1. Compare how your site looks across multiple platforms and browsers
Have you seen what your website looks like using both Windows and MAC operating systems? How about checking out what your website looks like on Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, or Chrome? What about mobile devices?
It’s good to have an idea of what your website looks like across multiple browsers and operating systems, along with a few older versions from the most recent. Sometimes things don’t look the way they are designed to due to programming and browser incompatibilities. Newer code and plug-ins don’t always work with older versions and some browsers.
Download these browsers if you haven’t already, and compare what you’re site looks like using each browser. Safari, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome. I recommend downloading not the latest version – as most people don’t update/upgrade their browsers often.
For testing and optimizing Mobile content, try Keynote MITE 2, click here to learn more and download the free program.
2. Fix graphics or images that look stretched, jaggedly, or squished out of proportion.
If you have an image that is “actually” larger or smaller in pixels then what you are trying to display it at on your website, the image may look stretched, squished, or jagged.
To fix this problem, you have to know the correct size of your image in pixels, and/or the dimensions you want to display it at. You can change the image size or crop your image to the size you want using a program like Gimp, Photoshop or Picasa. You could also change your design to fit the correct dimensions of the image without having to crop or resave the images.
To find the actual size in pixels of the image, you can either right clicking the image to view it’s properties, or apple click if you are using a mac. You can also find the image properties in Photoshop or another image editing program.
3. Improve your website search engine rankings with keywords
Have you researched your search engine rankings lately? How do you perform when searching for your website using Google’s search? Do any of your search terms rank you high or low? Build traffic to your website by optimizing your site for search engines like google, yahoo, and others.
You can easily improve your search engine ranking by focusing on keywords in your text content, web page addresses(url’s), Title Tags, Header Tags, and Alternative text for images.
4. Cross-link text and images throughout your website to other pages on your site and throughout the web
To make it easier for your web users to access the content they want and to improve search engine rankings, chose keywords throughout your site to link to other pages on your website and to external websites. Use nice graphics or images to link to key areas of your website that promote a new product, sale, or service.
5. Float images and graphics within text
A nice way to break up a paragraph of text is to add pictures or graphics within the text, giving about 10-15pixels padding between the image border and text. This can be achieved using css float and padding style/properties.
6. Convert paper and pdf forms into digital forms that can be filled out on-line
If you offer downloadable forms in pdf format, consider having these forms converted to an on-line version that your customer/client/member can fill-out directly off your website. The information in these forms can then be sent to an emailing address, or stored in a database for later retrieval.
7. Add a shopping cart or payment buttons for products and services
It’s never been simpler to add e-commerce functionality to your website. With shopping carts and tools like PrestaShop, E-Junkie, and Paypal, you can setup items to purchase online at an affordable price. Setup simple Paypal buttons on your site or get fancy with a complete e-commerce package using an internal shopping cart. Connect to Paypal or Google for secure payment processing and checkout.
If you want to keep it within your brand you can setup your shop to hook directly to an on-line merchant – never taking your customer away from your site to complete the shopping experience. This includes more time, money, and expertise to get off the ground.
8. Keep your content up to date
As time goes on, so do employees, job titles, policies, products, prices, services, locations, times, phone numbers, etc. Review your website to make sure content is up to date. If it’s 2011 and your homepage has 2010 or 2009 written all over it – you need to revise your content to stay current .
9. Add new content to your site daily, weekly, or monthly
Search engines and your customers will love your website even more when it’s updated regularly. Give your customers a reason to keep coming back. Consider updating your website daily, weekly, or monthly – strategically create reasons for your web users to come back to your site.
10. Analyze your website traffic with statistics using Google Analytics
Google has made it easier then ever to hook analytics code into your website for a user friendly way of analyzing traffic on your website. Find out where your traffic comes from, who’s referring traffic to your site, how many visits/day, what paths they are taking and more. Use this information to better your strategy for building and maintaining a successful website.
