- Never underline text unless it is a link.
- Do not use fancy colors and make it hard for the visitor to see.
- Do good titling on each page. Title tag is the primary consideration for many search engines when they index your pages.
- Look at the size of the page from which you must know the time to download the page to the visitor’s page.
- Check internal links and external links once in a while. Link rot is common even though you would think that you are not affected.
- Maintain the look and feel on each page. On every page visitor should not feel like he is going from country to country; he should feel that he is one specific place and seeing around.
- Have a theme and keep the theme across the site.
- Provide a sitemap. Besides having a sitemap, provide at least one static link to every page.
- Understand graphics file sizes and use compression wherever possible.
- View the site in various display resolutions.
- Check the site in different browsers. It is difficult to do this part of making it compatible however it is worth the effort with more browsers like firefox and opera around.
- Make sure your files types are search engine friendly.
If they can’t read your page forget getting indexed. - Don’t use too many fonts. Standardize across the site with one or few fonts. Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, MS Sans Seriff are few examples. Another problem is that if you use and uncommon font, unless the visitor has it on his machine he or she can’t see your page in the font you built it.
- Be careful with animated graphics. It should not be bothering the visitor. It may be best to avoid them.
- Get some interesting content quickly on the page. Within seconds, before the visitor hits the back button or types a new site address.
- Do not mislead your visitor. If you say your page is about New York it must be about New York.
- Build an error page to fall back on. If they a hit a page missing on your site, they will fall back on this page and you can give a link to the home page or other main areas in your site from here.
Next : Site goals & Content
Quotable Quotes:
“ Only the first steps to achieve something are difficult –
the planning, the getting started.”