|
As mentioned previously, the World Wide Web is chockfull of websites that constantly break the rules over what an easy-to-navigate, professional looking website should look like. Frames added for the wrong effect, tiled, patterned backgrounds, and improper frame structure are some of the sins committed by the treacherous amateur webmasters of today. Let's discuss some more tips in designing a website for your business.
How long would you wait for a web page to load? Three minutes? Forty five seconds? Statistics indicate that unless a user is notified it will take 10 seconds for a page to load, they will press the back button and hightail it out of there. This means having an slow loading webpage can have a very negative impact on traffic. Before uploading a static page to a website, take care of the following precautions:
- Remove all non-essential comments from the HTML.
- Review your page layouts and discard all images that aren't pertinent to your website (i.e. a smiley face in a golf club retailer site).
- Use an image-compressing package like Fireworks or Easy Thumbnail to reduce the file size of your images.
- Add Alt tags to each picture so that users can know what the image is before it appears.
Another misused website concept that amateur webmasters tend to pursue is Java. Nowadays, people are using it to run text scrollers, clocks, and other "technological perky" effects on a website. They don't realize that java applets download very slowly and add nothing but clutter to their page.
In addition, small MIDI files (music files) shouldn't be added. Huge animations should be avoided as well. Animations and MIDI files have only served to slow down webpage loading. The only time these concepts should be implemented is if it serves a useful purpose. Otherwise, use your head in determining that your professional website does not need a 40 second audio file that takes 10 minutes to download.
|
