Do you really know what your Website Really Looks Like?

Do you really know what your website looks like?

Sounds like a silly question doesn't it.

Maybe the question needs to be what do your customers see when they look at your website.

If you want the fancy web developer term, what I am talking about is 'cross browser compatibility'.

What that means is the same website will look different depending on what browser your customer uses to look at it.

Sometimes the differences might be just subtle. But sometimes certain elements of your website might not work at all!!

The difficult part of testing this is having access to different computers running different versions of the different internet browsers so that you can see what your website looks like on the different browsers.

Well, the good thing is you don't have to worry.

Head across to browsershots and you can have a look and see what your website looks like in the different browsers.

Enter the URL for your website and the browsers that you want to check and away you go.

You can also specify the screen size (not everyone has the biggest screen in the world), javascript, flash and colors.

This will allow you to see what your customers really see when they look at your website.

What browsers should you check?

If you have Google analytics installed on your website you will be able to see from your stats what browsers people are using to look at your website. This is the first place to start. Check these ones first.

W3Schools will also give you stats about the browsers people are using to surf the internet.

For March 2009, 17% of people on the internet are still using Internet Explorer 6. 25% are using IE7 and only 1.4% are using the most current version IE8.

Nearly 50% of people are using Firefox. Test the latest version of Firefox and the next to latest. As a general rule, people that use Firefox keep their browser up to date because Firefox tells you when there is a new version available.

A little over 4% are using the new Google Chrome browser and a small percentage use Safari and Opera.

What do your customers really see when they look at your website?

If you would like a list of the browsers that I check please send me an email and I will send you the list that I use.

If you find you have issues with how your website looks in the different browsers drop me a line and I will help you sort it out.

Do you really know what your Website Really Looks Like?