Do It Yourself Web Design: Pitfalls to avoid
By Joe Duchesne

Do it yourself web design promises to save you money. Creating your own website however, can be fraught with challenges and pitfalls. Here are a few to avoid.

1. Leaving out Meta tags

Meta tags refer to the keyword and description meta tags that many search engines look for. Many modern search engines like Google don't put that much weight on them but they do have an impact on your search engine rankings. Leave them out at your peril. Your do it yourself web design project will suffer if you do.

2. No title or inappropriate title for web pages

The title of your web page will be the active link shown in search engine results. Make sure your title is keyword rich with your main keywords being at the front of the title. Click on this link for more on improved search engine ranking through effective web page titles.

3. Not enough text on the page

Putting graphics on your website can be effective. Search engines see text, they don't see images. At the same time, having too few words on your web pages can adversely affect your rankings because of how it adversely affects keyword density. Go here for more on improved search engine ranking via keyword density.

4. Lack of focus on good keywords

When writing for the internet, it isn't enough to write an effective sales letter and sit back to watch the traffic roll in. The only time that strategy is going to work is when you rely on pay per clicks from search engines as your main source of advertising. If you're like most people I know, you don't have tons of money to put into driving traffic to your site. In that case, you need to do everything possible to make sure your site is as search engine friendly as possible. You do this by identifying and targeting good keywords in the body of your web page copy. What makes a good keyword? That's beyond the scope of this article. Go here to learn how you can get improved search engine ranking through choosing good keywords.

5. No call to action

What do you want your website visitors to do when they hit your page? Do you want them to buy something? Then make a clear path to that sale. Do you want to collect their information to follow up with them later? Write the copy of your website in such a way that they will gladly leave you their information. Keep in mind that you can rarely do both well. Some marketing gurus will focus on getting a little sale from a visitor with the intention of marketing their biggest profit items at a latter time. Either way, make sure you are getting your visitors to do something.

6. Navigation that is unfriendly to search engines

While it may seem like a good idea to have a drop down box for your website navigation, it will actually hurt your you in the long run. You see, search engines can't follow javascript links, buttons, or menus. Anything that requires a user to choose an item, then press a button is not something the search engines will be able to follow. If you include such a navigation scheme, understand that search engines will only be able to find your front page and nothing else.

7. Creating a flash based web site

There may come a time when search engines will be able to properly read flash based sites but that hasn't happened yet. Don't make a website that has flash and little else. Search engines do a poor job of reading the page, you have little text for the search engine to read and it will cost you in rankings. The beauty of a flash rich website isn't worth the trade off of poor or no search engine ranking. It is fine to include some flash on a content rich web site but don't put it at the very top of your page before any significant text appears.

8. Using frames for website navigation

Along with javascript navigation, using frames for navigation makes it equally hard for a search engine to crawl your web site. Frames confuse search engines and they confuse people. Don't use them. It was a popular fad of the mid 1990's to use frames but any company serious about search engine ranking will avoid them like the plague. Do it yourself web design is possible as long as you keep the pitfalls I mentioned above at the forefront of your mind during your website creation.