Can Your Visitors See Your Website
You’ve built a fresh new website, used every SEO (search engine optimization) recommendation and have posted your new website for the world to see. What’s the problem?
Can the world see your website?
There are so many different browsers chance’s are high that a visitor has a browser that can’t view your website correctly.
Every person that has spent any time on the Internet has come across a website that wasn’t compatible with their browser. Maybe it was your security settings, an out dated browser, poor website coding, etc…
The fact is: you could not view the website correctly. You also probably moved on to another website never to return. You also did NOT convert into a customer because you could not find what you were looking for. Can you afford to lose potential customers?
Your website statistic’s are a goldmine of information about your visitors. Website statistics can show you what types of browsers, resolutions, etc are most popular with your website’s visitors. Knowing this information is a powerful resource in creating a “user” friendly website that converts into customers. Once you determine the majority of visitors resolutions you can optimize your website to accommodate them.
After all: A website’s entire purpose is to provide your visitors and potential customers with the information they need. If you don’t provide it, your competition will. This is when website statistics come into play.
Browser Issues and Quirks
Anyone who has been involved in website design for any amount of time is familiar with the horror’s of designing a website that worked in Internet Explorer 6. IE 6 was many a web designers nemesis, myself included. My major grief was drop down menu’s and apparently everyone else’s. I had to use crazy scripts and hacks to fix all the issues. There were other problems, but the drop down menu’s were what drove me crazy. IE 6 simply refused to adhere to W3C web standards.
Unfortunately, depending upon your visitor demographic, they will be either using the latest and greatest browsers fully updated. Or your visitors will be still using browsers like IE 6. August 27 2011 will mark IE 6’s 10 year anniversary… let it go! Do an update or two, or go with a decent browser like FireFox FireFox is free and runs smoother with less issues than Internet Explorer. It also has a huge repository of free tools for almost anything you can think of.
Monitor Screen Size Resolution
In the 1990’s 800×600 was a common resolution for most monitors. Then in the 2000’s 1024×768 resolution monitors started becoming popular. Website’s designed for 800×600 resolutions would show up with extra blank space on the edges on the larger 1024×768 resolution monitors. Vice versa, us cheapskates who made do with our older lower resolution monitors and did a lot of “back & forth” scrolling when surfing the Internet. Finer detail = smaller image. Currently monitor resolutions go up to 1920×1200 and higher.
Screen size is more important than ever! Mobile Internet browsing is here and it is not going anywhere. I look at client website stats everyday and I have seen a rise in mobile browsers. Currently optimizing for the various screen widths and CSS compatibility makes mobile browser design challenging. Not impossible, but challenging.
Learn more about mobile website optimization:
Opera browser development on mobile web optimization: The mobile web optimization guide
Mashable website development article: Mobile web optimization guide and tools
Color Depth
Color depth is the number of colors that can be displayed on the screen at once. The higher the color depth you choose, the better your screen will appear when looking at things with lots of color like photos and videos.
Most computers use 24 or 32 bits hardware to display 16,777,216 different colors.
Older computers often use 16 bits display hardware, which gives a maximum of 65,536 different colors.
Very old computers uses 8 bits color hardware, which gives a maximum of 256 colors.
There are only 216 colors determined to be “safe” for every browser to render correctly. With the advent of Web 2.0 and now Web 3.0 color limitation is a bit outdated. We all want to use customized color’s and shadings to make our website “POP” and standout. I personally don’t do web design with the 216 color limitation. I feel that the majority of computers today are at the least 32bits. Not all web designers believe this, so it is very subjective design issue.
I personally am not worried about a user that is using the oldest computer. If I like a color scheme for a website, I am going to use it. I am a big believer in the psychology of color in marketing so I am not going to shortchange a clients chances of making the sale to a majority of users because someone running Windows 95 possibly might show up. My apologies to those making do with less. I get it and love it, I’d also be running the oldest pc I could get away with if I didn’t need to keep up to date for SEO Internet marketing and web design.
Javascript
If parts of your website depend upon Javascript to run and a visitor does not have Javascript enabled in their browser… the visitor might not be able to fully interact with your website.
You could be alienating some visitors by not having your website completely accessible without using Javascript? I use FireFox as my main browser and I use the NoScript AddOn. It blocks Java and JavaScript by default, I have to click “Temporary Allow Scripts” in order to view content. I find the minor annoyance is worth the effort since it limits the possibility of getting hit by a hijack script on a website. Often users that have Javascript either enabled or disabled do this via their browser and it is not very easy for them to allow Javascript in their browser. The result: They do not bother to enable Javascript.
Java
Java is different from Javascript because Java runs independently of the website as a program. Java is a program that when run is “compiled” and then used on the website. Java does not need a website to be used, it can be used as a standalone program that can be downloaded from a website. Javascript is embedded into a website as an actual script or document. Javascript is an actual part of website that is read like any other website code.
Flash
As a web designer and SEO Internet marketing professional Adobe Flash developers annoy the heck out of me. Once a Flash project is finished I am limited in what I can do to mitigate the fact search engines CANNOT read Flash. I find that most web designers do not even know the basic tags to tell a search engine what their Flash is about much less Adobe’s new recommendations for creating Flash objects with SEO . Google has stated in 2009 that it is working on Flash reading capbilities… November 2010… still hasn’t happened. So I’m a big believer in teaching a website to fish rather than sitting stagnate and praying for a change.
If your website is done in Flash all is not lost and ruined. Electronic Logic Concepts can fix and optimize Flash websites SEO There are SEO onpage and offpage techniques that can be done to help your search engine visibility and browser optimization. If your web designer is currently offering you a primarily Flash website I would highly suggest that you make sure that they are following Adobe’s Flash Optimization Guidelines posted above.
Learn more about mobile website optimization:
Adobe Flash Optimization Guidelines
Online Browser Compatibility Checker – Browser Shots
Browser Shots - Online Browser Compatibility Checker
Photo courtesy of Yugenro via Flickr