10 simple ways to improve website design

When you first start designing a website, your options are wide open. The opportunities seem limitless. There is just so much you can do that it beggars imagination. However, despite having all this potential, the mistakes that cause business websites to fail are all too common.

The following list of common web design mistakes addresses the needs of commercial websites, but it can be easily applied to personal and hobby websites, and to professional non-profit website as well. Avoid these common mistakes at all costs.

#1: About us: Every website should be very clear and forthcoming about its purpose. Either include a brief descriptive blurb on the homepage of your website, or provide an ‘About us’ (or equivalent) page with a prominent and obvious link from the homepage, which describes your website and its value to the people visiting it.

It is even important to explain why some people may not find it useful, providing enough information so they will not be confused about the site's purpose. It is better to send away someone uninterested in what you have to offer with a clear idea of why he or she isn't interested than to attempt to trick such a person into wasting an inordinately long time finding this out without your help. After all, a good experience with a website that is not useful is more likely to get you customers by word of mouth than a website that is intentionally obscure and difficult to understand.

#2: Alt and title text
: Ensure you make use of the alt and title attributes for every XHTML tag on your website that supports them. This information is of critical importance for accessibility when the website is visited using browsers that do not support images, and when more information than the main content might otherwise be needed.

The most commonly important reason for this is accessibility for the disabled, such as blind visitors who use screen readers to surf the web. Never include too much text in the alt or title attribute, however — the text included should be short, clear and to the point. Do not inundate your visitors with paragraph after paragraph of useless, vague information in numerous pop-up messages; just make it as accessible as possible. The purpose of alt and title tags is, in general, to enhance accessibility.

#3: Archive URLs: All too often, websites change URLs (web addresses) of pages when they are outdated and move off the main page, into archives. This can make it extremely difficult to build up significantly good search engine placement, as links to pages of your site become broken. When you first create your website, ensure you do so in a manner that allows you to move content into archives without having to change the URL. Popularity on the web is built on word of mouth, and you will not be getting any of that publicity if your page URLs change every few days.

#4: Content dates: In general, you must update content if you want return visitors. People only come back if there's something new to see. This content needs to be dated, so that your website's visitors know what is new and in what order it appeared. Even in the rare case that website content does not change regularly, it will almost certainly change from time to time — if only because a page needs to be edited now and then to reflect changing information.

Help your readers determine what information might be out of date, by date stamping all the content on your Web site somehow, even if you do so only by adding "last modified on" fine print at the bottom of...