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15 Important Website Design Tips


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Guest alexasmither

1. Custom 404 Pages

Create a custom 404 web page, so that any time your website visitor mistypes or misspells a URL on your site, they will still be provided with navigation options for your site (instead of getting nothing but a "Page Not Found" error message, which is neither friendly or helpful).

2. Redirect Non-www. To www.

Website visitors will often leave out the "www." portion when they type a URL or link to your website. Set the website up so that it automatically redirects any non-www version of your domain URLs http://yoursite.com to the www version www.yoursite.com of your website.

 

3. Properly Sized Graphics

Size and define all graphics and images on your web pages properly and correctly. Web pages will load quicker if the graphics contained on each page are properly defined so they don't require the web browser to re-size them. Properly sized and defined images can reduce the web browser workload and speed up the page loading time.

4. Favicon

Add a Favicon (favorite icon) to your website, so that your company or product logo appears in the URL box. This icon will also show up in a bookmark list, and gives the web site an added level of professionalism.

5. Include RSS Auto-Discovery

If you offer an RSS feed for any content on your website, be sure to include auto-discovery code in the header of your website. This will allow many browsers and RSS readers to automatically detect the presence of an RSS feed and alert the visitor that it is available.

6. Alternate Domains

Domain names are relatively inexpensive, so you should register multiple domain versions and extensions in order to protect your brand. The varied domains can be parked on the main website, simply to prevent others from obtaining them. Registering alternate domain versions will help protect your brand.

 

7. Consistent Navigation

Navigation should remain consistent on a website. As a website visitor moves through the website, the navigation bar should remain in the same place on each page. This will make it easier for visitors to navigate your website, and become more comfortable as they move through your site.

8. Home Goes Home

The main graphic, company logo, or "header" at the top of the site should be included on every page in the site, and should always return the visitor to the home page of the website. This has become a web standard, and most visitors now expect to return to the main page of the site simply by clicking on the main top graphic from any page within the site.

 

9. Copyright Notice

Include a copyright notice on the bottom of each page contained on the website, and keep it current! It may seem trivial, but an out-of-date copyright notice can send a message to your visitors that the website and its content may be out-of-date as well.

 

10. Meaningful File Names

Use meaningful file names for any files, graphics, or web pages. Many search engines look at file names as part of their search algorithm, and using keywords in file names may help to improve search engine rankings.

11. Hyphens vs Underscores

When naming files and webpages, use hyphens (i.e. web-page.html) rather than underscores (i.e. web_page.html) for the file names. It is much easier for search engines to separate and index the keywords when hyphens are used.

12. Alt Tags

Use ALT tags to describe what images represent on web pages. ALT tags not only assist visually-impaired visitors in knowing what the images are, but they also help with search engine ranking.

13. Spell Check

Use a spell-check feature on the text of all web pages in a website. A website that contains mistyped or misspelled words just shouts "unprofessional". Take the extra few minutes necessary to check the spelling of text on each page of your website.

14. Test

After making changes to a website, test it! Many times, a webmaster will upload changes, confident in their abilities, only to later discover that in their attempt to fix one thing, they have "broken" something somewhere else. Make testing a habit after making even the most minor changes!

 

15. Keep It Simple

Simple is good. Remove unnecessary clutter and distractions from a website and navigation menu.

Edited by Andrea
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This is good info, however, this article can be found in several places on the internet. - http://www.google.com/search?q=%2215+Important+Web+Design+Tips%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

 

When copying someone else's articles, the original author must be credited. Else, it's plagiarism.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I don't like 6, it seems like a waste of money...

Depends on your audience and the size of the company. If you represent a large company, say AT&T, and you own "att.com," owning similar domains may make sense. What happens if someone sets up att.net and fills it with anti-AT&T comments? You have no control over that unless you control the domain.

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I suppose, but what kind of no-life would pay for a domain just to annoy another company?

 

 

I don't know about annoy another company; however, lots of people type the URL straight into the address bar and often they type it in wrong. Therefore if you have a website that gets hundreds of thousands of visitors a month that is called faceoff.com and someone goes and buys the domain name faseoff.com you can be sure that a reasonable number of people will be typing in faseoff.com by mistake and then they are viewing someone elses site and this person is trying to market to them, whatever they like.

 

Personally I don't see have effect this would be, but I see these kind of sites up all the time, plastered with adsense normally, so as long as they are making into to pay for their domain name, then I guess they are in profit.

 

Plus, maybe your brand is damaged slightly if this potential customer of yours really thinks that the fake site they found is actually yours.

 

Food for thought...

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