I’m doing my best to make my website makeovers as good as possible and am constantly scouring the net for ideas and best practices to help me do just that.

For example, Graywolf’s SEO Blog has some interesting articles on website layout and how it can be used to maximise profits. The size of your masthead (too big and it pushes content off the screen), where you place “money items”, the width of your page and even where you place your navigation links can all play a crucial role when monetising a website.

I’m certainly thinking about the points raised, particularly with concern for my websites’ internal pages. As far as the homepages are concerned I’m still not convinced that visitors want to see a lot of advertising on arrival (presuming they do enter one of my websites via the homepage). Ad blindness can kick in and may have an adverse effect on the internal pages too. Maybe I’m wrong though.

Another great piece of research that I’ve just come across comes from Stanford University and relates to the credibility of websites. Based on three years of research, they’ve come up with the following ten points to ensure visitors see your website as a credible source of information:

1. Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site.

2. Show that there’s a real organization behind your site.

3. Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide.

4. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.

5. Make it easy to contact you.

6. Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).

7. Make your site easy to use - and useful.

8. Update your site’s content often (at least show it’s been reviewed recently).

9. Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).

10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem.

It may look like a list of common sense points, but I for one am guilty of overlooking the obvious on more than one of my sites (this one included, but in my defence it has yet to face the extreme makeover treatment!).

When I come across must have checklists like this, I usually print them off for future reference. But instead of ordinary paper, I use photographic paper. It’s more expensive so I treasure it more and it lasts longer too. And if it’s something that I find indispensible - like the Google Heat Map for example - I go the extra mile, buy a cheap frame, and put it on the wall above my desk.