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Many web design professionals tend to forget that not every visitor will enter through the front door. There are millions of site pages that are effectively a dead end. These pages may have content, but absolutely no links to send the visitor back to the home page nor does the page provide a clue as to the purpose and function of the website.
If a site visitor finds a link to your website through a search engine and lands on a page without navigation capabilities it is likely your site will be abandoned as they search for something more ‘complete'.
It is important that each page on your website feature a means of determining what your site is for, what you offer and how to get from one place to the next. If you have pages that are dead ends the chances diminish that your site will be as useful to customers as you want it to be.
Many sites are built with a front door mentality. In this scenario the home page is expected to be the landing pad for all visitors. In truth, search engines rank all site pages making it possible for a visitor to come into your site through a page other than the home page. Sure, you're happy they came, but you have to give them a map to your site so they can really find what they need. In many cases this is done with a site map or common navigation links on all pages.
Another common web design faux pas is to burden your pages with high-resolution images and data. Most visitors will give your web page one-tenth of a second to begin downloading - if it takes too long to download the site visitor will likely move on.
There have been numerous sites I have visited that insist on placing midi music on each web page. This ‘gift' increases download time and can be rather annoying if you happen to be listening to other desired online media.
I know the intent is to provide something unique for the site visitor, but as more audio is streamed over the Internet, the less interested we become in self-loading audio. The primary distraction is the lengthy download times these pages require.
The rule of thumb is to make every page navigable and quickly downloadable. These elements of web design can make an incredible difference in the usability of your web site.
When designing a web page, you need to be careful about what pictures you use. Many people simply grab them off Google - they see a picture they like, and they put it on their web site. Unfortunately, copyright law protects the person who took the picture as the owner - if you're not careful you could end up facing a lawsuit.
Copyright law gives rights to anyone whose creativity results in some expression - in the case of photographs, that means the photographer. If you don't have express permission to use a picture or image on your site, you ought to be careful about doing so. Someone, somewhere, probably owns it, and they may not be too happy if they find it on your site. Many webmasters find out the hard way - they use hundreds of pictures, straight from google, without dealing with the owner. They end up facing a suit, forced to defend it or pay much more money than they made running their site back to the owner.
It's actually relatively simple to avoid this whole mess. There are entire web sites designed to sell stock photos for web design purposes - just go to IstockPhoto or one of the other sites that sells them for cheap. You'll pay a buck or two, but you'll be secure knowing your site will never be shut down for violating the law. That kind of peace of mind is probably going to be worth a few bucks, and it also means you can know that any money you make off your web site design will stay in your hands.