The Ten Web Page Commandments

Excerpt from "33 Days to Online Profits"
by Yanik Silver and Jim Edwards
(Day 3 - Site Building Begins)

"What makes a good web page?"

People ask me this all the time, though they often encounter difficulty boiling the question down to so few words.

They, like any serious website operator, want to know how to create and maintain the best possible website given the constraints or Internet technology.

The following "commandments" represent the ideals towards which every new or existing website should aspire.

The 10 Web Page Commandments

1. Thou shalt have a Purpose

Clearly define the site's purpose and ensure all content (pages, graphics and text) tightly focus on that purpose. Discard all extraneous material.

2. Thou Shalt be Lightweight

Use only small, fast loading graphics. If you must use large graphics, use thumbnails and image slicing to diminish the size ofe very file as much as possible. Use standard, optimized gif's and jpg's and avoid anything that requires the user to download a "plug-in" to view your content.

3. Thou Shalt Load Fast

Each and every page on your site should weigh in under 30 - 50KB total, including graphics and navigation.

4. Thou Shalt Not use False Code

Use only HTML. Never use java (different from JavaScript), xml, dhtml or other forms of code that require a surfer to keep their browser set up "correctly" to accomodate your page. Also, avoid using 200 lines of JavaScript for rollover buttons in your page!

5. Thou Shalt Respect the Search Engines

If you want search engine traffic, use whole web pages that don't incorporate frames. Search engines get confused trying to read content from frames pages. Also, you will become educated in promoting to the search engines if you are serious about coming up "on top".

6. Love Thy Surfers and Visitors

Design for "last year's" technology so surfers using 28.8 or 56K modems can download and use the site quickly and easily.

7. Thou Shalt Not Annoy

Use only stationary text and graphical layout elements. No scrolling text, marquees, or animations of any kind including rollover buttons. This eye candy steals valuable bandwidth and adds little to a site's main purpose.

8. Thou Shalt Not Scroll Left or Right

Design your pages so they never force a visitor to scroll left or right no matter what the resolution settings on their monitor. Sites that read "best view at 800 x 600" really say "look at it my way because I don't care about your preferences or limitations."

9. Thou Shalt Stay Consistent

Include a standard navigational structure on every page. Though it may mean a serious challenge for the designer, users should only need to click once to find every major section of a site. This includes using standard link colors in all text links. Blue: hyperlink; Purple: visited hyperlink; Red: active hyperlink.

10. Thou Shalt Know Thy Traffic

Use a site-wide statistics program that enables you to determine what brings someone to the site, where they go once they arrive, and when and where they leave. This critical information helps with marketing efforts as well as identifying parts of the site that need tweaking or adjustment.

© 2001 Surefire Marketing, Inc. and Guaranteed Response Marketing, LLC - All rights reserved.