Best Practices on the Web

In order to create a satisfying user experience, all official Penn web sites should follow best practices. Here are a few guidelines that can help you in the creation of your site.

• Keep navigation consistent throughout the site. Users should always be able to return easily to your homepage and to other major navigation points in the site, including the main Penn web site.
• Divide your information into clearly defined sections.
• Ensure that all images include an "ALT" tag and height and width information
• Use Cascading Style Sheets to create the layout and style of your site. The "font" tag should no longer be used.
• Understand the importance of search usability and search engine optimization (SEO) Learn more about SEO at http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291&cbid=-10m2zyovfbnmr&src=cb&lev=answer and http://www.seochat.com/.
• Links should be created using text that makes sense when read out of context. For example, avoid "click here".
• Always check your work using a validator such as the W3C Markup Validation Service. Style sheets can be validated using the W3C CSS Validation Service
• Create pages using XHTML.

Additional tips can be found in the Google Webmaster Guidelines and in and the 3rd edition of the Web Style Guide Online.