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Here they are—in no particular order—my Best Management Practices for writing a professional quality website:
Do’s
- One page, one post, one topic.
- Always use one space between sentences.
- Be respectful and considerate of your audience’s bandwidth.
- Make sure your contact information is correct and that the link works.
- Always include at least a couple sentences in your posts, even if the main item is an attached report.
- Always use descriptive links.
- Always secure your PDFs (unless you are using PDF Forms).
- Always design with your audience in mind.
- If you are a professional in your field, use professional standards when you design and write.
- Always use the same name for the same thing (“privacy statement” vs. “privacy policy”).
- Be sure to choose the correct Same Window or New Page option when inserting new links.
- Always use a consistent file naming convention (“2009-2010 Contracts.pdf” vs. “List of Contracts 6-30-09.pdf”).
- Always make sure you get the names of the sites you link to correct (“Sunshine Spending Site” vs. “Sunshine Spending Vendor Payment Search”).
- Always think about Search Engine Optimization—how are people going to search for and find your information.
- Choose your keywords carefully and include them in your page and post content.
- In your bulleted and numbered lists, always list items in order of priority for your main readers.
- Use lists instead of dropdown boxes (unless it is a Category Jump box in your Sidebar.)
- Always optimize your PDF files for the proper destination (usually web).
- Always keep your links current (“FCPRAC” vs. “CitrusRDF”).
- Do a link validation scan of your website several times a year.
- The best way to get people to come to your site is to talk about other people or their web sites.
Dont’s
- No popups!
- No flashing or blinking text.
- Never underline and use Click Here. (Refer to descriptive links, above.)
- Don’t create a web site that’s too big to manage and that has a lot of dead links. It helps to use a content management system with a logical structure to alleviate this problem.
- No animated GIFs! They are tacky and amatuerish.
- Avoid using more than two typeface families in body copy on a single page. An exception is when type is used as a graphic device.
These guidelines are just a selection of some of the more important ones and should help you give your site a quick and effective makeover if you choose to use them. As always, though, opinions can differ on this topic, so feel free to post your own ideas if I missed any you feel are important!
