Can Your Web Site Pass The Test?

Believe it or not, Internet Explorer is not the only browser on the market. More and more people are choosing alternative browsers to surf the internet. There are a great number of internet surfers that are surprised to find that not all web sites render the same.

Some web developers or personal users will design sites with only Internet Explorer in mind while unknowingly it does not work well when viewed in other browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Safari, Netscape, etc. Of course there are literally dozens more browsers out there but the ones listed above covers about 95% of market.

To make things easier, newer versions of browsers are fast becoming standardized so that it will render according to how the site is coded by the developer or user. However, this forces designers to code their site correctly which in reality is a good thing for everyone. What's complicated and sad is that all those sites that were badly coded will suffer some kind of visual problem which becomes a concern to many business owners. In addition, a badly coded site might look okay to you but for others it might not and the fact that it's using more resources to render your pages which causes it to take longer to download thus uses more bandwidth.

So how do you know if your site can pass the test or not? Easy, go to World Wide Web Consortium Markup Validation Services and test one of your web pages.

Did it pass? If not, here are a few good resources to help you understand why it didn't pass and what you need to do.

Now what? You have two choices:

Fix the HTML codes yourself, one by one. This could take hours, days or even possibly weeks. Do you have the time that it takes to fix the errors?
Let a professional fix the codes. Depending on how many errors there are, this could be far more costly than doing a complete rebuild.
Rebuild the web site. This could be the most cost effective method because the code will be standard compliant which will give your site long life expectancy.
Forget about it. You may think this doesn't concern you but what about your visitors? Does the site represent your business well?

If you have only a few errors that need to be fixed, I strongly recommend that you spend a few hours trying to fix them yourself. A web site is like a car in some ways. You may not know how to fix a major repair but you do take care some of the minor maintenances. Knowing some basic understanding of HTML code can help you maintain your site's life expectancy. Here is a good tutorial to help you understand HTML Codes.

If this is something you would rather leave to a professional, we can assist you in fixing and optimizing your site that it will render correctly on all major browsers (98% of the market).

We will analyze your site for errors, load time, image quality, content readability, accessibility, navigation structure and determine the number of pages listed on Google and Yahoo. Give us a call today!

Can Your Web Site Pass The Test?

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