SEO Web Design

'Page cannot be found' suicide

Click, click, click, ohhh? If I click on a link I expect it to work. A 'page cannot be found' error results in your user abandoning your site, never to return...

Netmechanic

This is such a great tool, and if you're happy to check one web page at a time, absolutely free! Netmechanic tests the technical functions of your site and within a few seconds you will receive some important feedback about how well your site performs, so check out www.netmechanic.com/products/HTML_Toolbox_Free Sample.shtml

Load time

How fast is the server serving up the pages? How many servers need to be contacted for the user to download files and images? Are your images optimised for the web? Whilst the vast majority of users are employing broadband, they'll only be so forgiving when waiting for a new site to load. Note that Netmechanic penalises sites with web pages over 40k in size, which is a bit draconian. Most importantly, Google is only going to serve up search results which will allow their customers to get to information quickly.

HTML check and repair

This is not as in-depth as the W3C.org facility, but is a great starting point in terms of whether the code behind your site is fit for purpose. If there are errors, Netmechanic will even suggest how to fix them. Google will penalise sites with clunky or error-ridden code. Why on earth would Google want to serve up bad pages to its own customers?

Browser compatibility

Not everyone uses Internet Explorer (or PCs for that matter) and the number of people choosing to turn their backs on Microsoft products is growing at an astounding rate every month. You and your web developer need to be aware of how your site looks across all the major browsers, because the difference can be enormous. Browsers such as Netscape, Opera and Firefox are all free downloads and if you're not a convert already I would strongly suggest you move over to Firefox at your earliest convenience. If you haven't got access to a Mac, be sure to have a friend or colleague check out your site using the Safari browser. If your site looks weird, users aren't going to hang around.

Link check

OK, so Netmechanic can't tell if all the links are going to the right page, but what it's looking for are Error #404s - page cannot be found. Broken or dead links are messy, an annoyance for users and if you serve one of them up expect to lose that user instantaneously. No one is going to take time out of a busy schedule to send you a polite little email highlighting the fault. It's up to you to stay on top of this, and now you have the tool to do it.


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