Share everything you learn...

Great Web sites share everything they learn and hear (that's relevant of course) with their users. Give behind the scenes accounts of your latest site features, go open source, start a newsletter, and you'll get more than you give.

Custom-tailor the information to user preferences. One of the Web's strengths is the volume of information available. That is also one of its weaknesses. Sites that offer customization features allow the user to filter the content they see. The future of the Web are "one-to-one" Web sites. These automated, database-driven sites adapt the content, advertising, and even the look to individual users. Technologies such as Web Objects and Cold Fusion allow webmasters to create dynamic, interactive, and adaptive Web sites.

Optimize graphic file size for Web display (a maximum of 20 KB per graphic). Utilize page display speedups such as the WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes for images. Use JPEGs where possible and appropriate (continuous-toned images) and minimize the color palette of GIFs to optimize file size. Provide text alternatives to graphics for low-bandwidth users, the blind, and for speed. ALTernate text tags for images should be functional, not descriptive. If the graphic has no function, use ALT="" (i.e., <IMG SRC="pics/splash.jpg" ALT="">).
 

Users equate poor organization with poor site design.

Dominate a subject area; become "the" site for that subject. Don't duplicate a list when you can point to it. Leverage other people's work to reduce your workload. Let others who specialize in a particular topic keep their list up to date for you. On the other hand, don't make lists that point to lists ad infinitum, seek out the meat of the site and point directly to the article or resource. Many sites on the Web are just lists that someone else has already done.

Security is often the last item addressed on even larger commercial sites. Allowing adventurous users to sniff around your files (especially your server configuration files) is not a good policy, but amazingly only 20% of current Web sites are secure.

Build it, and they will come? A common misconception companies new to the Web have is that if they put up a page, people will visit it. In order to have a popular site, you've got to offer something to the user: information, interactivity, fun, freebies, something more than an 800 number.

Original content is important. Users may come to your site once, but to keep them coming back you've got to have fresh original content.

Sites that offer freebees get noticed. Free software, services, databases or electronic newsletters will attract users like a magnet.

The Web is an interactive, dynamic, and rapidly changing new communications medium that your Web site should reflect. Well-organized, edited, and timely original content set in an attractive, interactive, and consistent format are some traits of great Web sites.

Stay tune for more...