I've just recently found
an article (via digg) looking at 30 tips for effective web design. Overall it is a nice summary. I do have a few issues with it though.
Many of the points raised are, I would hope, common knowledge, such as;
- Broken links are bad
- Aim for fast load times on your pages
- Write content that appeals to your visitors
- Use the alt tag with images
- Try to avoid having text in your images
- Pop ups are annoying (and with the prevalence of popup blockers there is no guarantee your audience will see them)
- Clear navigation
Other points are either highly suspect or just plain outdated. I think the problem is that the article (although now showing up in digg) is actually quite old. It is the oldest article this particular author has on the site but unfortunately there is no date.
Anyway, here are the points that may once have been true but are no longer;
- Under Construction signs are a bad idea
- Not in Web 2.0, in the land of rounded corners and large fonts beta is king.
- Do not have the same content on multiple pages - search engines will dock you for it.
- Not according to Matt Cutts when he answered a few questions at seomoz just last weekend.
- Lack of keywords in your meta tags may mean the search engines don't include your website or reduce your rankings
- This is so old that it is now coming back into fashion. It is still insignificant compared to the content on your page and any inbound links.
Finally some points which I believe have always been wrong;
- Proper code and site validation
- The idea that if you want to be a big success you site should validate is echoed around the web. It is however complete nonsense. If you want to spend the time making sure that your site validates then all well and good (at the time of writing this site validates) but yahoo, google, myspace and youtube all fail to validate and somehow have achieved success.
- Cross Browser Compatability - Ensure your website looks the same in all browsers.
- One day, in the hazy future this may be easy. In the here and now though this is a time consuming and irritating process. Don't aim for something exactly the same, just try to achieve something in the major browsers which is close to your vision.
- Copy others and success will come
Look around
Find other websites that are related to yours and see what they are doing to be successful. Imitate their actions and success will follow.
That last line should read, "Imitate their actions and mediocrity will follow. Looking at your competitors is definitely the place to start but you won't be successful just by following others. Look at what others are doing and then do it better. Think of things your competitors aren't doing which will give you an advantage. You'll only ever become a leader in your field by actually leading.
