Website Development - What to Avoid

Developing your own website involves a lot of important factors. No matter how adept you are at web development and no matter how many sites you have created and developed, there are times when you slip and make a costly mistake. In today's highly competitive world, making mistakes is a big no-no. So if you want to be sure that everything turns out right with your website development project, there are a number of things that you need to watch out for.

First things first: If you choose to use a free hosting company, you will have to contend with several things like relatively larger ads on your website. Large ads or headers are a distraction, and most of the time, site visitors do not have the patience to scroll down to the bottom to read your content.

Since it is a "free" thing, a lot of people make use of its services, so you will not be able to get a unique URL for your site. Yours will just be one of the many.

Another important thing to remember is that visitors or viewers like sites that are light and easy to navigate. If you use a splash page, the tendency is that your site will take time to load because it is heavy with images and things. A splash page may be good for generating "oohhss" and "aahhss", but it can also be a waste of time for some viewers. It is pretty much the same if you use flash for your website. Using flash is all right, but do not use it for the entirety of your website. This will result to slow loading and will not be effective for search engine optimization.

If you want to put links on your website, make sure that they all load and open properly. There have been instances when I curiously clicked on a link only to find out that the page does not exist! This can be both upsetting and frustrating. Plus, it will not give your site a good reputation and you might have to say goodbye to your chances of ever attracting visitors.

Pop-Ups can also be distracting. Imagine yourself enjoying something that you are reading when all of a sudden a pop-up appears! How would that make you feel? If you really need to include pop-ups in your website, make sure they do not come out too often so they will not be that annoying or distracting. Keep pop-ups at the minimum.

Other mistakes that you need to avoid include the usage of contrasting colors, or colors that do not mix well; using the wrong type of text, including its effects; and making your website too large that visitors will have to do endless horizontal scrolling just to view the whole of your site.

Good website development takes into consideration all aspects involved in creating an attractive, easy to navigate site. If you keep in mind all the things I mentioned above, you will have better chances of achieving just that.