Internet Marketing Article #5: Website Quality Control

It's quite amazing how web site quality control is so important but so many people are not doing it. From my experience this is one of the most important things you should do. It does not require a lot of resources and is can prevent you from making embarrassing mistake that you are not even aware of.

Conducting a basic quality control procedure consists of fixing the defects or "bugs" that you find and assessing other people's feedbacks and suggestions. The latter can be collected via you personally (e.g. give the web wizard a ring and ask him/her for some feedback and write your relevant contacts an email asking them for their assistance) or via your website (e.g. "click here to kindly provide your feedback").

When conducting self-testing, you should consider the following:

(1)Web site usability - Are there any spelling mistakes in the copy? Is the web site navigation scheme consistent? Is the font the right size? Is the contact form effective and non-intrusive? Are there any broken links?

(2)Security - Does the user feel secure interacting with your web site, filling out that registration form or making a transaction? Many times, you can analyze the exit pages via your web server's statistics to detect if you've got a problem with security-related issues. Then, you can make a change and test if it works.

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(3)Standards - Were all the web pages of your site tested on different resolutions, browsers, operating systems and devices? What does the site look like on different screen resolutions and on a Mac? Is the site even accessible to different devices (e.g. text browsers, cellular phones, Web TV, etc.)?

(4)Performance - Is your site always up or does your web server crash? How long do first-time dial up users wait for your page to load? What happens when there are many concurrent visitors on a certain page?

Naturally, you can use structured steps to execute a fully professional QA procedure, preferably using professional help. However, we know that almost no one does that due to lack of time, people or knowledge. The good side of the story is that you can take 1 day and check most of these items by yourself, if you are aware of the major item that need to be tested, as stated above. How deep you go into the testing depends on you, but please make sure that you take some time and do something about it! You'll be surprised what you'll find...

Last, use your network! Ask people what they think can be improved. If you decide to construct some questionnaire, make sure it's not too long and that it consists of some open questions where people can freely state their opinions. Then, use careful discretion to decide what feedback is right for you and what's not and what can be done about it.

Read the next essential article in this series of articles:
(1) Define YOUR Internet Success.
(2) Target Action of a Website.
(3) Market Research and Analysis.
(4) Build a Website.
(5) Website Quality Control.
(6) Managing Your Online Advertisement Channels.
(7) Online Customer Service.
(8) Stay Updated & Innovate Online.