Housekeeping

Having a web site is like having children. They both require constant supervision and maintenance. If you call putting some text and pictures on a page and never looking at it again a web site, then I am sorry to tell you this, but you must now give up the idea of ever being a good web designer. A good web designer constantly visits his site to look and correct inconsistencies and add new material. Here are a few things you should keep in mind.

Validation

The first step towards a good, accessible web site is valid code. Each time you code a new page or edit an existing one, be sure to run it through an appropriate validator to ensure the code is valid and compliant with the specified DOCTYPE and current accessibililty standards. Be sure to validate style sheets, validate html files and check for accessibility compliance.

Proofread

This is the hardest of them all. I myself am very guilty of not doing this. Since my first language is not English, I am an awful speller. This, however, is no excuse. Be sure to use the spell checker feature in your HTML editor. If it doesn't have one, get a new one :) If all else fails, copy and paste your text into word and let it proofread it for you. You may also want to have someone else proofread your site for you, since they will be able to catch your errors easier.

Broken Images

This should never happen. If it does, each broken image will look like the image on the right. Pretty tacky, huh? In order to avoid this, never link to an image on another site directly. Always download the image to your own directory to ensure it doesn't change and it's also common courtesy so you do not steal their bandwidth.

Broken Links

This is another popular one. It happens when linking external sites on the Internet. Unfortunately, you can never know this has happened until it is too late. The best solution to this would be to never link to any sites other than the ones you maintain. But lets be realistic, the whole point of the Internet, is to link to other sites on the Internet. That is how this system works. Therefore, your only other option is to visit your site on a regular basis and check every link to make certain the site to which it is linked is still active. At the same time, you may want to update this links to something else as your interests grow or you find a new favorite site on that particular subject.

Update Material

If you have a web site, you want people to visit it often. In order for this to happen, you need your content to change periodically. You can accomplish this with little things such as adding new sections to your site, adding new links to current sections or changing the theme or color scheme of your site.

Load Time

Another important factor that will keep your visitors from returning to your site is how long your page takes to load. To minimize load time, keep your graphics to a minimum and be sure that their size is relatively small. This includes your background image. Advance features such as Java, JavaScript, sound, etc. may add to your site's load time. Try to use these only if necessary and where appropriate.

Updated on: August 11, 2003