Zip's World
- Always set the background color (BGCOLOR) to the same color as the background image. It's really hard to see bright yellow text on a white background while the black background image downloads (or doesn't download). Make sure you can read any text clearly from at least 2 feet away from the monitor. If you have to highlight the text to read it, then visitors will probably do their surfing elsewhere. I'm assuming you published your site on the web so people would visit it repeatedly. ;-)
- Broken images. If an image isn't in GIF or JPG format then don't use it! Most web browsers will only display GIF or JPG images without having to install a plugin to view them. People without the plugin won't see it. Also, if you use any HTML editor, check the source code for any reference to a FILE:// if your image tag looks like <IMG SRC="FILE://C:\WEBPAGES\ANYIMAGE.JPG"> then it may look fine to you when viewing it on your computer but everyone else will not be able to see it because they don't have it on their hard drive.
- Broken links. Make sure any links within or out of your site are kept updated. If you are creating a new area on your web site and want to advertise it early, make a simple splash page explaining that it should be updated in a few days.
- Popup windows. When used correctly, popup windows can be very functional. I use one on my homepage so when a visitor clicks on my pager icon, it causes a small window to appear with my webpager panel. When used incorrectly, they can be severely annoying. The general rule is not to force a popup on anyone automatically. Use links that the visitor clicks on to display them.
- Javascript errors. Always test your Javascript with multiple web browsers. While the code may work fine on one platform, it may generate multiple errors on another one. Although the error messages are harmless, they are very annoying and may chase visitors away from your site.
- Web pages that take forever to load. No one likes to wait for a large image to load up, try reducing or eliminating any unnecessary images. As a general rule, try making the total size of each page less than 75K. If you need to publish mass quantities of info, break it up into multiple pages.