Here are 49 Tips that I have pulled together…. I am not saying that by following these your site will be great… but at least it will be decent!

 

On Website Navigation
1. Make sure that your pages (especially your home page) will load within 10 seconds. Set your file size to a maximum of 50kb, including pictures and graphics.
 
2. Use common and general names for menu options such as Home, Product, About Us, Contact Us, and so on. Do not try to be clever and use confusing alternatives.
 
3. Your navigational options should be grouped in relevant categories.
 
4. Provide your user with simple text based navigation links on each page. For long pages, include links at the bottom so that your users do not have to keep scrolling back up.
 
5. Include a link to your main page in all your internal pages. Also, link your site logo to your homepage and include it in all.
 
6. Use what is called as breadcrumb navigation which offers one-click accessibility to higher site levels. It looks a lot like this: Home -> Section -> Sub-Section -> Page
 
7. If your website is large, you should offer site search capabilities. Put a search box towards the upper right corner of your page and put a link to your search page in all your internal pages.
 
8. If you put in a search box, ensure that it searches your site by default, and not the whole web.
 
9. Come up with a custom error page that will display a site map as well as links to the other sections of your site. If your visitors clicked on a bad link, they should be led to a page that in turn, leads back to your site.

On Content Presentation and Layout
10. The top of your page should be the most important part of your site. Good content must always flow towards the top.
 
11. Layouts can be accomplished with CSS or with tables. Whichever option you use try and set the width in terms of percentage instead of pixels. In this way, each of your pages will fit into the screen without users having to scroll horizontally.
 
12. At this time, the many people are still browsing use a screen resolution of 800 x 600. Optimize your site so the pages are best viewed at this resolution.
 
13. Do not put in too many different fonts. Do not use small fonts, either. Stick with common, web-friendly and simple fonts as they look cleaner and are easier to read.
 
14. Use a good colour contrast for your page body. A white background with black text is the simplest and is very effective.
 
15. Avoid features like page counters, all caps, centered justification, too much animated gifs, excessive use of exclamation points, and busy backgrounds. They look amateurish and can be quite discouraging.
 
16. Avoid using pop up windows at all times. Visitors would either immediately consider them to be ads or distract their attention
 
17. Do not put in very long text blocks. They are very difficult to read or scan through. Use bullet points, subtitles, hyperlinks and highlighted keywords.
 
18. Always do site testing to make sure that your page looks good in different browsers, browser versions and resolutions.
 
On Web Content Writing
19. Write in simple terms that are understandable to ordinary people (unless your site is technical and geared for techno-savvy people).
 
20. Know that reading from the screen is more difficult and painful to the eyes. Use about only 50% of the words than you would on print.
 
21. Never use fonts smaller than 10 pt. It is best to specify your fonts in terms of percentage instead of pixels.
 
22. If a page’s content is too long, break it up into smaller parts and pages. Of course, make sure that you link them with each other.
 
23. Always use a spell and grammar checker. Spelling mistakes are credibility-breakers, grammar mistakes are embarrassing.
 
On Linking
24. Always give information as to where a particular link would lead to.
 
25. Underline all your links and use one consistent color all throughout your site.
 
26. Do not underline words that are not links. They can be quite confusing to readers.
 
27. Use a different color for links that have already been visited. Use a consistent color for this, a more subdued tone of your unvisited link color would work best.
 
28. Do not link pages that are “under construction.”
 
29. If you are linking to a file that is not HTML in nature, such as Word, Adobe Acrobat or Word, add in a small icon beside the link to make it obvious.
 
30. Ensure that your site does not have broken links. You can look around for online tools that can do this.
 
31. If you plan on using graphic links, remember to always use the alt attribute, which describes the page that the image links to.
 
On Knowing Your Customers
32. Always include a feedback page or a feedback form in your site.
 
33. Add in some polls and other online tools in order to gather some market intelligence
 
34. Add in a subscription form for your site, and try to publish articles and e-zines. Make sure that you provide important and useful information to encourage them to keep visiting.
 
On Using Graphics
35. Use only gif and jpg formats to optimize your graphics. Make them as small as possible without sacrificing quality.
 
36. Always avoid graphics which look like ads. They are usually useless and ignored.
 
37. Try to use thumbnails that are clickable to view the actual size picture.
 
38. Again, use the alt attribute in order to disable graphics when needed.
 
On Search Engine Optimization
39. Come up with a site map that contains all your pages, and make a link of it from your main page. Search engine spiders will follow this link and may add in all your pages.
 
40. Create descriptive page titles to encourage search engine users to visit your link.
 
41. Create two to three main keywords for each of your page and repeat them as often in your title, meta tag and body.
 
42. Use more text than graphics and use flash and JavaScript wisely and sparingly. Remember that search engine robots look for text and not graphics.
 
43. Create a page that will contain links to related pages. You can call this your Resources page, and add in all link exchanges that you have with other sites. Inbound links from good sites will give you better search engine ranking.
 
On Site Marketing
44. Always add in a logo of your site or company in all pages.
 
45. Come up with a catchy tagline next to your logo that summarizes your site’s purpose.
 
46. Make a general template for your page to give it a consistent look and feel. Use a consistent layout and color scheme that looks well.
 
47. Create a favicon, which is a small graphic that appears right beside the URL in your visitors’ browser’s address bar.
 
48. Create an About Us section which provides all the information about your site, your company and your business.
 
49. Add a copyright statement and place it at the bottom of each of your page.