By Sandor Panton, ContributorAN IMPORTANT part of any successful web strategy for 2004 will be to ensure that the administrative and maintenance aspects of your website are in order. Below are a few ways that you may seek to improve your website.
FIX BROKEN LINKS
A broken link, as it implies, is a link that doesn't work - you click it and it takes you nowhere or simply to an error page. Broken links can result from a number of factors, including web pages or directories being renamed, moved or deleted, as well as through simple human error where links are mistyped when the pages were originally authored. A site that has too many broken links can be annoying and even hurt its professional image. Broken links are a common cause of visitors simply giving up on a site, so it's important that you check your links regularly and repair any broken links that you find. No, you don't need to check every link manually; there are automated tools available for free on the Web that will do this for you.
IMPROVE LOAD TIME
'Load time' is the time that it takes to download an entire web page; this includes graphics and other multimedia items that are on the page. The average surfer does not have the patience to wait for a 'heavy' page to load. This is particularly true here in Jamaica where a 56K Internet connection by modem is by far the norm, so you should always look to improve the load time of your pages, using a range of between ten and twenty seconds as the maximum desired load time. Again, there are automated tools available on the Web that will test the load time of your web pages using a variety of simulated Internet connection speeds.
ENSURE BROWSER COMPATIBILITY
Undoubtedly, the vast majority of Web surfers everywhere use a version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer to do their web browsing. There is, however, a small percentage of other Web surfers that use other software - Netscape, Opera and Mozilla to name a few. Unfortunately, a web page that works well for one will not necessarily work for another. Thus, if you value ALL the traffic that comes to your site, you should ensure that your pages are displayed properly in as many types and versions of browsers as possible.
OTHER IMPORTANT WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR WEBSITE
Use 'browser-safe' colours. A 'browser-safe palette' contains 216 colours out of a possible 256. The other 40 colours may vary in appearance depending on the surfer's operating system and computer. So to ensure that your colours show up just the way you intended, always use the browser safe colours.
Use your tags. Meta tags at the <head> of your document, ALT tags on your images and width, height and border tags for your images, tables and other objects will ultimately help to improve the load time of your pages
Constantly tweaking and improving your site is undoubtedly one of the more important keys to building a successful on-line presence.
Sandor Panton is an Internet specialist and consultant. If you have any comments, contact him at feedback@jamaica-gleaner.com. This series is brought to you by www.go-jamaica.com, the portal website of The Gleaner.
