Over time there has been many changes to the way websites have been designed. The pace that these changes have come is very drastic. Keeping up with the changes is hard to do, unless it is your job. At the same time, there are many design principles that have not changed, yet these principles are overlooked when a web designer designs a site for a client. One needs to be aware of the falacies of web site design so that they can make sure they are getting what they are paying for. Speaking of what they are paying for, how do you determine if the price is right? Let's try to answer some of these questions in regards to web design, mainly focusing on the equine industry.

  The first area we will look at is common website mistakes made in design. There is a long list but we will cut it down to what I think is important for the equine industry so that when you start to look for a web designer to create your site you will know what to watch for and what to ask for.

1) Browser Compatibility -- This is the most important feature of any website that is created. When browser compatibility is not taken into consideration you could be losing a large audience. Browser compatibility is when a site looks the same on all browsers whether it is Internet Explorer, Firerox, Safari, and others. Technology for web design has not come to an agreement yet on a consistent code for web design at this time. So there are features that will work in Internet Explorer that will not work in Firefox. Let me give you an example. I went to a website created by a large web design firm for Arabian horses. While I was at the site I noticed there where pages I could not get to. I was looking at the site in Firefox. Come to find out they were using a horizontal menu that was made with dynamic html, also known as DHTML. So when I would put my mouse over one of the links it would show a set of links underneath, well atleast it was suppose to. But not in Firefox. Because of this I was not able to access these pages. It works fine in Internet Explorer, AKA IE. If your web designer does not take into consideration how a site looks on all browsers you could be losing traffic that will later come to hurt you.

2) Load Time -- Broadband is taken off at a fast pace, but not as fast as a pace when it comes to the equine industry. There is still over half of the country that is still on dial up. So when your site loads at a slow pace, what do you think happens? Click....Off. That is right. With the wealth of content on the internet these days for the equine industry, nobody has time to wait for a site to load at a turtle's pace. What is the cause of a slow loading site? First and foremost are large graphics. When your web designer takes a site and creates it in a graphical program and then slices it up and makes a website out of it, you are going to find that the site is a slow loading site. Graphics take a greater load on the server then text and cascading style sheets, AKA CSS. One way to get around this is for your web designer to create a layout using CSS. But be careful. When your web designer does not take into consideration how the CSS is laid out, you could have another load time problem. Javascript is another possible problem with load time. If you designer trying to create your site to be dynamic, make sure they are not hurting the load time of your site.

3) Content -- The most popular way of getting around the internet is by search. You know....Google. Do you know how search engines determine where you are placed in search engines? Content. When a search engine sends a bot around to search your site and place it in the search engine, it takes all of your content and determines the relevance of the content it finds with the search words people use. So if your site does not have much content about the equine industry, not many people are going to find your site when searching for equine related keywords. Make sure that when your web designer is creating your site that content is used as much as possible.

4) Lay out -- Does your site look fine in your browser? How about in your friends browser? If your site looks fine in your browser there could be a chance that it does to everyone else, and there is the chance that it does not. The reason for this is the way your site was laid out. Let's say you are looking at your site in a 1024 browser and all looks fine. Then you go to a smaller browser and you have to scroll horizontal to see the whole page. Why does this happen? Because the site layout is not liquid. What does this mean? It means that the layout was set at a pixel width. When the layout is set at a pixel width it cannot adjust with the browser size. If you set the width to percentage then it can. The only way around this is if you set your pixel width to the minimum so that there will be no horizontal viewing problems for the smallest of browser viewers.

  This is a start to having the knowledge you need to make sure that your web designer is doing the best job that you have asked for. I will be posting more articles of help and advice that you may find of use in your website development.