Thursday, August 21, 2014

2 Things to Remember About Cross-Browser Compatibility

When designing a website, it is important to remember a lot of things. A website has to look good and be fully functional at the time of launch or it will just be a waste of money and be frustrating. The pictures have to be the right size, the text has to be alluring, informational, and sales-oriented, and the whole site has to be internally optimized.

However, one thing that is often overlooked with web design is the concept of cross-browser compatibility. When you have a website, it has to be able to function on all the web browsers, at least the major ones like Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox, and yes, Internet Explorer.

Now why do you have to remember cross-browser compatibility? Well, if you do not, then:

1. It looks bad for your client. The client you designed the site for will have a site that will not be functional for every web user out there. It seems tedious or unnecessary but think of it this way, anyone who cannot use the site is a lost sale. When those lost sales rack up, business hurts. Also, it will tank the web rankings. People will go to the site, see it doesn't work right, and leave within a very short amount of time. This will force their bounce rate to increase and that hurts rankings. The website is one of the first things we look at when we discover a business.

2. It looks bad for you. For one thing, that client will likely not use you again since they can see the product they got from you. For another thing, if you have your name at the bottom of the site, like most web developers do, then anyone who visits the junk site you put together will see your name and think, "Nice job, amateurs!" Or something to that effect, they might not be so kind. The bottom line is that it could harm your business as well.

Do the job completely and do it correctly if you are going to do it. There's not always enough time to do a job a 2nd time but there's always enough time to do it right the first time.

Contact Integraphix for a website that you can be proud of and will work across all web browsers! You need it, your business needs it, and we'd love to help you get the site you need to effectively be on the world wide web.