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11 Common Mistakes People Make When Creating Web Pages
. Graphic Laden. like this can cause some issues
that you should be aware of:
A web page should load in a colors may not match exactly
reasonable amount of time. If you between a gif and a jpg. For
use too many graphics, or example if you have a background
graphics that are not scaled and color in both or some other
saved in the most efficient object in the images of adjoining
format, your pages will take cells you may have trouble
longer to load. Impatient users getting a gif and jpg to look
may bail out and go to another seamless because of slight color
site. Clean and fast should be shifts.
the goal. You can usually make a
very nice layout using HTML and 2. Color Choices.
CSS without the whole page being
a sliced up graphic. Of course Just because it looks cool to you
I've built sites for people who doesn't mean everyone will find
insisted on pages based entirely it easy to read and appreciate
on graphics and in that case I your psychedelic color scheme.
usually try to get the Adobe Try out your color choices on a
Photoshop files from the graphic mix of people before you get too
artist and slice them and save far into your design.
the slices myself. This way I can
mix and match file formats. For Don't turn people away just
example sections with few colors because they have trouble reading
can be saved as gifs which are your site. There are colors for
usually very small, especially if backgrounds and text that perform
you tweak the number of colors. much better than others colors
Sections that contain more colors for some types of sites, do your
or photographs work best as jpg research first!
image files. Mixing file types
3. Animated Graphics. surprised how each web browser
has its quirks. Sometimes a page
You want your visitors to will look really bad or
concentrate on whatever your site completely wrong in one browser
is about. If your pages look like and you'll have to spend time
the arcade at an amusement park correcting the problem. But, you
with animated gifs everywhere won't know unless you test it...
they may never get to the part of don't rely on your visitors to
the site that you want them to, tell you.
such as the "buy" button. A
little animation goes a long way. 6. Broken Links.
4. Flash Splash Screens. This one should be obvious, check
you site's navigation and all the
Flash is big these days and very links occasionally. There are
useful for a lot of tasks, some tools available to do this
however, one thing you should for you if you have a really
avoid is a big flash welcome page large site.
as the default page of your web
site. Most people find it very 7. Disjointed Layout.
annoying to sit through it, or to
have to click a skip button. Make sure your site is easy to
navigate. Have someone who's not
5. Cross Browser Compatible familiar with your site use your
Issues. site. Ask them to purchase
something, or find the page for
Always check out your site on the sending in questions, etc. Watch
main browsers (Internet Explorer, them as they work. Listen to what
Netscape, Firefox, Opera) a PC they have to say and fix your
and Mac if possible. You'd be site to make it work better.
It's not accessible to search
8. Incomplete Contact engines that crawl web sites.
Information.
What does that mean? It means
Keep the contact information on that if you're relying on traffic
your site is current and to your site from search engines,
complete. Do this as soon as you want real text, not images of
anything changes. text that only humans can read.
If your site is not dependant on
9. Text in Graphics to Make search engine traffic, then this
"Pretty Text" vs. Real Text. may not matter other than the
slower load time for the image
Font styles are somewhat limited laden pages.
for web pages. Some people want
their site to look really good 10. Using Something Just To Be
with fonts like you can use in Using It.
word processing packages. So how
do you do that? You can make it When we remodeled our house, I
in Adobe PhotoShop or another wanted to use some stone
graphic package and save out your somewhere. Our contractor kept
text as images. This works really saying that if we did, it would
well as far as looking good, look like we used stone just to
however, because images are use some stone; it wouldn't look
naturally larger than text, the natural like a house designed
pages will load slower. But, the from the start with stone. The
biggest drawback is not size, same is true of web sites. Don't
it's that you have your text, use flash, or background sounds,
which tells what your site is or videos that automatically load
about, locked up in images. and start playing, or JavaScript
that opens 900 windows. Only use
those things when they are your site.
necessary, don't use them just
because you may know how and want Put a blog on your site and
to show off. update it every day or so. Your
web site can be a tremendous
11. Not Updating the Site. asset in your marketing toolkit,
but only if it's kept current and
As things change you should fresh.
modify your site to reflect those
changes. As you add new products Use this list of items to make
or announce new products, you your web site better and more
should add them to your site. As enjoyable for your visitors.
people change in your
organization, you should update
About the Author:
Learn all about HTML, CSS, and more at Fred Black's web site, www.WebSiteTrainingOnline.com An Introduction to Creating Web Sites.
Read more articles by: Fred Black
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