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With so many web design companies, how do you choose the right one? Hopefully the guide below will help you make the right choice... If you're a web designer, you too might want to read through the Do's and Don'ts of web design...

1. Blinking Text and/or Flash Animations: The only place where you would see these lights are that of strip clubs etc... Therefore no need to put it on your website unless...

2. Page Counters: Not only do page counters make you look like an amateur, but it also exposes valuable statistical information about your website, that you probably don't want your competitors to know.

3. Frames: In the old days, frames were acceptable due to the lousy HTML layout capabilities. Today you can do almost anything with CSS and it's supported by all major browsers. Therefore there is no need to go that route anymore.

4. Broken Links: If you have links that are pointing to pages that are no longer available, do disable them until your pages are ready again.

5. Flash Intros: The 'skip intro' button is the second most clicked button on the web today. Flash should only be used in special situations and not on every page/heading.

6. Chat rooms: The worst thing than having a chat room, is having an empty chat room. Try to avoid it at all costs!

7. Page Titles: Ensure all your pages have titles.

8. Cross-browser compatibilty: Ensure your website looks the same on all mayor browsers, as every visit to your website counts.

9. Consistency: Your site should stand out as a whole. Use the same look and feel for all the pages on your website. This way your visitors have a sense of recognition when they visit various pages. Using stylesheets (CSS) makes it much easier to maintain the look and feel of numerous pages.

10. Image Quailty / Compression: Improve the performance of your website by reducing the size of your images. JPEG images can be saved with different compression percentages but test several compressions for each image you want to use and make sure that you're not losing too much quality.

11. Don't rely on plugins: You can create astonishing effects with plugins like Silverlight, Flash and Shockwave. But don't rely on them as many visitors don't bother to install plugins. In that case they won't be able to see the great effects you implemented. Rather offer an alternative or even better, check for plugins and inform your visitor.

These are just a few items of what NOT to do and what to do when designing your next website...