For all of you that have business web sites here in Tallahassee, here are a few techniques that you can do on your web site to ensure that it is functioning normally. I would recommend that you (or your webmaster) complete this kind of review at minimum once every 90 days – maybe less depending on the site.
- Links – check your links to ensure that they are still live. This would refer to both links that point to other pages within your web site and then also links that point to pages that are not on your web site. Hopefully your internal links will not be an issue, but linking to external sites could be problematic because other web sites might change their site structure periodically and your links might need to be updated.
- Mobile Phones – since just about everyone has a mobile phone, you should be checking your site on a regular basis on multiple mobile phones to ensure that your site is visible and functions properly in the mobile environment.
- Analytics – this should be done at least every 30 days. You should always be looking at analytics so you know where your site visitors are coming from and how they are finding you. I know that approximately 40% of traffic to design850.com and I can see how that is changing every month (or week in my case). I also can know what other sites are driving the most traffic to my site.
- Newsletters/Forms – you should be testing your forms on a regular basis to ensure that the emails are getting through to you and to also know what the end user receives if they sign up for your newsletter or send a request through your contact form.
- Images – the last item that you should check on a regular basis is that the images that you have on your site all load correctly. This is especially true if you have any sort of online store where the images are a necessary part of your ability to conduct business.