It’s funny to browse the internet, and find how many sites don’t follow the core rules of ‘good’ design. It’s staggering to think of how much wasted space is truly out there. You don’t want to be part of that wasted space, so be sure to follow these core rules of design.

There’s seven mistakes in all, hopefully they help you as you go forward with your website.

- Stop with the overuse of ads. Everyone knows that the reason most people own a website is to make money. Having this mindset exclusively is actually counter-intuitive to the desired outcome. If you start a site with this premise and litter home page with ads, you can basically kiss your money making dreams goodbye. The only way to turn profit is make it about your content, and your ads second.

- Just like ads, having a wide array of plug-ins can really drive down repeated viewership. A good rule to live by is to use one plug-in per page. The reason is that when a viewer comes to your site and can’t view the content they’re going to leave. Plug-in or no. Having more than one plug-in just exacerbates the situation even further.

- Flash intros are a big no-no. Unless you’re site is about something like an upcoming movie or video game.

- If location, location, location is the prime factor in real estate then navigation is the same for web design. 80% of your time should be making sure your site is easy to navigate. If a person can’t traverse the content on your site, they’re going to leave. Simple as that.

- Make all your links, even outbound ones visible to the user. This is kind of the same thing as navigation, but with a more focused purpose. Your links are really the most important text on your page. The two rules of link building is making sure they’re distinct and visible. Also, make all links navigating away from your site open in a new window.

- Define communication links. If you’re posting links that take you to something like your Facebook profile, email, make sure that you you let your users know.

- Use web friendly fonts, and try to stay away from crazy image based fonts. The only time you really need to use fonts in images are in your header, and maybe some buttons.

One aspect of your website that should be top priority is checking to see if it can load in a variety of resolutions. You’ll want to design your site so that it fits all monitor resolutions. Because nothing makes a potential visitor leave faster, than to see a site that is beyond navigation.

So, the question is…How can you make sure your site will load up on all resolutions?

First, you need to find a minimum resolution as your starting point. Here is a list of the different monitor resolutions as of now. A good starting point is the 800×600, as it’s still widely used.

When you’ve found your lowest resolution; this will be the res that you’ll want to design your site on. Depending on your monitor it can be a hindrance to work on real low resolutions. It is key however to do it this way though.

When you’re ready to start writing up your HTML, there’s one important key thing to remember. Always work with percentages not pixels. Specifically with the tables that are encompassing most of your site. The reason for this is that when you assign a measurement to a pixel size, it’s absolute. This isn’t good because as different resolutions are being used, the pixel amount appears differently on screen. Think of how different sized wallpapers look on your monitor.

With percentage based measurement, you’re getting a relative measurement. This works better because your site is loading based on a percentage of space. So, the basics of your site stay intact and don’t look out of place.

As you get deeper into your cells, the percentage rule gets less important. In fact the cell you use for your content won’t really need measurements hardly at all. If you do use measurements, just be sure it’s with percentages, not pixels.

If you’re looking for a simple tutorial about creating a website using Adobe Photoshop, and Dreamweaver check out these vids. They’re short and sweet, while being funny. Pay attention to some of the menus, and places that are explored throughout the tutorial.’