I will be using Visual Site Designer to develop a new B to B website. I am hoping there might be some best practices document that would save me some headaches down the road. Is anyone aware of any such thing?

It depends on what you want best practices for. If you are using VSD, then are you looking for design techniques. Best practices usually refers to coding, but there are design standards as well.

If it is best practice is design well the forums here are replete wit them, so ask your questions and we will help the best we can. If the best practices are content related just do a Google search and the thousands of blogs dedicated to selling to businesses will guide you.

My advice if your question is regarding layout is to go online and view existing B&B websites, or even to view templates websites where they have templates for a B&B. This will help you on layout and might also give you a few new ideas.

What sort of business is it? Are there online journals, articles, etc... relating to the business that you could get some ideas from? As for just about any site, you want it as fast and efficient as you can get it, with obvious, easy to use navigation, easy to skim/read text, and info aimed at your particular market.
Google for similar business sites and make notes of information and features that seem to be standard. Also notice what sort of look/feel they have.
You may also need areas on the site that aren't available to the general public. Getting into the coding as Eric mentioned above, but CC has it covered (Web Access Manager). Knowing what sort of business to business it is might bring out some more ideas for you

I think our advice is unhelpful until he comes back to answer the question.

Thanks to all - on the road for a day there and didn't expect all of the input!
Content is not a problem but I am trying to structure my website so that there is continuity between the pages - same banner at the top etc without having to code each page from scratch. I have been looking for some info on how to create a 'framework' or template to use as the base of each page. I havn't developed a website before so even though this question seems VERY BASIC it's something I need an answer for before I get too far into this. Is this something that I can do with VSD or do I need to purchase some of the other tools - HTML coder etc. I really don't want to start going down that route my first time out the gate. I need to know how to place the same graphics/text/boiler plate stuff on each page - the best way to do this is what I am looking for. I am sure there is some doc out there that tells me how to do this but I'm not sure what 'term' to search on, no luck with the 'terms' i've tried.

Thanks again

In general, I create one page fully all colors, borders, text, etc included and since most of this can be reused for all following pages, just open it in the editor and use "save as" to give it a new name and make the changes.

All this being said though, I'm feeling that what you describe might be better accomplished with the HTML Editor, as you can separate and "modularize" portions of the code that is reused frequently and then call it into the website page.

eg:



with this technique I have one menufile and can load it into infinite number of pages, while if i need to change my menu, i change one file and that change ripples through the website automatically.

Similarly i need to change one file specialfeature.php and the monthly specials are automatically updated throughout the site.

There are lots of people here to help you with either direction you decide to go in VSD or Editor, also there are hundreds of preset templates for purchase from CC, that can be modified.

Do you have photoshop or GIMP for the graphics?

Hi TG,

This is the very reason why I use VSD! Creating new pages with the same look and feel as the home page (or any other page) is extremely easy. First decide how the general layout of some pages should look like, but at least the layout of your home page, and then you can copy this to new pages in a second! Just try this out. If you click 'add new page' in VSD you have the option to copy a page you already made..

Success, John

Thanks - that's exactly what I was looking for - I haven't gotten beyond the home page yet and will use the 'save as' approach to keep the same look and feel. I've got to get this going.

Ed - I have also downloaded Gimp - the price was right, I had to 'save' my money for the 'very expensive' VSD. The HTML might be something I might tackle after I get up to speed with VSD and Gimp.

Thanks