Recently we published 2 articles, Top 10 Business website no-nos and Top 10 social profile locations for businesses so we thought we’d show, this time, that us developers are just as human as the rest of the world.

Below are the top 10 mistakes we find on a regular basis. It’s something that frustrates and annoys and sometimes sends shivers down our spines!

We encourage you to contact us if you find any of the following on your website where we can explain why these mistakes are just plain wrong.

1, Name files, untiled1.html, untitled1.gif
Schoolboy error. Learn SEO, learn usability and learn to spell.

2, Research meta tag relevance
Using the meta tags name=”alexa” content=”10″ and name=”pagerank” content=”10″? Seriously, they are a joke put about sometime ago.
Kind of like a development April Fools.

3, Build layout using tables
1999 called and want their structure back. Tables are for tabular data not layout.

4, Leave code untested and unvalidated
Cringe worthy, easy to fix validation errors can render a site ugly and unreliable across browsers and platforms. Test it and fix it!

5, Use inline styles
Put all your CSS in an external style sheet. That’s where the ‘sheet’ bit in ‘Cascading Style Sheet’ comes from.

6, Forget to remove development comments
Leaving in comments like ‘remove this crap before release’ are best adhered to. It’s sloppy and unprofessional.

7, Use flash where it’s not needed
Just because the client say they want Flash, doesn’t mean you need to use it.
It’s your job to direct and guide the client to best use practices.

8, Under construction
1999 called, again, and would also like this page back, please. If it’s not ready, then put it to draft.

9, Claim a template
There are some beautifully designed and built templates floating around, free and paid. Use them if you have to but please, don’t claim it’s your own work.

10, Ignore the client’s long term needs
Don’t just whack out a website and then ask for the cheque. Look at a website as an element of the overall marketing strategy.

 
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