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December 1st, 2011 - by Mohamed Adel
Launching a new website can be considered as straight forward process, but to it is so difficult to keep track of everything you need to check before going live, this also becomes more complicated when you have a tight timeline dedicated for the launch process itself. Therefore there is a useful way that should be used to ensure that everything has been covered, especially the other team member’s work.
Why having these checks?
When you’re about to launch your new website, you have to make sure that a good and positive experience will remain on your new website visitors, otherwise they will leave and will never come back, at least until you fix everything you have broken. From this we can understand that most of internet users don’t really understand what the meaning of phases or beta versions is. They only can understand that the website is working or not working.
What are the most important things to check?
There are many things you should be checking before even uploading the files; mainly we can divide the checks into four separate checks (visual, functionality, SEO, and Performance checks), and each one of these checks will have some other items that will need to be monitored.
Visual checks or user interface (UI) checks
The visual or user interface checks may include the visual elements that can be seen on the website as images, or flash files. In the next few lines we will know how we can
define the visual or user interface (UI) elements that need to be checked before launching a website.
Images (sizes and existence) Checks
When you are about to launch a website, it is an essential thing to check that all the images you’re using is really exist on the server, and has the same width, height as same as the local server.
Flash (existence and view area) Checks
Another thing you’ll need to check, if you have a flash file(s) you’ll need to make sure that its exist on the server, and has the same viewing area as the local server. Also don’t forget to set the property wmode to transparent in order for any other HTML, or JavaScripst to appear in front of the flash file.
Content look and feel (include default text, and headings) Checks
The content look and feel is one of the most important checks. Most of developers may forget to program default properties of some important Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) styles. For example they may forget to apply a style for default font of a text, and ending your website will look inconsistent, each page has its font type, or size. From this comes the important to make sure that all the content will have the same look and feel, starting from headings (H1, H2, and H3), passing by default textual content, and ending by checking the default link styles.
Cross browser compatibility checks
Among all the visual or user interface (UI) checks, this is the most important one. The importance of this check comes from the way each browser parses the HTML page. For example, Internet explorer (version 6, 7, or 8) is usually missing the HTML content, or by another meaning it parses the HTML another way, other than FireFox, or Google Chrome does. From this you must make sure that your website will look the same in all browsers. Even if you’ve followed the correct HTML syntax, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) styles, you still need to ensure its working fine; sometimes you’ll need to write some extra Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) styles to act only on internet explorer to fix any messy look and feel. To run this check all you have to do is to open your website on at least the following browsers, Internet Explorer (6, 7, and 8), FireFox, Google Chrome, and Safari.
Cross operating system compatibility checks
Though this check can’t be applied or might be difficult to be applied, but it is really important. But as a matter of fact Safari on Windows environment is acting different way than Safari on Mac environment. Same applies on FireFox, it might look different between Linux, and windows environments. Here comes why we need to make cross operating system compatibility checks, to avoid any surprises that would impact the visitor’s experience on the website.
Monitors compatibility checks
These days by technology advances you really can’t predict which type of monitors that the visitor has and viewing your website through it, it maybe a PC monitor, laptop monitor, or even a data-show projector. Before launching your website you should take into consideration that each type of monitors might show a different color other than the one you selected. It’s a good thing to know how your website colors will look like.
Monitor resolution compatibility checks
As mentioned above in the previous check, you need to know what your website colors will look like through different monitors, one other thing you must check, which is how the website will look like on big screens, or maybe small screens. When you are launching your website you must make sure that it will be looking fine in both high, and low screen resolutions, test it on 800*600, 1024*768, and 1280*1024 screen resolutions, and see whether if it is working fine, or will need some other adjustments.
Mobile device compatibility checks
At least 1% of your visitors will come through mobile or hand-held devices, and of course you don’t want to risk these types of visitors leaving your website with really bad experience. If you’re about to create another mobile version of your website, then it is ok, a simple redirect will cover this, but if you’re not planning to have a mobile version then at least check it, and see will you understand the content, or it will need more attention.
Functionality checks
The functionality of the website is the backbone of any website. As everybody knows, any website must have a purpose, or a role it plays in the website owner minds. If you neglect checking the functionality of the website, then you’re sacrificing the visitor’s interaction with the website, and at the end he will leave it, and will never come back. In the below points you’ll know exactly what to check to make sure that your website is ready to go live.
Broken or dead links checks
Have you ever clicked on a link and found it broken or not working? Most of us had this experience before, and also most of us have closed the entire website because of this. Why leaving this to happen to your website. It is really important to know and fix the broken links in your website, unless you want your visitors leaving with bad experience about it. Myself I’m using this tool W3C Link Checker, to search my website pages for any broken links.
HTML Vs W3C validation check
It’s a good habit to create a standard compliant website, and to reach this then your website must pass the W3C checks for following the real standards of the HTML syntax. Myself I do this once I’m completed with the PSD to HTML convert process, and you can use the validation markup for HTML, and jigsaw tool to validate your Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) styles.
Logo linked to home page check
To make sure that your visitors are able to navigate your website in a smooth and easy way, you must link your logo (if exist) to the home page, even if you already have the link in the main menu. Don’t forget this check; otherwise you’ll not be following one of the good standards you should follow.
Online forms, and emails checks
An essential functionality of any website is the online forms, imagine that you forgotten to code the contact us form, and your visitors are filling it, and you didn’t get any messages, what will you do to get them to fill the form again after being fixed? So checking that all the forms are working and acting as it supposed to, is really vital because these are one of the main things that the website rely on. Also don’t forget to check the search functionality, and make sure it is working fine.
Code and image optimization checks
It’s an important thing to make sure all your images are in the appropriate size, we’ve talked before that we need to check that all images has the correct width, and height, but in this check we will need to make sure that all the images are optimized, saved for web, and also in an acceptable size in kilobytes. Also making code optimization is not less important than image optimization, neglecting code optimization might cause the website to act slowly, and this will be reflecting on your visitors, so reducing the number of HTTP requests and optimizing codes will save you a good mount of speed you were risking.
Error pages and custom/friendly 404 (not found) pages checks
It’s an essential to void your visitors seeing the non-friendly error messages, for the developers it’s really important to know exactly what the error is, but for your visitors, they don’t know and they don’t care to know the nature of the error. All they want to see is something that they can understand, so they can proceed navigating your website. By using friendly or custom error pages you’ll provide something easy to understand for your visitors that will tell them what is the error, but as something they can understand.
Search engine optimization checks (SEO Checks)
After making sure all the visual and technical elements are fine and ready to go, there comes another series of checks that not less important than the checks you’ve already done. The importance of these checks comes from the reason of having your website to be search engine friendly and by its turn to become visible in search engines as fast as possible. In the following few lines we will learn what to check to make sure that our website is search engine friendly.
Pages title tag check
Having something like unnamed, or untitled is not really presenting an understandable way for the user to know what exactly this page contains, nether for the search engine, it will not understand why this page is for; and it will drop your website or website pages in their index, and finally you’ll not be able to gain a good rank in search results. When you’re checking the pages title you must make a focus that it at least contains the name of your website, and the current page the visitor is already viewing.
Keywords and description tags check.
Each of keywords and description tags is telling some brief information about the current page, and also it has a purpose.
Meta keywords or page keywords
Typing in some keywords will provide an advanced addition to your website, telling the search engines that this page contains the subject that the visitor might be searching for. Actually it tells the search engine crawler that it might has the information which the visitor might be looking for. So neglecting the keywords might affect your website visibility on search engines. Myself I use the Google Adwords Keyword tool for generating the most common keywords I should be using.
Meta description or page description
Typing some brief description about each page of your website will provide you great assist on search engines. The importance of it comes from the way search engines shows your website as a result. If you have a description filled the search engine will write it just below your website telling some more information about the page.
Sitemap.xml file check
This check is always being forgotten by developers, although its importance but it always being forgotten. Sitemap provides detail information about the entire website; it helps the search engines to understand the hierarchy or your website, and in order to what priority it should show the page as a result. If you’re not sure how to create a sitemap for your website, then you can use one of the sitemap generators on the web. These generators are indexing your website and placing a file called sitemap.xml to the root of your website, the next mission is yours. All you have to do is to submit this file to all known search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo, and Bing). Myself I like to use this online tool to generate a sitemap for all my websites, and you can use it on this URL http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
Site Performance, usability, and content revision checks
Finally you’re about to complete your website checks, the entire process might be boring, and might also require a working day or something, but it is really important. The final check you should do now is to know whether your website is loading fine, or slow. If you’ve made the above checks successfully you’ll find that the website loading time is good, otherwise you’ll need to redo the functionality checks all over again.
Site Speed, and loading time check
If you’ve visited a website and found it very slow, what the impact you would have about this website? Will you visit it again? The answer is probably No. This check should show you whether you should focus on the functionality checks, or change your web hosting itself. Myself I use Google Page Speed Online to make sure that my website is in a good condition, and its speed is fine.
Usability and easy to use check
This check should NOT be made by a developer, or anyone who is using the internet in a daily wise, because developers can deal with any website, and regular internet users will have the ability to guess where they can find the information. Measuring the easiness of navigating the website can be achieved only by getting someone with limited internet skills trying to surf the website, and with his/her final opinion you can measure where your website is easy to use or not.
Pages and content existence, grammar, and spelling mistakes check.
Congratulations, now you’re about to make your last check, in this check you should look into the content, make sure all the pages are exist, and has its real content (NOT dummy content). All you have to do is to go through all the website pages, and check the spelling, and grammar, and if you found any page with no content, or dummy content, then place an under construction image or text (if you can’t get its content at the moment), After that, then you’re done checking your website, and now it is ready to be introduced to the world.
Important Finale
As we could understand from this article, there any many things you (as website owner, or developer) should be doing before introducing your website to the world. In brief you should make sure your website looks or acts well as functionality and visibility wise, also making sure that search engines will see it correctly, this will guarantee you that traffic flow will come to the website as they search for information, and they will have a smooth and positive experience with your website.
If you have any Comments, Additions, or even corrections please post them in the comments in order to spread the experience to everybody passing by this article.
Your feedback is really appreciated!
This entry was posted
on Thursday, December 1st, 2011 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Website Enhancement.
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