So, what’s your site look like? Your landing pages? Your blogs? Even your Facebook fan pages or MySpace account? If your answer is “clean and easy to use,” then you can skip reading the rest of this. If your answer is anything BUT “clean and easy to use,” then read on, friend, read on.

We’ve talked about how damaging bad web design can be before and I’ve given you some tips on how to generate good web design, but here we all are on the Internet, and that means that someone (actually, more like “many someones”) is still going to be doing it wrong. Lots of folks – even huge, multinational corporation owner type folks – just don’t get it. But you don’t have to be one of them, and avoiding bad web design is easier than you might first think when you’re starting out.

There are basically two ways to go about avoiding bad web design: do it yourself, or go with a professional (a proper professional).

If you plan to go the DIY route, that’s fine. You’ll need to get a book, or read some websites, or take a class, or something to get the actual skills you need to make it, of course, but once you do, then you can get started. And that’s usually the prime time people begin to make terrible mistakes.

Beginners often fall into the trap of thinking they need something extremely fancy to make their pages look “professional,” but what often ends up happening is that they pile on as many bells and whistles as they can possibly find all at once, and create a monstrosity instead of the great thing they’d envisioned. So if you are going the DIY route, first remember that less is more for the beginner designer. Trying to cram in too many complicated things will only trip you up. Instead, go for clean and simple, and as you gain more skills, you can build up from there.

But before you go doing any building up, do some research first. Do you know bad design when you see it? If you do, do you know why what you’re seeing is bad design? The best way to learn what NOT to do is look at other crappy sites. Fortunately (well, depending on how you look at it), these are never in short supply. I recommend checking out a website like Web Pages That Suck for (de)inspiration. That site chronicles 15 years of bad design, with commentary on why, so there’s no shortage of junk to compare your non-junk with.

If you can’t go DIY – whether it’s because you simply don’t want to, don’t have the time to figure out how to, or aren’t confident enough that your skills are up to the level you’d like your site to present – then it’s time to go find you a professional. A proper professional. And by a “proper professional,” I mean one that’s experienced, with a good track record of professional, clean work. Not the guy from CraigsList that can’t spell and has a dubious grasp on his own native language, let alone yours. Not the neighbor’s 14 year old nephew that did that “totally bangin’ MySpace layout that one time? Y’know, with the big animated graphics? And the huge, tiling background image? Oh, and fancy music player that starts up automatically, doesn’t have an off button, and only plays an endlessly looping midi version of Moonlight Sonata? I know – classy, right? So classy.” A real professional. And then – and this might sound absolutely radical, but just go with me here…and then…you let that professional do his or her professional job.

Naturally, you should have a lot of input on what you want for look and feel and style and some features and all that good stuff, and a real professional will be very attentive to that. But you also need to let them do their jobs – you hired a professional because, for whatever reason, you can’t do the work yourself…so let them do it. Don’t insist on elements that they tell you are perhaps not a good fit. No web designer worth his or her salt wants to create something not good. They want to do the job you’ve hired them to do – produce a clean, functional, great looking website that fits your needs. So listen to their advice and recommendations, and don’t insist on bad design.

Of course, this does mean you are going to pay for it. Not everyone willing to take money to build a website is a good designer. I’m not suggesting you pay exhorbitant fees or anything, but a real designer that will do a good job is going to cost. They are not the ones that will do it for $15 bucks and a cut of profits later when your site starts making money. If someone’s rates are incredibly cheap, it often means that you’re going to get exactly what you paid for. So do your research and be willing to pay a reasonable rate to get the kind of site that will serve you well.

All in all, avoiding bad design basically boils down to paying attention to what other people do wrong so you can avoid falling into the same traps.