Fonts

1) Serif all the way
Your best bet is to use Serif as your headlines and Sans-Serif for the main body of your text, despite the fact that this was probably the opposite of what you were taught. But remember, the Web is different from print, and on the screen, Sans-Serif is much easier to read because screen resolutions are lower than on the printed page. If you do use Serif as your normal text, the lines will blur together, making them difficult to read.

2) Less is more
If you want to make sure your site looks professional, only use two or three different font families, maximum. Any more than this will make your site look amateurish and will be more difficult for your visitor to follow.

3) Standards are standard for a reason
Using an obscure font that looks good and unusual is cool...until your visitors can’t read it because their computer doesn’t have that font on it. So best stick to the standard families that everyone has and uses so that you can guarantee your visitor being able to read your site. Geneva, Arial and Verdana are good examples of fonts that most people have, so play it safe and stick to those kinds of fonts.

Advertising

4) Greed is one of the 7 Deadly Sins for reason
Your readers don’t come onto your site to read advertisements, they come to read what you have written about the subject they are interested in. If ads are a prominent part of your website, the chances are that they won’t stick around for long. Yes, it’s important to make money from your site, but if you have too many ads, they will drive visitors away, and therefore you will lose money. So make sure you find the balance between the two.

5) Treat ads and images equally
As you did with images, keep your ads small, avoid the ones that flash as these are the most annoying for your visitor, and keep them relevant. If you want your readers to click on the ad, try to make sure it is relevant to your site, or they are going to be uninterested. And remember, just because you can have an ad on your site, doesn’t mean you should.

The Customer is always right

6) Browse ‘til your heart’s content
If you want your site to be available to everyone, make sure you check it is. Test it out on multiple browsers if you can, old and new, so that you know your site content is visible to everyone. Fair enough if you are building an internal site for a company where everyone that sees it is going to have the same sort of browser, this should be easy work, but if not, then it’s the long and tedious road of browser testing.

7) Ditto for the Operating Systems
Just as you can’t assume that all browsers will support your site, you have to check that different Operating Systems will support it too. Just because it works well on the Operating System you happen to use, doesn’t mean the same will apply to someone on a different OS.

8) The customer is always right
Your site is useless without visitors, so make sure you write what they want to read or you won’t get any! Of course, if you are writing just for yourself, there is no problem. But then, that begs the question of why are you posting things for just yourself on the web? But, overall, keep your customer happy and they will keep coming back and making you money!

Call our friendly team on 08450 533111 to discuss your particular requirements. E-mail info@ictinsite.com

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Registered office:- ICT House, Rough Hey Road, Grimsargh, Preston, Lancashire, PR2 5AR