1. Pointless Images
Even in 2008 people are still releasing websites with huge badly optimized background images which slow the page load times down. Instead consider optimizing the images, if your background is in PNG format consider using JPG or if it’s a single color background use the background-color: attribute in CSS. I’ve seen some websites using an image to display text. Using an image for displaying text is fine if the font required is a custom font, but using an image to display text which is web-safe extends the page load time.
2. Internal CSS
Just mentioning internal CSS reminds me of Dreamweaver. It’s probably because Dreamweaver does this, which puts me off using it myself. If your building a website still using an individual style sheet for each page, change it now. If you have a link to the style sheet in each page the browser doesn’t have to load the same CSS every time, it also saves you having to copy and paste it every time you make a page.
3. Code formatting
If your producing a website for someone else make sure you format the code correctly, this applies to php, css, html or anything you code. Take into consideration that in a couple of months or years you might not be the next person who has to deal with the mess you leave behind.
4. Browser Compatibility
Ok, for most developers this one is obvious but I’m sure there is someone out there that doesn’t check their website in all browsers, you can’t produce a website which works in IE and not in Firefox or Safari, it doesn’t matter how much you hate people who use a different browser to you or how small a percentage use Firefox, that’s still an audience your website could be in need of so make sure it’s compatible with whatever the average web user could possibly be using. For anyone who doesn’t wasn’t to install lots of browsers, you might want to check out browsershots.net
5. Pop-ups & Banner Advertising
Advertising is great, it’s good for the advertiser as it helps them sell their products, it’s good for the web master it generates them money. Now think about that carefully, in order for it to generate money it usually requires the user to be interested enough that they will click on it. That does not give you the right to install ad code which displays a huge epileptic fit educing pop-up. Firstly the visitor will either get really wound up and end up having a bad experience of your website or secondly will see the pop-up and leave your website. A good example of a website which used to do this (thankfully they have now stopped) was ultimate-guitar.com. Firstly Ultimate Guitar is a website for guitar tabs, and i would usually play a song straight from the web page, then ultimate-guitar decided to place the “zap the mosquito” advert, which made a continual buzzing noise every time the page loaded. A good example of a badly chosen advert. The best advertising solution currently available is Google Ad Sense; it’s non-obtrusive and generates good profit for the website owner.
6. Search Engine Optimization Friendly URLS
Your website’s urls could be damaging the chance you have of getting a visitor. Firstly from the visitor’s point of view what is easier to remember and type in?
http://www.example.com/p=43242
or
http://www.example.com/website-guide
You can change this with a bit of experience in .htaccess. Or if you are optimizing your word press blog you can do this via the permalink settings.
5 Steps to a better website
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