Internet Respiratory Infections and Other Problems
September 12, 2008 by Mary Ellen
As a card-carrying member of the do-it-yourself club, I tell my clients they need to be in control of their website rather than being held hostage by a webmaster. Good advice if you can take it. My challenge isn’t finding the problems. It’s fixing them.
Based on some of my own experiences with the internet, I devised a simple diagnostics test you can use to check for problems. Here is a do-it-yourself web audit of the simplest variety.
- Can visitors navigate your site easily, smoothly and quickly?
- When you click on the header for your page do you automatically go home?
- Does every link on your site work?
- Is anything underlined that is NOT a link? On the web, the underline communicates link at a glance, so visitors expect the underline to be a hyperlink.
- Do all icons (print, pdf, and email) work?
- Did you limit yourself to one or two fonts and then use those fonts on every page consistently throughout the site?
- Have you viewed your web page in different browser environments such as AOL, Internet Explorer, and Firefox to ensure its consistency?
- Have you used a repeatable image as background? No matter how cute or closely tied to your message, the image is likely clutter that interferes with the readability of text.
- Have you proofed every page, dialed every phone number, tried every contact or signup sheet, and clicked through to every link?
- Does your site look professional with high quality graphics and quality photos combined with text?
As you answer these questions, every hesitation or no answer constitutes a potential problem. Like any illness, unresolved issues weaken the immune system or the website. Too many troubles can create a respiratory infection and even the tiniest illness can morph into a major problem if left unattended.
What to do? Call the doctor. Call the webmaster? I know the frustration of waiting days for a response. Remember the prescription, “Take two aspirin and go to bed?” I want that solution.
Comments
Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
Search
Recent Posts
Categories
Useful Links
Archives