Something To Avoid In Website Design

It is an old wisdom, saying that clever man learns from his own mistakes, while wise man learns from the mistakes of other people. If you are practicing website design, you will have a lot of chances to learn from your own mistakes. However, this way does not look very rational, since it will always be associated with significant amount of wasted time and even money. In this regard learning from others’ mistakes looks more promising, and thus we will try to outline some of the common mistakes web designers do while building their websites.

 

Overuse of dynamic non-HTML web pages

Though these days HTML pages become more and more rare in the Internet, these are still considered to be the friendliest to the most popular search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. Of course, the temptation to build a website with eye-catching pop-up menus and Flash banners is very significant, but try to find a golden middle between functionality and search engine compatibility. Google and Yahoo crawlers can read HTML very good, but they are not always successful with following php, java, or other script languages. Besides, HTML pages are permanent, while php pages are usually created dynamically when a user clicks on certain page elements, for example, chooses some product from a list. Web search engines cannot click the button on your page, they can only follow the links, so if there is no a direct link to some page, it will never be found and indexed by search engines.

 

Deleting or changing the location of web pages

After a few months or years of website life webmaster may face the situation when he is no longer satisfied with the layout of the pages, functionality, etc; and a natural desire appears to delete the existing pages and instead create something absolutely new, using all the gained experience and available means, like web content management solutions. However, it is important to remember that the existing pages have already gained some ranking in search engines results, so deleting them will erase all the results earned throughout the life period of the website. So, the general recommendation is to build new pages but avoid deleting the old pages. Let them exist on the web server and generate some traffic to your new website version. Just do not forget to place some links from old pages to the new ones.

 

Use of framed structure

Frames as the particular elements of the HTML were pretty popular some time ago to build websites. However, the drawback associated with the use of framed layout overweighed the benefits, and now it is almost a taboo to use frames in website design.

 

Use of poor quality CMS

The number of CMS or content management systems is growing daily. Being simple to use, these systems offer many benefits to web masters. However, it is important to make a choice of a CMS based on thorough research and evaluation. Experiments with CMSs may end in building search engines hostile website and loosing previously earned positions in search results.

 

 

Use of Flash and images without text

Flash and graphics could become valuable enhancements for any website. However, it is necessary to use it properly. The point is that graphics does not provide a “readable” content for search engines. It means crawlers cannot understand what is shown on a picture or on a Flash banner until you literally tell them about it. This can be done either with the <alt> tag for images or with special HTML versions for the sites, where Flash is primarily used.

 

Relative URL addresses

It is recommended to use full URL addresses instead of relative links. For example, http://www.mywebsite.com/library/about.html is better than “/library/about.html”.