Whether or not you are a designer or would-be designer, do pay attention to these mistakes. They are what distinguish the professional from the amateur. They will also help or hinder your website’s placements on search engine listings. And, they will determine whether or not your visitors stay for a time at or leave - never to return - your website.

MISTAKE #1: Huge graphic files, along with too many graphics. These are the culprits that slow the downloading of a website. Resize the images and lower the resolutions before uploading to the website. Visitors have no patience for waiting to see your website.

MISTAKE #2: Confusing navigation. If visitors and/or the search engine spiders (that visit and index your website) can’t easily find their way around your website, they will leave as fast as a click of the mouse. I love using roll-over buttons, but also realize that for the spiders I need to post text-based links - usually at the bottom of the pages.

MISTAKE #3: The lack of a unique title for each and every page. I have a search-engine-guru friend who stresses the fact that so many pages lack this important feature. Without a title, your website pages will have little or no chance of showing up in the major search engines. When we include keywords in our titles, we increase our chances of top listings. These are super important because no one will find your website just because you have built it.

MISTAKE #4: The use of “Mystery Meat.” Vincent Flanders and Dean Peters in their Web Pages that Suck books compare websites that are confusing - you don't know what they are about or where they are going - to mystery meat (meat disguised by gravy, etc.). Be obvious - most users are not into guessing what it's all about. They may surmise that we don't know either.

MISTAKE #5: Using Flash Intros for the home or landing pages. Even though these can be quite clever and design-rich, most web-surfers I know and talk with, hate them. They take time to load and often produce confusion and “mystery meat.” It is more expedient to use content that introduces you and/or your website to your visitor.

MISTAKE #6: No or little attention to the use of keywords. It used to be that we would load our meta tags with keywords and a description of what our website was all about. We should still do this, but most of the search engines don’t rely on these today. It is imperative that we use the important keywords throughout our website’s content.

MISTAKE #7: Adding animation for effect. In the beginning, everyone thought this was fun and cute. Maybe for a youngster’s website if used cleverly. But, animation gets old fast. It is like having a blinking neon sign outside your motel room’s window.

MISTAKE #8: Not using alt tags. Alt tags describe your graphics. They are especially for those visitors who have either turned off the graphics or who are using a reader program for the visually or aurally impaired. I find them to also be helpful in describing an object you want your visitors to click on.

If you avoid these eight MISTAKES, you will have a good start to a successful website.

Chris King
http://www.creativekeys.biz