Is your charity’s website well-designed and does it perform as well as it should? Here are eight simple tests to help you find out. None of these tests require you to understand web design but you may need to go back to your web designer to resolve any problems that you find. First, let’s check your site’s code for errors.
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Is your HTML code valid?
The code on your website should meet certain standards. Use this free tool to check the pages on your website for errors: http://validator.w3.org. The results are full of techie jargon so let’s make this simple for you: if you get a green banner saying “this page is valid” then your site passed the test; if you get a red message then it failed and you should ask your web designer to correct however many errors are listed.
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What about your CSS?
CSS code dictates how your website looks: its fonts, sizes and colours, widths of columns, margins and backgrounds etc. Use this free tool to check the code for errors: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator and let your web designer know if you find any.
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Can Google find the pages on your website?
Get yourself a Google account and sign up for the free Webmaster tools. The Sitemap tool will tell you whether Google can or cannot reach all the pages on your website. If Google can’t find some of your pages, it probably indicates a web design fault, most likely a problem with your navigation links. You can do a more basic version of this test by simply typing “site:www.yourdomain.org” into Google and checking whether all your pages are listed.
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Identify the missing links
The links from your website to external websites will need updating occasionally. Other websites may change their address, delete pages or even disappear completely. Use the W3C’s free Link Checker tool to check individual pages or the Dead Links tool to check an entire site at once – it may take some time so go make a coffee and come back later.
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Are font sizes resizable?
In Internet Explorer select Page > Text > Largest. If all the text on your website increases in size then well done. If not then your site probably uses fixed font sizes e.g. 12pt. Ask your web designer to change them to variable sizes e.g. using percentages or ems. This will benefit visitors with poor eyesight.
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How many other websites link to your site?
If your website is to attract visitors you need a lot of other sites to link to yours. You could use Google to find out how many websites link to yours by typing in “link:www.yourdomain.org”. However, if you try the same search in Altavista you’ll actually get a more accurate result. If you find that only a few websites link to you, start emailing other websites in your area of work to politely request a link.
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Where are your contact details?
Are your contact details on every page of your website? If not, is there a prominent link to a page with your contact details on it? You should at least provide your address, phone and email and registered charity number. If you expect people to visit your building, a map will also be helpful. You’d be surprised how many charity websites fail this basic test.
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Check your website statistics
Every organisation needs statistics for how many people visit their website, how many pages are looked at, which are the most popular pages etc. Start checking your stats monthly and making a note of the number of visitor sessions and page views. Hopefully, if your content is good and you’re promoting your website well, you’ll see a steady increase. If your website is popular, produce a couple of simple graphs for your management committee to show them how worthwhile the website is. If not, start a campaign to get your website noticed.
Don’t have statistics? Unsure how to understand them? Take a look at some of the discussions on the TechSoup web building forum, especially October 2007′s online event about web analytics.
I’d be very interested to know what results you get. Please come back to this website and leave a comment or ask a question!
A nice article. I think for website statistics using Google Analytics is a good option. Also, the addition of an XML sitemap is always of benefit to any website!
Hi, how about adding that you should test in multiple browsers for both PC and the Mac. Nice post!!
Nice post. All tips are valueable. Specially valid html code and broken links suggestion.
All these tips are very helpful and should be done on a regular basis. Many Thanks
A lot of these points have to do with SEO as well as web design. Not to mention accessibility principles. A good web designer should know these points but it’s always worth reminding.