follows:
Your video should now play automatically when someone visits the page in which you have it embedded (this can be quite a thrill for you and your mother). One important caution I would add is that if you wish to add this feature to your web site put the video file on it’s own page, offering a link to it off of a main page. The reason is that the video files take longer to load. For instance, the welcome message I have for my private practice page takes 30 seconds to load and play on my computer system. In Internet time, that’s lengthy. If I had it embedded in my main private practice page I would probably loose a portion of visitors to that page. Putting in a link to the video allows those who are interested access and allows those who don’t care to see it to take a pass without missing the primary content on the page. Obviously, once you have a clinical web page you are going to want people to visit it. You can tell your current clients about it yourself. Assuming you’ve purchased a domain name, you can also list it on the sign outside your office and include it in your telephone directory ads, business cards and stationary. All of this is helpful. However, what method does your average Internet user employ to find material? Yes, of course, search engines. Do a quick test. Go to your favorite search engines, and type in the key words that you hope would identify your page to prospective clients (e.g., a town name and type of service usually would suffice). If your page does not come up, there is some work to be done. There are three techniques I can review here to increase your positioning within Internet search engines. First, you will need to actually tell each search engine that your page exists. Just like folks won’t find your phone number if you haven’t listed in the telephone book, they won’t find your web site if you are not listed on their favorite search engine. Though www.google.com, www.altavista.com, and www.yahoo.com are three examples of some of the larger search engines, there are many out there. If you have lots of time on your hands you can submit to a plethora of these sites yourself. Alternatively, you can pay a modest fee for a search engine submission service. There are a large number of them out there, but I have found the price/performance ratio of www.bcentral.com to be excellent (click on the Search Engine Submission button). Once you are listed on that search engine, then the issue becomes whether people who use that search engine will be able to find your page. When you create a listing in your local yellow pages the sales representative will lobby you to list in as many of the available categories as you can (e.g., marriage therapists, psychologists, counselors, etc.), as you won’t be found if a given prospective client is looking in a category in which you are not listed. Of course, this gets expensive. With search engines there is typically no cost affiliated with being listed in a larger number of categories; that’s the good news. The bad news is that there are many more categories to cover and you can never know for sure what they all are. “Categories” refers to the search terms prospective clients enter into the search engine to find a clinician. You define the categories in which you are listed by the description you list for your web page. In addition, you can use the title bar and key word meta tags that are incorporated into the Head section of your page (this sentence sounds way more complicated than it really is…read on). The title bar is listed right above your page. For instance, mine reads, “Dr. Palmiter is a psychologist and therapist in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania.” Each word on this bar is coded in the search engine (this is also what is listed when someone bookmarks your page). Because the title bar is visible, and you have a limited amount of space to work with, you don’t have a lot of options. However, try to squeeze in as many words as you can without sounding incoherent (unless you’re going for that avant garde crowd, in which case you might prefer the incoherent look). I’ve seen a number of clinical web pages that limit their position within search engines by being too cryptic: “Dr. X’s home page” is a common example. Keyword meta tags are single words or phrases that you can insert into the Head section of your page. These keywords will not be visible on the page. Your HTML program will likely allow you to list a large number of terms for search engines to find, but many search engines will limit themselves to the first 15 keywords that you list. Just look in the “self-help” book that you bought on your HTML program to see how your program allows you to enter keyword meta tags. This may sound like a difficulty, techie sort of operation, but I promise you that it is simple to do, at least if you have a decent HTML program. In closing I would like to recommend two resources for developing helpful links on your web site, whether your audience is mental health professionals, lay people or both. Between these two references a lot of mental health related Internet ground is covered: Grohol, J. M., & Zuckerman, E. (2002). The Insider’s guide to mental health resources online, 2000/2001 edition health. New York: Guilford Press. Norcross, J. C., Santrock, J. W., Campbell, L. F., Smith, T. P., Sommer, R. & Zuckerman, E. (2000). Authoritative guide to self-help resources in mental health. New York: Guilford Press. In my next column I will review additional features that may be added to a clinical web page. Until then, fell free to be in touch; I’m particularly interested in hearing about any resources that you believe might help our community to launch and develop a clinical web page; I’m also willing to offer feedback on your web site once you have it online. Until the next time, web on! David J. Palmiter, Jr., Ph.D., ABPP is an Associate Professor of Psychology, Director of the Psychological Services Center and Director of Psy.D. Practicum and Internships at Marywood University. He also has a private practice in Clarks Summit, PA. His e-mail address is david@palmiter.com. His home page is at www.helpingparents.net; previous editions of this column may be found there together with other web page authoring resources. |
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This article is the fourth in a series. The first three articles covered the following topics: