This is a list of various tips to help you hone your webmaster skills. These are behaviors that webmasters would do best to avoid from day one.
Design your site based upon other's opinions of your audience - Take a look at your audience yourself and then design your site to communicate to them.
Target yourself - Yes you are important. However, on the internet you are trying to communicate with others, not yourself. So make sure your website is communicating well with your target audience.
Do any kind of spammingRegardless of what you might believe or have been told, very little will kill a site (or anything else on the internet) faster than spamming. Send out spam emails and your email server will be blacklisted or you will lose your email account. Spam the search engines and your site will disappear from them. And so it goes on and on. It might seem like a good idea, but never, ever spam.
Leave your domain name(s) under someone elses controlWant to waste some money and be frustrated and even lose years of promotional effort? Then leave control of your domain name with an ISP or web hosting company. If that company goes bankrupt or you must leave for some reason, you could easily lose access to the name, and all of the time and effort you have put in trying to promote it.
Pay more than $10 to register a domain - If you are purchasing an unowned domain name, be sure you get it from a registrar that is competitive. And you can certainly get those domain names for under $10.
Abuse scripting on shared hostsWhen you share a host you are by definition sharing the computer with a multitude of other people. If you write scripts which by design or flaw unethically use those resources you effect other webmasters abilities to do business. This will almost certainly get your site shut down fast.
Include IMG tags without ALT tagsThis is a very common mistake and seems to be a minor oversight. However, it effectively means that anyone searching without graphics or using screen reader browsers (for the blind) will have difficulties with your site.
Include your email address on your web pagesYou want to get spammed, then include your email address on your pages. The spam harvesters will pick it up in no time and you will get lots and lots of useless, silly email messages.
Use the formmail (or similar) script without being totally aware of the security issuesFormmail and scripts such as that have severe security issues which can effectively turn a web site into a spam engine. Be careful and understand the issues before you use these scripts.
CloakCloaking is a way to examine the user agent (something that identifies the browser or robot name of the visitor) and vary the page accordingly. The concept is that you might want to show a different page to Google than you do to your visitors. Search engines almost universally frown on this practice and it can get your site banned.
Use email addresses and other data given by your visitors in an unethical manner - In other words, please respect the privacy of your visitors. This means you don't resell the data (ever), give it away or make it available. In fact, don't even send them emails yourself unless you make it totally clear in both the privacy policy and in the data entry form.
Set PIC and other rating systems which are inaccurate PIC is a standard used to inform surfers what kind of content you have on your site (sexual, violence, language and so on). Make sure these are set appropriately.
Create awards programs which are not awards programsIn other words, awards programs must reward something and are not just promotional tricks.
Use excessive popups, pop unders and other strange tricks - A popup or popunder here or there may be appropriate to your site. Just be aware that more than one occasionally will send your visitors away fast. Try and control the windows so only one appears a day or at least per visit.
Spend too much time submitting to search enginesYes, it's true that search engines are an important part of promoting your site. However, they are not the only method, and they are not even the best method. Just build a good site with excellent content, submit it to the engines, then move on to other types of promotion.
Spend any money on any fad promotional techniqueThere are many, many promotional techniques available - thousands of different ways to promote your site and products. Many of these are free or almost free, so be sure to fully understand what you are getting before you spend a dime. Check references and try to get demonstration copies of any promotional software first.
Pay Yahoo or Looksmart anything - Unless you've got a very solid business plan and are exceptionally sure of what you are doing, don't waste your money.
Use frames - Frames make it difficult for search engines and bookmarking. Don't use them.
Ignore accessibilityPeople, there are blind people using the internet. Don't ignore them. Use the accessibility tags and features. It's not that hard.
Make sites that are viewable in only one browserThere are many different browsers. At least make sure the site is viewable in the major browsers.
Use fonts which have colors which blend in with the background - Make sure your visitors can read your pages.
Use the same title, description and meta keywords for every page - Although their importance to the search engines has declined, you should still maintain these for each page. They are important for various reasons.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.