What one single tip would you share with other webmasters?
The subject says it all. Today, if asked, what one single tip would you share with new webmasters. This might change over time, so feel free to post again if your top #1 tip changes. If someone else has already posted your #1 tip in this thread, post your #2!
Here's mine...
Remember, it's possible that your "temporary placeholder" might end up on the web, and could even get spidered by Google and other search engines. So when you look for a temporary placeholder for a picture or text, get something that would not look unprofessional if it were accidentally put online. If it's text, you might write up a short paragraph or two. If it's a picture, make sure it's appropriate to the content of the page and the site.
(I actually wrote a blog entry on this subject before: Don't let bad placeholders slip through the cracks...)
Megan posted this at 16:03 — 8th February 2007.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Oh, there are so many I could share! Here's a good one though:
Take some time to write up some goals and/or objectives for your site before you begin. This will help to keep you on track throughout the design and development process.
Megan
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andy206uk posted this at 19:10 — 8th February 2007.
He has: 1,758 posts
Joined: Jul 2002
Learn typography... something is simple as changing the line-height on text and use the right colour can make text so much more readable and lets face it... if no one can read what's on your site, nobody is gonna hang around!
Andy
Renegade posted this at 19:21 — 8th February 2007.
He has: 3,022 posts
Joined: Oct 2002
Use a background colour! I am continually surprised by the number of people who either forget to add one or think that it automatically defaults to white if not set - this is not always the case!
Different browsers are set to different background colour defaults (mine is grey), so be sure to set it, even if it just plain white.
Brooke posted this at 20:14 — 8th February 2007.
She has: 681 posts
Joined: Feb 1999
Add a 'home' button to your site. I don't always go to the home page when I do a search - but I may wanna go home. Don't make me change the url - just have a quick link!
Megan posted this at 20:39 — 8th February 2007.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
And don't assume that people know to click on the logo to get back to the home page.
Further to renegade's point - it might be a good idea to set the default background colour in your browser to something other than white so you're sure to notice fi you've forgotten to set a background colour. You could just do this in your test browsers if you don't want to mess up your regular browsing experience.
Megan
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Abhishek Reddy posted this at 21:22 — 8th February 2007.
He has: 3,348 posts
Joined: Jul 2001
I'm going to cheat a little and give a broad tip: know your user. In practical terms, and in general, it implies many things:
Make sure your site renders properly in all your users' browsers. Testing on just one, or two, even three browsers may not be enough. Writing wholly valid, standards-compliant code may not be enough. Take the extra step of knowing just who visits and what they see of your site.
Don't rely heavily on Flash or Javascript or even CSS on the assumption that most users' clients have these capabilities. Make your site accessible to those who don't, by offering alternate means of reaching information, or having pages degrade gracefully.
Listen to users who report major faults. Don't shrug it off just because it appears to be one corner case in isolation. A good rule is to imagine when one user complains, that there are 10 others with the same problem who didn't care to speak up.
And so on.
Of course, if you can be sure that you won't have to cater for certain clients, types of user, or processes, then you may well break those rules. But still, you'd have to know your user.
demonhale posted this at 03:37 — 9th February 2007.
He has: 3,278 posts
Joined: May 2005
Ditto on Abhishek...
(most of my top 10 are above)
Don't ever forget to close your tags, and add alt texts to images...
teammatt3 posted this at 05:01 — 9th February 2007.
He has: 2,102 posts
Joined: Sep 2003
I've got two.
Megan posted this at 14:06 — 9th February 2007.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Validate your code! (I can't believe nobody has mentioned that one yet
)
tobyfrost posted this at 15:44 — 9th February 2007.
He has: 118 posts
Joined: Feb 2007
Mine would be content - make sure that there is something that someone will want to see...
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