A web site can be an excellent tool to promote your cinematic efforts, to sell copies of your work, or just as the informational center of your activities. It is possible to maximize the potential of your site by considering a few tips on how to best present your content.

The Number One rule to remember is that not everyone has a fast new computer and a broadband connection. One of my collaborators is using a 486 on a 56k dialup and consequently, pages with lots of graphics and Quicktime movies can really slow him down! That's not to say these extras cannot be featured; they can if you use them properly.

Answer your emails! Put a link on the site where visitors can send comments to you and answer them promptly. This is not only courteous but also shows that you are professional and care about your audience.

Content is king! Give the vistor enough good stuff to look at that they will have to come back again and again to take it all in. You don't have to put it all up at once but present enough info initially so that the visitor gets a good feel for your project. Also, use the tips below on how to best present your content.

Keep the site neat. If you cannot do a good job of designing a page, you can get someone to help... hey, you got people to be in your movie for free, so you can't tell me that you cannot beg someone to help design the site for free!

Even if you get a hotshot web designer, don't use flashy web tricks and extras on your site. Flash animation is cool but give us a way to skip over it. Cascading style sheets will trash the page layout as seen with older browsers. You don't need fancy programming; give them good content with basic html.

After you post a page or make changes to one, load the link into your web browser and see how it looks. This will verify that it has been uploaded properly and can be seen by visitors to your site. It is also a good idea to look at your entire site with more than one browser - Internet Explorer and Firefox are the most commonly used. You can have both of these programs on your computer at one time and use either as desired.

No blinking text and no background music! It just irritates your visitors. No pop-ups. Do I have to explain why?

Do not use a black background! This is a sure indicator of an amateur... it is hard to read and really does not do justice to your work. Look at the biggest sites on the web: Yahoo, Google, Ebay and Amazon. What color is the background on those pages? I'll give you a hint... it's not black.

Photos are great content. Stills from your locations and shots of the cast are always interesting. You did shoot stills during production, didn't you? Behind the scene photos are a great attraction to people browsing your site. Make the pictures small for fast loading but link them so a visitor can click to enlarge for a bigger view. Postage-stamp sized pictures than cannot be viewed larger are just a waste of space.

Date the changes or additions to your site. This lets the visitor know that the project is current and that there should be no problem when they decide to order a copy of your movie.

Quicktime movie streaming is one of my pet peeves. If you want to put your trailer or a clip of your film on your web site, go ahead and do it, but do not make it autoplay when a visitor hits the page. If the person has a slow connection it can freeze his computer for many minutes while the clip is being cached. Make a link to the clip available so the movie can be downloaded instead of streamed. The visitor can save the clip to their hard drive and view it offline. You will make a lot of people happy by doing it this way.

Make the site professional but friendly. Keep it PG-rated even if your movie is R. My kids are surfing the web as are many others. Place a warning on links to pages that feature pictures and text that might be unsuitable for children... actually U.S. law requires this, so be aware.

Exchange links with other filmmaker's web sites to build traffic. It works and will also help your ranking in Google searches.

Consider a banner exchange program. This is where you put a link on your page that displays banners from other users of the exchange program. In turn, your own banner ad is displayed on the sites of others in the program. Typically you get two displays of your ad in return for every one that is displayed on your site. LinkExchange and BannerSwap are examples of this advertising system. This will greatly increase the range of exposure of your site, especially if you have an attractive and interesting banner ad.

Submit your site to the major search engines. Google, Yahoo, Netscape and other search sites all have a way to submit your page to be crawled by their indexing program. Once this happens, you are in the system and your site will pop up on the list when the right search terms are entered.

Sign guestbooks on other sites. Just make a pleasant comment about their site and put a link to your page below your signature without any other comment. They will likely check out your site and return the favor or add you to their links.

Make it easy for the customer to buy your movie... after all, this is why you have the site in the first place. Make the link prominent and direct. I was on a site recently that I had to search over to find the obscure link to buy their film. It then took me to Troma's shopping site and I never could find their movie. They lost a sale.

Participate in forums. Be polite and open minded. Opinions are like noses; everybody has one. Take constructive criticism without being offended - this doesn't mean you have to take a load of bull from any blowhard that chimes in on the discussion, but give some thought to honest evaluations that are offered. Also, most forums allow you to have a signature that is automatically placed at the end of every message you post and this is a good place for the link to your site.

Keep the web site going! Probably half of the movies that I have seen reviewed recently were from sites that are now gone. It doesn't cost much to keep the web pages alive even if your project is completed. You never know what industry connection or affiliation can come just by keeping the site alive. If money is tight and you cannot afford to keep the web site current, you can likely make a deal with one of the online review pages or micro-movie distributors to host you site and maybe even keep the domain name active.

Put some effort into your site and make the quality of it equal or better than your film. It will add professionalism and prestige to your project and sell more movies for you!

Jack Orman is an electronics designer who has been involved in online communications even before there was an Internet. His web site can be found at http://www.muzique.com/.