The Importance of Website Inspection

Hope you had a good weekend.

Mine was great. Yesterday, my girlfriend and I decided to go for a bike ride. The weather was just right – sunny with a slight breeze. The decision to go on a bike ride was the easy part, preparing for the bike ride was a little more challenging.

We pulled out our bikes from their hiding place, dusted them off and began the routine inspection. We inspected the brakes, gear shifts, and tires. We lubricated all the components, added air to the tires, and last but not least filled our water jugs. After all that we still wanted to ride…and did.

Our bike ride consisted of an exploration of Alameda – our home town. It was a very different experience because we didn’t have a particular destination; we just rode for the pure enjoyment. What a great day to have been out on a bike.

Importance of Inspection

I used to do a lot of mountain biking and the thing I remember most was the importance of inspecting your bike before you rode. The last thing any of us wanted was to have our tire fall off because we didn’t check the tension of the tires or the bike wouldn’t stop because we didn’t inspect the brakes beforehand.

Inspecting Your Website

Preparing and inspecting your website before you launch it to the world is just as important as inspecting your bike before you ride. If you don’t make sure your site is in running order you may jeopardize the whole reason you built the website in the first place – getting people to visit. In other words – If your website is full of errors, people will not visit.

During the production phase, we consistently check for errors, but the most important time is just before launch. Below are some of the common inspections we go through just before launching a new website:

• Check for spelling and grammatical errors
• Validate Code – Make sure all HTML (and other) code is accurate and compliant.
• Inspect website on multiple browsers and platforms – Check how the site is rendered in Internet Explorer, Mozilla on Windows XP or MAC platform.
• Check hyperlinks – Do they go where they’re supposed to?
• Check load time – How quickly does each page load within the browser?
• Check forms and any interactive features, such as search pages or database components.

So before you rush out and launch your new website, don’t forget to prepare and inspect it for possible errors. The precautions you take now will determine who visits your website and who doesn’t.

‘til next time.