1. Custom 404 Pages
Create a custom 404 web page, so that any time your website visitor mistypes or misspells a URL on your site, they will still be provided with navigation options for your site (instead of getting nothing but a “Page Not Found” error message, which is neither friendly or helpful).

2. Redirect Non-www. To www.
Website visitors will often leave out the “www.” portion when they type a URL or link to your website. Set the website up so that it automatically redirects any non-www version of your domain URLs (http://xmediasolution.com) to the www version (http://www.xmediasolution.com) of your website.

3. Properly Sized Graphics
Size and define all graphics and images on your web pages properly and correctly. Web pages will load quicker if the graphics contained on each page are properly defined so they don’t require the web browser to re-size them. Properly sized and defined images can reduce the web browser workload and speed up the page loading time.

4. Favicon
Add a Favicon (favorite icon) to your website, so that your company or product logo appears in the URL box. This icon will also show up in a bookmark list, and gives the web site an added level of professionalism.

5. Include RSS Auto-Discovery
If you offer an RSS feed for any content on your website, be sure to include auto-discovery code in the header of your website. This will allow many browsers and RSS readers to automatically detect the presence of an RSS feed and alert the visitor that it is available.

6. Alternate Domains
Domain names are relatively inexpensive, so you should register multiple domain versions and extensions in order to protect your brand. The varied domains can be parked on the main website, simply to prevent others from obtaining them. Registering alternate domain versions will help protect your brand.

7. Consistent Navigation
Navigation should remain consistent on a website. As a website visitor moves through the website, the navigation bar should remain in the same place on each page. This will make it easier for visitors to navigate your website, and become more comfortable as they move through your site.

8. Home Goes Home
The main graphic, company logo, or “header” at the top of the site should be included on every page in the site, and should always return the visitor to the home page of the website. This has become a web standard, and most visitors now expect to return to the main page of the site simply by clicking on the main top graphic from any page within the site.

9. Copyright Notice
Include a copyright notice on the bottom of each page contained on the website, and keep it current! It may seem trivial, but an out-of-date copyright notice can send a message to your visitors that the website and its content may be out-of-date as well.

10. Meaningful File Names
Use meaningful file names for any files, graphics, or web pages. Many search engines look at file names as part of their search algorithm, and using keywords in file names may help to improve search engine rankings.

11. Hyphens vs Underscores
When naming files and webpages, use hyphens (i.e. web-page.html) rather than underscores (i.e. web_page.html) for the file names. It is much easier for search engines to separate and index the keywords when hyphens are used.

12. Alt Tags
Use ALT tags to describe what images represent on web pages. ALT tags not only assist visually-impaired visitors in knowing what the images are, but they also help with search engine ranking.

13. Spell Check
Use a spell-check feature on the text of all web pages in a website. A website that contains mistyped or misspelled words just shouts “unprofessional”. Take the extra few minutes necessary to check the spelling of text on each page of your website.

14. Test
After making changes to a website, test it! Many times, a webmaster will upload changes, confident in their abilities, only to later discover that in their attempt to fix one thing, they have “broken” something somewhere else. Make testing a habit after making even the most minor changes!

15. Keep It Simple
Simple is good. Remove unnecessary clutter and distractions from a website and navigation menu.

i always use Favicon.

Thanks for the informative post!

A good website always has a simple and uncomplicated navigation and lay out and useful and interesting content. The colours, fonts, background and theme are all important aspects to look into when designing a website.

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Dont forget: Design your site with SEO in mind right from the beginning.

thanks for discuss this enitre web designing items in forum. This really helps me a lot because nowadays i am making my website for SEO purpose and i really need such type of instructions for my upcoming project. I hope after implement on these points i will really get good result.

Thanks for the list. I have been in this field for more than 5 years.. and will refer this list for my future projects

Cheers!

Your informations are very usefull for me !

Thanks so much !

but never make 404 handler for images, especially if the 404 page is dynamic
it can kill your site easily

btw, try http://siteloadtest.com
the tool is simple and very effective

Thank you for these tips
They are really useful

Keep It Simple is a thing that gets overlooked a lot. Especially if you want to focus on conversions it is very important to remove all unnecessary content. This will bring the focus on the items that matter, like you products and buy button.

Design your site with SEO in mind right from the beginning.

Graphics Designer
Custom Website Design

Thank you for sharing these steps. Its a great info for all web designer to learn more from it. I stress the need for easy navigation so that the average Internet user will be able to understand and be able to obtain the necessary information easily.

I am making a web site on marketing purpose and it is very important to design the best web site. The colours, fonts, background and theme are all important aspects to look into when designing a website. There are best web site templates we can use and attract people to our web site.

Very good outline on the essentials! If more people followed these guidelines, the internet would be a much beautiful place :)

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You don’t know what you have written. You have written down all secrets of a web designing company and more over its all are crucial for on page optimization. I salute to you. You are a true knowledgeable person in web designing.

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alexasmither - 28 December 2010 07:42 PM

11. Hyphens vs Underscores
When naming files and webpages, use hyphens (i.e. web-page.html) rather than underscores (i.e. web_page.html) for the file names. It is much easier for search engines to separate and index the keywords when hyphens are used.

Very intersting point and not something I would have considered.