Most small businesses can’t afford to hire full-time Web editors, and certainly don’t have the time to learn web programming themselves. If you find yourself having to hire a web developer every time you want to update your hours or add a new product, you may want to consider using a content management system for your site instead.

A content management system, or CMS, allows you to have complete control over your website’s content without ever even looking at the code. These systems are developed by people who understand how the the Web works, so you can trust that the code is clean, compatible with major browsers and search engine friendly—all you have to worry about is the information you want to present.

There are some excellent open-source CMSs available for free, the most popular of which are WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal. WordPress has a very extensive selection of themes and plugins, so it is easily adaptable to almost any purpose, no matter how big or small. It has a very user-friendly interface, easy to learn and navigate even for the least web-savvy users. Drupal and Joomla! are like WordPress in that they are very developer-friendly, but their interfaces are less friendly to novice users. Their support and development communities are also much smaller than WordPress’s, so it is harder to get help if you need it, and also fewer themes and add-ons to choose from.

There are several CMSs out there made with small businesses in mind, many of which charge subscription fees. Magento is a very powerful eCommerce platform, with features specifically designed for online retail. Though they offer a free version, the commercial licenses cost either $3,000 or $13,000 a year and also come with warranty and technical support.

Even if you have to hire a web design company to set you up on a CMS and design a custom theme for you, it will still end up being less costly for you in the long run, because you can easily handle the day-to-day updates and maintenance on your own. Either way, it’s time to take control.

Do you use a CMS not mentioned here? Tell us about it.

Traffic data can give you some clues about what parts of your site are visited the most and where your visitors come from, but it doesn’t tell you anything about whether they found what they came for or not. It can, however, give you an idea of what areas need to be tested and improved. For instance, if your home page gets heavy traffic but nobody seems to make it to your product pages, that might signify a usability problem. The only way to be sure, though, is to test it.

The first step in creating a usability test is to identify a list of tasks that users should be able to complete using your site. Keep in mind who your target audience is and what you want people to use your website for. Some examples of tasks may be finding a particular piece of information, or purchasing a specific product.

Next, find subjects for your test. Draw from your target audience and try to get as representative a sample as possible. Remember that the larger your sample is (that is, the more people who participate in the test), the more accurate your results will be. Some factors to take into consideration when selecting your subjects: age, experience with computers/Internet, familiarity with your company/brand, etc.

The benefit of conducting a usability test is that you can get a quantitative measure of how user-friendly your site is. Instead of just asking customers how satisfied they were with the site or how easy it was for them to find what they wanted, you can gather a definite set of measurements and easy-to-compare numbers. Use measurements like time spent on each task, number of errors, number of steps and commands used, etc. You may even want to have users perform the same tasks on your competitor’s site and compare the results to see where you stand.

You also get to observe your subjects’ use of the site and find exactly where the sticking points are. You can note if, when and where they get confused or frustrated. It also helps to ask your subjects to think out loud so you can follow their thought process. Be sure to keep your own mouth shut though and resist the urge to help them, or you’ll skew your results.

As a designer, it is easy to get too close to your work—to know it TOO well. Something that seems obvious to you after working on the site for a long time may actually not be so intuitive to someone seeing it for the first time. Rather than making guesses based on your insider-perspective of the site, take a step back and let someone else give it a try. You may be surprised by the results.

1. Flash Intro
   Web users have incredibly short attention spans, so you only have seconds to convince them that your site is worth sticking around for. Your Flash intro might have seemed really nifty back in the day, but now that sort of thing is generally seen as a waste of time. Your users have a specific purpose in mind when they visit your site, and a sitting through a intro video is just an obstacle to that goal. A good rule is that if it’s long enough to need a “skip intro” button, get rid of it.
2. Using Frames
   Frames used to be cool because they allowed you to keep one part of your website still (say, a logo or a sidebar), while the rest of the page scrolled. Frames also allow your site to be ignored by search engines, have eyesore scroll bars all over the place, and be incompatible with most modern browsers. You can achieve the same fixed-position effect with CSS without all the problems, so frames are more or less obsolete now.
3. Hit counters
   I’m not sure that hit counters were ever classy, but including one on your site now is definitely tacky, and a little sad—like telling everyone you meet: “Hi there! I have 54 Facebook friends…and counting!” Besides that, it is an inaccurate term, as most “hit counters” actually count visitors, not hits.
4. Clipart/Animated Gif Overload
   These “design elements” just scream 1995, and will make it difficult for anyone to take you seriously. Animated GIFs are distracting and don’t add anything of value to your design. The same goes for blinking, marquee or sparkling text. Clipart shows that you didn’t go through the effort to develop graphics specific to your company.
5. Using tables for layout
   Tables should be used to present data, not to lay out your website. A table-based layout is a sure sign that either you designed your site in the stone age, or you just don’t know what you’re doing. Yes, grid-based designs are wonderful, but you don’t need a table to make a grid. Don’t believe me? Check out the 960 grid system.
6. “Website best rendered in [fill in the blank] browser”
   There are a lot of browsers out there, and they are all constantly being updated and improved. It is important keep up with current Web standards and make sure that your site is compatible with as many different browsers and versions as possible. Otherwise, you are alienating a portion of your potential audience. So, a note like this shouldn’t even be necessary. It can also betray how long it’s been since you updated your site—if you’re saying that your website is best viewed in IE6, that tells everyone just how behind the times you are.
7. Inconsistent layout and/or navigation across pages
   As your business or organization has grown and changed over the years, you have probably added a few pages to your website. Maybe a few different people have worked on it. This is fine, but it is important to keep a consistent layout and look throughout your site, especially in the navigation. Otherwise, users will get lost and confused. Many sites now are built with dynamic programming languages like PHP that allow you to add and update pages without starting from scratch each time, leaving less room for inconsistency.
8. Music begins to play when the site loads
   Automatically-playing music and videos used to be popular, but most users now find it annoying and unfriendly—especially when there is no easily-locatable mute or stop button. People browse the web in all sorts of settings these days, and not all of them are noise/music friendly. Bonus points if it’s a MIDI file (see #4: the part about 1995).
9. Using default fonts and colors
   Don’t be afraid to have a little style. Nothing says “outdated website” like black Times font on a white background, with blue or purple underlined links.
10. Click here
    Nobody uses the words “click here” to signify a link anymore, because it’s simply not necessary. Your users know what a link looks like, so you can use that link text for something more useful, like a description of where it leads. This will also help your copy flow more smoothly, and be less wordy. For example, instead of writing “To read more, click here“, just write “Read more“.

Did we miss any?

What would you consider old practices for website design and development?