Are you cross-browser compatible?Written by Matt Benya
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Another thing you should make a habit of is to validate your pages through World Wide Web Consortium (W3C for short). Founded in 1994 W3C has made it its obligation to guide development of Web and create a common basis to build upon. One of services that W3C offers is syntax validation. This is a useful tool when you are trying to ensure that your visitors will get roughly same experience when they visit your site. Validation is easy, select language your site was designed in and use their free validation tools to track down any errors that might occur. If there is an error in your source validation system will highlight it and provide you with possible solutions for correcting it.
Why should you conform your site to World Wide Web Consortium's guidelines? The answer is that it is these guidelines that browser developers use as a basis to display pages on Web. While browsers like Mozilla conform strictly to W3C's guidelines Internet Explorer is more relaxed. In fact Internet Explorer will render just about anything you throw at it. You can leave out <html> tags, <body> tags, or forget to close a tag all together and IE will 9 times out of 10 be able to work with what you give it. Be weary of Microsoft's FrontPage. While Microsoft makes some of world's most powerful and end user friendly applications in my opinion, FrontPage has a tendency to do things IE's way. What I mean when I say this is that FrontPage will overload a web page with a lot of overhead that is either out of place or incorrect. If you plan on using an editor of this type consider Adobe's GoLive, this application at least has ability to built a page according to W3C standards and has a built in syntax checker that can help you ensure your site will meet their requirements. The final word, most likely not… Remember saying "you can't please everyone"? The same holds true to world of Internet browsers, it will be pretty much impossible to make your site render same way on each and every browser available. This however is not goal; goal is to make your site useable by most common browsers thus reaching largest audience possible. If something fails horribly under certain browsers then it is a good time to rethink your design and find another way to approach issue. If your site is known to only work under Internet Explorer and it is your desire to leave it this way then it is good practice to let your visitors know this in advance. They will be much likelier to switch browsers (if possible) and come back to your site if you let them know ahead of time rather than letting them walk into an unusable page or badly formatted site. Don't forget presentation is everything.
Matt Benya is a co-owner of Primate Studios (www.primatestudios.com) an independent development house focusing on CGI illustration, Web design and multimedia. With 20+ years of art experience and a degree in Network administration Matt is well suited to translate your needs to the Web.
| | Part II - Planning A WebsiteWritten by Regina Stevens
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1) website address on billboards, business cards, flyers, stationary, balloons, pens, pencils 2) advertise on radio and television (if you have budget) 3) write press releases 4) network with businesses, friends, and relatives 5) join a tradebank association in your area (bartering services) Don't expect your web designer/developer to operate and/or market your product or service for you It is tempting to expect your web designer/developer to operate your business and send customers to you, but in reality you should not expect this at all unless they offer it to you. Most of time, designer is there to design and developer is there for functionality of your website. There are designers and developers who will help you out, but don't expect them to - you need someone who specializes in online marketing. Think about who will do maintenance on your website and how often You must know who will manage your website after it's completed. If you won't be one to manage it, ask your designer/developer if they will do maintenance for you. Be sure to ask fee, how often you will have to pay fee, and what is included in fee. If you have a brochure-type website with just contact information, I don't suggest purchasing a maintenance contract. If you have something like a newsletter, or e-commerce site, then it would be worth it to purchase a maintenance contract. In a nutshell, you need to plan ahead before you jump into an online venture. It can save a lot of frustration and worry if you do your homework first. #
Regina Stevens is the owner of Keep It Simple Websites (http://keepitsimplewebsites). She writes computer articles for new computer and internet users.
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