Site Building Tips

Ever seen a site so terribly made that you almost felt offended by its existence? Yup, they're out there. In most cases they're forgivable because they're made by newbies who don't yet know any better- we're all newbies at one point after all. But then there are some sites that aren't by newbies and are still horrible. Well, this little section is comprised of random tips and suggestions for anyone with a website or looking to make a website. They're in no particular order and I basically just write them up as I notice them on sites.

No Placeholders

When you put up your site, do not have more than one or two "placeholder pages" - in fact, you really shouldn't have any. What I mean by "placeholder pages" are those that are blank, save for a note such as "This section coming soon!" If you have a section that's not ready, don't put up a link to it or a page for it until it is ready! If you want to let people know that such a section is coming, you can put it in your navigation, but don't make it a link. When I click a link on your page, I expect to be taken to a page with content; if I knew there was going to be nothing there, I wouldn't have clicked it. Also, the more placeholder pages a site has, the more I doubt that those pages will ever have content, and the less likely I am to return to that site. Remember: it's better to have only a few pages with real content than many pages with nothing of value.

Let your viewer know where they're going.

Do not use abstract, unlabeled objects such as squares, irrelevant numbers, or other random things for your navigation. As a viewer, I have no desire to go clicking around your little squares to find things. Put some kind of label on them; do something to make it clear where each link leads. The same goes for sites that try to be poetic [..or something..] and make ambiguous text links [such as, perhaps, "visions in the distance" leading to a gallery]. Indicate what that link is for: by the same example, you could make something like "visions in the distance: art gallery" [and of course you can make this prettier with some creativity and not just plain text :)]. And definitely don't make a horrible combination of these two mistakes as I recently saw a site do: have obscure image links with obscure "poetic" ALT tags. You can bet I closed that site almost instantly: I don't even know what this site is about, why would I want to waste my time wandering around trying to figure it out?

An extra note about ALT tags... while they may be displayed as tool tip notes on IE, that's not really what they're meant for, and they won't appear that way on some other browsers. So if you're relying on that strategy to point your users in the right direction, consider using the "Title" tag instead, or in addition to ALT tags.

No more than one large image per page.

The internet is meant to deliver information quickly. In other words, anything that takes painfully long to load is defeating the purpose of the internet [*gasp* how dare you!]. Such is the way with pages with a ton of huge images. If you have an art gallery, don't slap all your full sized images on one page and call it done. This is lazy and tacky, and since it takes forever to load, your visitor is likely to leave before it even finishes loading. Make use of thumbnails or text links to pages with your individual images. See next tip about thumbnails.

Thumbnails are not to be made with sizing parameters.

When you put an image in an html document, you can set the image's height and width. Always use the image's actual height and width- do not set the IMG tag's size parameters to be smaller or larger than the image actually is. If you use the parameters to make the image smaller, it may look smaller on your webpage, but it will take just as long to load as if the full-sized image were there. If you use the parameters to make the image larger, it will look noticably demented.

Color Scheme

Be wary when choosing colors for your site. Color schemes such as, say, a light pink background with dark pink text may seem like a good idea, but they can be difficult to read [depending on the exact shades you choose in addition to the color settings of your viewer's monitor]. When in doubt, black text is usually recommended unless your background is black (duh...) or another very dark color. Avoid super contrast as well since it will make your pages painful to look at for extended periods of time. The exception to this is black and white (they go fine together, but an entire site in those two "non-colors" is still not advisable).

Music

Personally, I don't like sites with background music, usually because I already have my own music playing on my computer, so it's an annoying interference. But, if you feel the need to have music going on your site, viewers should be able to turn it off and this option should be easy to find, and fast!

Frames

Don't use frames unless you know how to link with them properly [ie, correct usage of _self, _blank, etc. link targets]. It's obnoxious when you're on a frame site and a content page appears in the thin side menu frame 'cause the owner didn't link it properly. Do not use frames within frames. You also have to be careful with frames and images- if you have an image in your frameset, you better be sure that image is fully visable in the frame (cause it ruins the image-viewing experience when you have to scroll around a frame to see it all).

Browser Compatibility

It's fine to have "best viewed" specifications for your page [ex. "Best viewed with 1024x768 res, IE 6.0, etc"], but don't expect your viewers to pay any attention whatsoever to them. Try to make your page look at least decent on any type of computer or browser. This is getting ever more important as MSIE's firm grip on the majority of users is in decline.

Entry Page

As a general rule, don't have an entry page. Most entry pages are just meaningless road blocks between the user and the content. You may be justified in having one for some reasons.. such as if your site has several distinct sections to choose from, or it's meant to stall the user while your [large amount of] images are being pre-loaded. Though in both of those cases, you could still do without. If you insist on having one, just make sure there's a very legitimate reason behind it.

Valid Information

I see this often on anime fan sites: they'll have a section entitled "learn Japanese" or something like that. I can't tell you how often much of the information on such pages is simply wrong. If you're going to have an "educational" section on your site, please confirm the validity and accuracy of what you're teaching.

Photoshop Selection Borders

When designing a layout, don't think that leaving those dotted-line Photoshop selection borders visible in your final product will somehow look cool, or sophisticated, or good in any way. They look cheesy and sloppy and usually crummy. If you want a dotted line, make a real dotted line (in Photoshop or with CSS).

Buy a Domain

If you're even the slightest bit serious about having a quality site, buy yourself a domain. In the past, domains were expensive, but these days they're relatively cheap (about $10 per year at the cheapest). Hosting can get a bit more pricey, but there are still good free hosts out there, and plenty of even better cheap ones. By doing this, you will show everyone that you care enough about your site to not have it hosted on Geocities, Angelfire or some other public host that people associate with low-quality, novice-built sites. You also won't have advertising forcibly placed on your pages and you can have personalized email addresses @yourdomain (which tend to look more professional than Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.). However, please do not choose a domain name based on (a) a Japanese word that you think "sounds cool," (b) any word that doesn't really have any meaning to you, but you think it "sounds cool," (c) a title that makes you sound like a business (unless you are opening a business) - example: "[brandname]-graphics.com" or perhaps "[your name]-studios.net" or "[so-and-so]-designs.org," (d) a name associated with a particular fandom that you may no longer be a fan of in 6 months; because there are just too many of those already. Basically, choose a domain name that's meaningful to you, alright? Alright.

Forum? Don't Lock All Your Threads

If a person comes upon your forum, odds are they're not going to register right away just because they can. They'll want to look around, read a few threads, see if it's worthwhile to actually register and post. So how's a person supposed to test the waters if all of your threads are visible to members only? Of course it's okay to have some members-only threads - a good idea even, if these "special" threads act as an enticing tease to get people to join - just don't make all of them exclusive.

Put a complete date stamp on your updates

There are many long-abandoned websites on the net, and while some may still be useful, most are a waste of time - their content is missing, old contact emails go nowhere, information is out-of-date, etc. So, to avoid spending my time on such sites, I often look for a date stamp somewhere - anywhere - that'll give me some idea of when the author last updated. If I can't find one, I tend to assume the site is dead, and go elsewhere. But also, when you add dates, put the whole date: consisting of a day, a month and a year (in four digits, not two). I've seen a number of sites that leave out the year, dating their updates with something like "11/7." What does that mean? November 7th or July 11th? Granted, you could still experience this confusion even if there were a year on there, but at least I'd have some context rather than none - "11/7/2005" can be either November or July, but the "2005" part I can be sure of.