Web Development Tips - Part 1

Embed CAPTCHA images in all your online forms to ensure that only humans are filling your forms. This will not only help you avoid spam but will also keep your database clean.
Using a font on your website is not as simple as it may sound to some. If you use a font that is not present on the user's system, then your webpage will look completely different from what you intend it to be. So you should use most common typefaces already installed in all computers. The most common serif typefaces are Times and Times New Roman. The most common sans serif typefaces are Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana.
You should avoid using heavy graphics, animation and flash on e-Commerce websites to improve site download speed. Animated banners and images are a big distraction for a buyer who is ready to make a purchase on your site and is trying to focus on the transaction.
How to minimize exposing your email ID to spammers:

Instead of using common email IDs like sales@mydomain.com or info@mydomain.com, you could use non-intuitive email addresses like sales.mgr@mydomain.com or info.mgr@mydomain.com. This will prevent spammers from guessing your email IDs.
Don't make the life of spammers easy by activating a 'catchall' email account, which allows emails sent to anyname@mydomain.com delivered to your inbox. Keep it de-activated.
Embed CAPTCHA images in your online forms to ensure only humans are filling them.
Encrypt your email address listed online using JavaScript as encrypted email addresses are harder for the spammers to scrape.
Display your email address as an image on your website so that only humans can see it and type them in their email client.

The patience of online visitors is measured in milliseconds, and also, not everyone has an access to hi-speed Internet connection. So, try to keep page sizes within reasonable limit to make sure that they download quickly. Resize your graphics and avoid an image unless it adds some value to the user experience.
Take good care while using 302 redirects on your website as 302 redirect signifies that the file has been found but is temporarily located at some other URL. The best way to go about it is to avoid using it as far as possible because most engines struggle handling them and by using 302 redirects, you are giving way to black hat webmasters to hijack your listing too.
Test, test and test. Give high attention to the quality of your website by performing thorough black box and white box testing throughout the entire project. It is very important to make the testing process and quality goals as gaugeable as possible. Also, the QA process should be flexible, as testing requirements for each website may vary according to its Industry genre.
Do the design elements of your website cross each other too much? If you make a change in one ‘div’, do the adjacent ones collapse? Keep all the design elements separated from each other (as much as possible). As a matter of fact, the designs with the elements related to each other are easy to build but at the same time are very hard to maintain.
Be aware that as much as 50% of American internet surfers still do not have access to cable and DSL connections. So you are inviting trouble if you are developing your website only for broadband users. You may check out this tool and useful tips to improve your website's loading time.
Along with the Web 2.0 features, you may also want to give a shot to RIA features. In simple words RIA is just where desktop applications meet web applications. Think about the difference between the old way of viewing online maps and now how Google has transformed that with Google Maps, allowing users to drag, zoom, and change overlays in real-time.

Related Reading:

Website Development Tips - Part 2

Author: RedAlkemi Syndicate
About the Author: RedAlkemi - www.RedAlkemi.com is a leading Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Link Building, Web Development & eCommerce services company having a team of 140 professionals and provides services to over 400 clients globally.

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