Common Web Page Mistakes
Common Mistakes in Web Design
When I designed my first website, I was so proud of it. I had
spent many long nights over a period of months designing it. All
of my friends and family told me how professional it was, and how
very impressed they were. I swear I went to my site several times
a day just to look at it and soak in the glory of what a wonderful
job I had done. It was definitely "my baby."
Then reality set in. I had asked a simple question in a web design
group, and two senior members proceeded to tear my site to shreds.
With no holds barred and in great detail, they explained that it
looked like a homepage, not a business site.
I hated them both. I told a friend how terrible they were,
and who did they think they were anyway! I truly thought they were
rude individuals who didn't have a clue what they were talking about,
because hadn't everyone else told me how great my site was?
It would be nearly a week before I calmed down enough to take another
look at my site. Suddenly when looking at my site through their
experienced eyes, I saw a completely different site! One by one
I worked through every single recommendation.
Often I would spend days researching a recommendation they had
made. These two individuals spent countless hours answering my questions
and teaching me step by step how to make the corrections to these
common web page mistakes. Stubbornly I held onto a few things until
the last, such as my giant buttons and tons of centered text.
Then finally, I was through the list of corrections. I was sure
I had fixed each and every item on the list. I was ready for my
pat on the back. C'mon, tell me how wonderful I am! Tell me this
is the best looking site you have ever seen anywhere on the planet!
They ripped me to shreds again, more gentle this time, but still
to shreds.
One said, what happened to all of the CSS we discussed? You have
a total disaster in your code! The other blatantly explained that
I was far better than I was showing through the sloppy work in my
code. "You are better than this, or I wouldn't be so hard on you.
Go back to work."
I turned off the computer and yelled, "GAWD I HATE THEM!". My friend
smirked and gave a knowing grin that once again I was going through
another learning phase. He also knew that in a few days, I would
turn the computer back on and go back to work.
This process repeated itself many times, and my learning curve was
very steep. When I look back at each new site I created, each a
little better than the next, I realized how very far I had come.
Following are some common web page mistakes that many of us have
made as new designers.
Hit Counters
I do not recommend using any form of visitor stats that involves
adding code into your pages. These methods tend to be inaccurate
and rarely measure the actual stats needed to evaluate your progress
in developing a successful online business.
HOW OFTEN HAVE YOU SEEN A HIT COUNTER ON A PROFESSIONAL
WEBSITE?
Many new webmasters will tell me that they have overcome the issue
by making the counter invisible. When choosing this method, please
understand that
Google sets out some very serious guidelines concerning
invisible text and links
Being able to
analyze website results is a big part of building your business.
However, I recommend using a professional approach. If your domain
host does not give you adequate web stats, download and install
a program such as
Awstats.
Installing this program is not a huge issue, IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU
ARE DOING. Generally speaking, I can figure out how to do just about
anything. To be honest with you though, I had trouble getting this
installed and working properly without assistance. For those of
you that need help, I recommend that you
contact Brian Bonini. He will install and configure the
program to best fit your needs, at a very reasonable flat fee.
Background Music
This is one of the most complained about features on a website.
The internet public simply does not want background music to begin
to play without warning. If the nature of a site involves music,
provide the user with the option to start and stop the player.
This Website Best Viewed
On many beginner websites you will see a disclaimer statement
added to the bottom of a page, concerning which web browser and/or
screen resolution they designed the site to be viewed with. At best,
your site visitors may likely view this as a sign of an amateur
web designer. You also run the risk of offending non Microsoft browser
users. At the rate we are seeing
Firefox Growing, it would be a serious mistake to disregard it.
Invest the time in learning the skills necessary to design a
website that renders well in multiple browsers, and the most
common screen resolutions.
If you use coding that requires a specific program to be functional,
always provide an alternative.
HORIZONTAL SCROLL
A professional website can be viewed without horizontal scrolling
in both a smaller and a larger screen resolution. People expect
to scroll from the top to the bottom of your pages. This is not
an issue. They do not tolerate needing to scroll horizontally.
This can make it extremely difficult to read the content on your
site, and often your visitors will lose patience and leave. Check
your website in a site resolution viewer.
Slow Page Loading
Research shows that more than 50% of internet users are using
dial-up connections to access the web. If your page does not download
rapidly, visitors will quickly move on to find another site. Take
action now to reduce the "weight" of your pages.
SIZE AND OPTIMIZE IMAGES FOR THE WEB
Each image on your site must be correctly sized and optimized
for web use. The best method for this process is dependent entirely
your actual editor. Most image editors have tutorials to help
you with this.
You can find several several step by step tutorials (with screen shots) on
our
Digital Photography Tips and Image Editing blog.
If you do not have an image editor, there are some decent free
programs available on the net. Each will often also provide image
editing tips.
If you prefer structured help in a group setting, you might want to join our
interactive discussion group for more
image editing assistance.
SPECIAL PAGE EFFECTS
Adding code to your site to create special effects when your
visitors transitions from one page to the next, will not increase
your sales. It will however slow your pages and serve to irritate
potential customers.
LEARN AND USE VALID HTML CODE
W3C compliant code will load faster than HTML coding filled
with errors. It honestly will not matter if you ever develop the
ability to open up a blank notepad and hand code all the HTML
needed to create a website. It is not important which editor you
learn to use, or even if you decide to use a professional template
for your business. These are all just tools.
You do however, need
to become familiar enough with HTML that you can make the changes
needed to keep your website updated on a regular basis, without
adding unnecessary code.
LEARN AND USE EXTERNAL CSS
Take advantage of the free CSS lessons in our Website Development
Training Class. The time you save in updates on your site is incredible
and it will have a substantial impact on the amount of code used
for your pages. This will add up to shorter download times for
your pages. At the very least, study and follow a good
CSS tutorial to learn the basics.
Right Click Disabled
This is a classic situation of what some folks would call, "cutting
off your nose to spite your face.” In a misguided attempt to protect
your images, you make the mistake of irritating the vast majority
of visitors using right click for legitimate reasons. There is NEVER
a legitimate reason to disable right clicking on your site.
Case in point, I was doing some online shopping for the holidays,
when I came across the perfect gift for a friend. I was unsure of
the exact size needed, so I decided to bookmark the site and return
later in the day. I right clicked to go ahead and add the site to
my favorites. Immediately a little window opened informing me that
it was illegal to steal copyrighted images and that they had logged
my IP address. At that point I made the decision to close the site
all together and do my shopping elsewhere.
Using Free Web Hosting
If you want your business to be taken seriously, this is a common
web page mistake you definitely want to avoid. Often business owners
will tell me that the business is "just starting out" and that is
why they have not yet moved the site to a domain host.
First, you must choose and purchase a domain name, if you do not
already have one. Although there are certainly many domain registrars
out there, I have used
GoDaddy over a period of time. I find their services to
be affordable and reliable. They also give you complete control
of pointing your domain name to a different hosting company.
Secondly, you need to choose a professional domain host. There
is no getting around this one. If you want to run a successful online
business, you absolutely must have a reliable domain host. This
all comes back to the credibility issue.
Customers that will trust
a small business owner with their credit card information, who cannot
invest $5.00 to $10.00 a month for proper hosting, are scarce.
If you are having a hard time finding affordable web hosting that you can trust
and depend on, I openly
recommend 1and1 Hosting. I have found them to be extremely reliable
and they allow you to place multiple domains (websites) on the same
account, without increasing their fees. If you need help choosing
an effective package for your business, feel free to
contact me privately. I will be happy to help you.
Using Free E-mail Addresses
Although it is a common mistake, using a free email address,
such as Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail, is never appropriate for your website or for
business correspondence. Again, this comes back to the issue of
Website Credibility. When it comes to your business, always
use an email addresses associated with your business domain.
On the flip side of this coin, you need to be careful with what
you say in a public group or forum if you are using a business email
address. Many small businesses have suffered the repercussions of
taking part in a controversial topic, in an open forum, that ended
up appearing near their business website in the search engine results.
I WILL SEE YOU AT THE TOP!
Texas Web Designer and SEO Training Specialist
Owner GNC Web Creations and Mississippi Photo Gallery
EDITORS NOTE: Our training classes and discussion groups are
private. The archives are not available to the public and will not appear in
search engine results.
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Common Mistakes in Web Design
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One of the common mistakes that I personally made as a new online business
owner was starting out with a website hosting company that didn't give me enough
control of my account. Charging me extra for every domain I hosted with them was
bad enough, but when they began adding over zealous spam prevention programs to
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