Web Site Tips for Webmasters

Text/Content

The most important part of your website will be the written content, yet there are many sites where it appears that the text was an afterthought. Here are some common mistakes that you can avoid:

• Check for correct spelling and grammar--misspellings are very common on web pages. If you can, write your text with a program that has a spell check feature. Even then, people will get into trouble with homonyms; they will use "there" instead of "their," "to" instead of "too," etc... If English is not your strong suit, find someone that can help you insure your page is correct.
  
  
• Consistency--your pages should be very similar to each other. Keep the layout consistent. Use the same font, the same logo/design, the same color on each page so the visitor doesn't think he was transported to another site. This is much harder when more than one person is developing the site.
  
  
• Make your text easy to read
  
  
• Watch your fonts. Fancy fonts are nice, but very difficult to read. I will give up attempting to read a page that has fancy lettering for the content.  Those special fonts work nicely for titles and headers, but make the content easy to read. Think of the poor soul that has to read your writing.
  
  
• Avoid color clash. Insure your text contrasts enough with your background to allow for good visibility. Don't put white text on a yellow background (don't laugh, I've seen it)!
  
  
• Picture backgrounds are hard to read also. Intricate or detailed pictures make character distinction hard for the reader of your site.
  
  
• Font size matters. If your font is too small, people won't be able to read it; leave the small type to the lawyers. On the other hand, too large a font causes unnecessary scrolling and hinders the persons ability to read your page.
  
  
• Get to the point--use words efficiently. Although text is the heart of your site, people (myself included), hate to read too much off a computer screen. Top  ▲