Having a website for your horse, farm, or equine profession can be of great value, if done right. A website can have a great effect on your business, both good and bad. What we need to do is try to eliminate the bad effects so that your website can thrive and benefit you, your horses, and your profession. I am going to talk a little about some practices that you should consider if you are building your own website, or you have someone who has done your site and you want to make sure that the site is running at a peak performance. In no way is this a complete list of practices, as there are different ways to implement some practices depending on the project. For the most part, I will talk about some practices that should be considered global, meaning they can be used on any website.

1) Valid Code
Before any other practices can be considered, this has to be considered, looked at, and made the top priority. If the code that runs your website is not valid you run the risk of some of your visitors not have access to your site. If that is the case, there is no reason to have a website. Keep in mind that if you have a website for your farm or horses as a personal hobby, you are free to do as you please. If you have any interest in doing any type of business using your website, all visitors must have access to your website. I could write another complete article on what is valid code, but right now I want to make sure you know how to check for valid code. The best way to make sure your website is valid, go to http://validator.w3.org/ . This tool is great because it will show you where the errors are and how you can fix the errors. I have seen some site that have 10+ errors which is not good for making sure that all of your site is accessible.

2) Layout
Having a good layout is much more then just how your site looks graphically. Layout has to do with how your content is positioned, where your images are best used, and how a search engine will follow your content. There is huge debate these days on what is better, tables or divides, in setting up a website. That again is another article, and not a global concern in practice.

The common flow of a website is to have a header, content section, and a footer. The content area can be anywhere from 1 column to 4 columns. Be advised that it can be difficult for reading purposes when there is 3 or more columns. Reading on the internet should be re-worded as scanning. That is what people to do when they visit a website. They scan the content. There is to many websites to visit these days for someone to sit at one website and read every word on the site. So keep this in mind when you layout your columns. Also know that when a search engine visits your site, the spider will read from left to right. So if you have multiple columns, your content might look a little different to a search engine then what you think

3) Navigation
Having a good navigation system is very helpful in getting visitors around your site. Make sure when your navigation system is set up that it is clear that it is understood that they are links.

4) Images
There is a fine line when it comes to using images the best way possible. Is it more important that the image is clearly seen but is bigger in file size, or is it more important that the image does not look good but can be downloaded quickly? Having a good photo editor can help you in finding a middle ground that will help your images to be clear and not that huge in file size. It should also be noted on how to save images for the web. If you are using an image that does not have many colors involved, save as a gif file. A logo usually falls into this category. If you have an image that has many colors involved, save as a jpg. All of your photo files should be saved as jpg’s because of the colors that are involved in the photo.

5) Content
Making sure that your content is easy to read and has a clear hierarchy is important in so many ways.

The use of proper fonts can help to make your content easy to read. First you need to make sure that the font is a web standard font. If you try to use a font that is not web safe, who knows what your content will look on someone else’s computer. The size of the font is also important. Make sure that you use heading tags for your titles and headings. With the use of CSS you can do so many different styles to your headings. Try to use a different font for your headings/titles and another font for your paragraphs. Doing this will allow your visitors to scan your content much easier and to find out what is important. Headings also help the search engines in determining what is important on your website.

6) Colors
Colors can do so many different things for your website. Using colors wrong can be a huge turnoff to your visitors. What colors you use will be a personal choice for you, just know how to use them and how many to use. A good technique is to use a color triad that blends 3 colors nicely. A good tool to use is http://www.colorschemer.com/online. This will help you to try to link 3 colors that blend nicely. A couple global color practices:

• Do not use a light color on a light color. This is very important when it comes to your font and background. If you use a light blue font on a white background, think headache.
• Make sure that your links have their own color
• Try to use different colors for when a link it hovered over. If you do want to do this you can add/take away the underline on the link.

7) Final Website
Having a website can sometimes make you lose your patience. What do I mean? You want your website to go live so quickly that you put it up without it being complete. First impressions are killer. Always try to have your website complete before going live. This does not mean your site has to be finished. You can always add to the site. Just don’t put it live and then put an Under Construction image on it. Not very appealing.

8. Communication
A website is a great tool for easy communication. Try to have your contact information available on all pages.

Summary

These practices can be applied to any website. There are other practices that can be used for a website depending on the needs of the site. My hope is that this will help you in the evaluation of your current website so that you can have a successful website. What images you use, what layout technique you use, what font you use, what color you use are all your personal preferences. Just try to keep these practices in mind when building your site. Always keep in mind the visitor and what is best for them. How they see your site will in the end determine the success your website brings you.

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