A Website should be packed with:
- content;
- functions;
- compatibility;
- search engine and;
- consistency
1. Great content is an unmatched promotion machine
- everything is secondary to quality content
- for your website to be a success, it needs to deliver something people want
- with great content, the rest will fall into place much more easily
2. Good navigation is paramount
- websites that have poor navigation annoy and confuse visitors, causing them to leave frustrated, and unlikely to return
- if you're just learning web design, learn to write code that validates
- Example: for a website with lots of pages, separate them into descriptive categories, and build a hierarchal menu
- Example: avoid drop down JavaScript menu systems
- compatibility is important on different levels for different websites
- any other website should display properly on all major browsers (IE, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, AOL, etc)
- any website should (at least) be compatible with the major screen resolutions, currently 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768
4. Search engine friendly means free targeted traffic
- a search engine being able to properly navigate your website, find all the pages in two jumps or less, and determine what links lead where with what text is essential to good rankings
5. Be consistent in design
- 3 or 4 colors that compliment each other well will do very nicely
- switching layouts between pages on a website is one of the bigger mistakes new web designers make
- there are literally thousands of professional scale templates available around the web
