How long ago was your website built and when was the last time it was browser tested? At BoxCrush®, we test our website designs in the two most recent versions of Internet Explorer, FireFox (Mac and PC), Chrome (Google’s web browser) and Safari (the default Mac/iPhone browser).

Clearly if your corporate site hasn’t been updated since 1997, you are in trouble, but what about if your organization had a website redesign last year, or even the beginning of this year?  Your site should be ok, right?  Maybe not.

If your company has a website and your marketing message is important, here is what you need to know to be current:

Less than half of your visitors are using Internet Explorer!

Internet Explorer is losing users. Globally, IE represents less than half of all browser usage and, in the US, it is currently hovering right at 50%.  If your website was tested only on Internet Explorer, half of your visitors may be seeing defects in your site.

Which web browser is number two?

When your website was built, was it tested in the top two browsers?  At the beginning of 2011, that would have meant Firefox and Internet Explorer.  Now data is showing that Firefox is being surpassed globally by Google’s Chrome browser.

IE6 may finally be dead.

Everyone writing about web browsers has heralded the demise of IE6.  Yet it still retains 8% of users followed by IE7 with more than 5%.  IE9 has greater than 10% adoption and the current Browser war champ, IE8, has over 28% of all users.

IE fragmentation has been a thorn in the side of all those that design and maintain websites.  Microsoft is finally doing something about it with automatic updates.    Unless the user actively declines the upgrade, Windows users will be automatically updated to the highest version available (IE 8 for Windows XP, and IE 9 for the more modern OS versions).

Firefox versions multiplying faster than rabbits

It took the Mozilla team seven years to get Firefox to version 4 on March 21st, 2011.  On average, it took about two years for each version to be released.  In the past nine months, there have been five more version upgrades, bringing it up to version 9.  I guarantee that, whatever version of Firefox your site was tested on, it is not the current version.

My Web Designer would tell me if something needed to be done, right?

Probably not.

Most websites are commissioned on a project basis.  Once you pay for the website, the design agency moves on to the next project.  Unless you call them and request additional testing as a new project, they probably won’t be testing your website as new browser versions are released.

The solution is simple: You need to have your web design agency on retainer and actively maintaining your site.  You should have an ongoing strategy for browser testing that includes new development testing but also regular testing when new browser versions are released. This will keep your company’s website working properly for all users, regardless of which web browser they are using.

If you don’t have something like this in place, I encourage you to call me personally at BoxCrush® (317-816-9353 x1) to setup an ongoing strategy.

The videos were shot with hand-held cameras and steady-cam equipment.  The video production and editing was done in Adobe Premier Pro from multiple takes.  We selected royalty-free music based on Mi-Tech’s desire to have a “heavy metal” feel without overpowering the viewer.  BoxCrush created motion graphics in Adobe After Effects and made custom visual endings for each video utilizing the Mi-Tech logo in a creative way.

My role includes keyword research, managing Pay-Per-Click advertising, more commonly known as Google AdWords, and Social Media. Google AdWords are the ads that appear at the top and to the right of nearly every search you do on Google.

It takes only a few minutes to set up an AdWords campaign. It takes much longer to create an effective campaign which gets your desired click-through rate (potential customers clicking on the link in your ad), and your ads to display in correspondence with the desired searches.

My job at BoxCrush is to make sure that your ads are producing your desired results. We offer a range of packages to fit your goals and your budget.

A little time and care go a long way to make a Google AdWords campaign successful, and I look forward to doing this with more and more BoxCrush clients.

In addition to the above, once a website is launched, it will be me checking in with you to see how the website is functioning, and evaluating how it’s performing. Whether it’s increasing your visibility on the web, increasing sales or ensuring your clients have a positive experience on your site, I am here to help.

To contact me, call 317-816-9353, extension 2, or email me at michelle@boxcrush.com. I look forward to discussing how the above services can benefit you and your business.

Customized solutions developed by BoxCrush included:

• A website section for each of the business units: Semiconductor, Thick Film Printing, and Electronics Assembly.
• Basically, four websites in one: one for each business unit and one for the overall site
• Separate segmented access to approved personnel for each of the four website sections, as well as access for the parent company personnel.
• Site search, customized for each business unit
• Home page custom rotator for graphics and content

Read more about this project in the GM Component Holdings Case Study

BoxCrush implemented Momentum Worldwide’s design and customization requests, building the website in (a little less than) 40 days. Also constructed in Sitefinity, the new Genuity website features many customized solutions, including: a customized home page, an “Ask the Experts” feature, custom ad modules, news function, slider panels, customized main navigation, custom dealer locator, and testimonial integration with Google Maps.

The Genuity® Brand is the new family of trait innovations for corn, soybean, cotton and specialty crops from Monsanto. The Genuity brand is known for its breakthrough trait technology, helping farmers do what they do, even better. Genuity’s goal is to help farmers achieve maximum yield and reduce the number of natural resources required to plant, grow and harvest crops.

Read more about this project in the Genuity Web Development Case Study

These results may vary. They may be directed to the location that I am searching from, which is Indianapolis, IN. And this is starting from google.com. I’ve tested searching directly from Google’s toolbar, and it displays different results.

Feel free to test these search results yourself, and post a comment if you find that you get something different.

See the results after the break.

• A is for Amazon.com
• B is for BestBuy.com
• C is for Craigslist.com
• D is for Dictionary.com
• E is for Ebay.com
• F is for Facebook.com
• G is for Gmail.com
• H is for Hotmail.com
• I is for In.gov/statefair (most likely local)
• J is for JimmyJohns.com
• K is for visitKingsIsland.com
• L is for Lowes.com
• M is for Mapquest.com
• N is for Netflix.com
• O is for Orbitz.com
• P is for Pandora.com
• Q is for brainyQuote.com
• R is for Redbox.com
• S is for Skype.com
• T is for Target.com
• U is for Ups.com
• V is for Verizon.com
• W is for Weather.com
• X is for X103.com (most likely local)
• Y is for Yahoo.com
• Z is for Zappos.com

Just like my biases toward an email address, which to me feels more direct, there is a whole audience that feels that having to leave the website and move from the web browser to their email program is a chore. Some users might also be doing research on a guest computer at the library, an internet café on the road, or at a location that does not give them access to their email. In this case, not having a contact form can easily lose a business contact for your company.

Forms That Serve a Purpose

Forms can serve many purposes and be tailored to suit different needs. While redesigning the website for Mi-Tech Metals (located in Indianapolis, Indiana) we identified the need for three different forms.

Goal #1 was to allow the user to quickly find the sales rep for her region. In this case we used a form drop-down, sometimes referred to as a jump menu, to direct users quickly to the rep’s phone number and email address. This helps users, like myself, who are interested in making a direct contact with the appropriate contact person at the company.

Goal #2 was to accommodate the users who prefer forms. Mi-Tech Metals’ target audience is narrowly focused allowing us to ask very specific questions about which type of service the client is looking for. When the user selects from the State drop-down, the contact form is automatically emailed to the rep in charge of that region.

Goal #3 was to collect email addresses from users who were not quite ready to make contact. To achieve this goal, we offered PDF White Pages in exchange for the email address. The only way to receive the PDF is to fill out the request form and input a valid email address. The form then emails the PDF file automatically to the user. The addresses are collected and added to an opt-in email newsletter list so that Mi-Tech can provide continual updates and additional information to help these users decide to become clients.

Going through the process of evaluating form goals for the client prompted me to add a simple contact form on the Contact Us page of our website. The form almost immediately started producing results. We have started to add additional simple contact forms throughout the site on pages such the About Us and Testimonials pages. Currently we are considering adding forms to the highly trafficked areas of our site that are tailored to each service and ask some of the common questions we end up asking our clients in the discovery phase of our projects.

Do you avoid forms or find them useful? Please add a comment and let us know what your experience is with forms.

Where is the hidden text?

Sighted users are not the only visitors to your site. Vision-impaired users and search engines cannot interpret photos, and while you may not be aware of it, your web designer has the ability to put descriptions of the photos (or Alt Tags) that help describe the photo. A photo of the city of Indianapolis might have an underlying description that says “Indianapolis skyline.” Each page of your site should also have a unique Description tag and Title tag.

You can see the Title by looking at the top of your browser while visiting the page. The only way to see the Description is by going to the View Source feature on your web browser and looking for the Meta Description tag which should be close to the top. (You should also be able to search for the word “description” while looking at the source.) The best way to view the Alt tags is to go into the preferences for your web browser and turn off images. If you do not see text where the photo used to be, your designer may have forgotten to include Alt tags and this is a cause for concern. Failure to have page descriptions and unique Titles is also a cause for concern.

Why would there be new typos in my proofread text?

Special characters such as the ampersand, fractions, MS Word-generated “curly” quotes, em-dashes, and others are not read consistently on every computer. For this reason your designer should be replacing each of these with a coded character that will be read properly by all computers. You can often see these mistakes in a web browser during the final proofing of the functional site.

Also, sometimes a designer will attempt to re-type short blocks of text such as photo captions. It is always a good idea to do a complete read of the text on the functional proof.

Advanced: Proofreading Website Image Replacement.

Image replacement is a great thing. This allows your designer to put text, say, “Dan Finney Design, Inc.,” at the top of your website, and then use advanced coding methods to hide the text and replace it with a logo. Designers can also use this method to replace plain text with a designer font or a font with effects applied to it such as a drop shadow or a reflection. This underlying text is what the search engines read (not the image that you see) and use to determine how your site ranks in the search results.

It is possible for the image of the designer font to be spelled properly and the hidden text underneath to be misspelled. Also, if the text changes in the course of the project, the designer may have updated the version that you can see and failed to update the underlying text.

The easiest way to see text behind images that have been replaced this way is with the Firefox web browser, which is a free download. Once you have Firefox installed you can disable your website’s visual stylesheet and see the pure HTML (without having to look at the code). To do this go to View > Page Style > No Style.

This will also give you an opportunity to see if your site is designed according to modern standards. If your website navigation completely disappears when viewing your site without style you should have great cause for concern. This is an indication that search engines, mobile phone users, and blind visitors using audible text browsers will not be able to get past your home page.

Was this article helpful to you? Did you find any concerns on your website? Please let us know with a comment.

WordPress 2.9 unfortunately does not have similar functionality to the Generic Content Module, so I set out to see how I can develop one on my own. Version 2.9 does not make this easy, since custom post types are not easy to create. The database supports them, but you are on your own in terms of an easy to use UI screen.

WordPress 3, however, easily supports new post types. This is done via register_post_type().

Here is the code required to add the new post type for my generic content module:

register_post_type('Generic Content', array(
	'label' => __('Generic Content'),
	'singular_label' => __('Generic Content'),
	'public' => true,
	'show_ui' => true,
	'capability_type' => 'post',
	'hierarchical' => false,
	'rewrite' => false,
	'query_var' => false,
	'supports' => array('title', 'editor', 'author')
));

Once the new post type is registered, we need a way to reference the post id in our content. We do this by registering a content filter that uses a regular expression to do a search and replace of tags. Here is my content filter:

add_filter('the_content', 'bcGenericContentFilter', 10);

function bcGenericContentFilter($content)
{
	$newcontent = preg_replace_callback("/\(!(.*?)!\)/", 'bcTagMatchCallback', $content);
	return $newcontent;
}

Here is the regular expression callback function:

function bcTagMatchCallback($match)
{
	$title = $match[1];
	$post = get_page_by_title($title, OBJECT, 'Generic Content');

	if ($post->post_status != 'publish')
		return '';

	$content = $post->post_content;
	return $content;
}

Now, create some generic content, and give it a title of “My Generic Content”. Create a post or a page, and inside your post use (!My Generic Content!) anywhere in your content and it will be replaced with the contents of the “My Generic Content” generic content.

The entire Generic Content Module can then be registered as a simple plugin:

post_status != ‘publish’)
return ”;

$content = $post->post_content;
return $content;
}

function bcGenericContentFilter($content)
{
$newcontent = preg_replace_callback(“/\(!(.*?)!\)/”, ‘bcTagMatchCallback’, $content);
return $newcontent;
}

register_post_type(‘Generic Content’, array(
‘label’ => __(‘Generic Content’),
‘singular_label’ => __(‘Generic Content’),
‘public’ => true,
‘show_ui’ => true,
‘capability_type’ => ‘post’,
‘hierarchical’ => false,
‘rewrite’ => false,
‘query_var’ => false,
‘supports’ => array(‘title’, ‘editor’, ‘author’)
));

?>

Some clients have approached us to translate their print catalogs into eCommerce sites with the intention of never producing a catalog again. Their goal is to lower their costs by eliminating printing and mailing costs. Does this mean that print catalogs are becoming extinct?

Other clients have maintained a balance between their print and web offerings. One trend that is definitely apparent is that phone orders are down and web orders are up. It would be very easy to assume that the print catalog has become irrelevant especially if you weigh the costs versus the declining phone orders. However, a deeper examination into sales metrics has shown that the arrival of a printed product catalog causes a noticeable spike in online sales.

Where have all of the catalogs gone?

As a youth, I remember the arrival of the Sears and JCPenney catalogs. (My parents wanted to look at it before I had a chance to gum up the pages, creasing them along the toy section.) It was a big deal when these catalogs arrived. Our mailbox load today is noticeably lighter, in part because catalogs have become smaller and more targeted to their audience, but a lot of the once-major players have left the market. This can translate into a venue with less competition, which spells more opportunity for your business.

A coordinated one-two-three punch works best.

Our clients have found the most success by keeping their websites up-to-date with the freshest and newest offerings. Occasionally a printed catalog is designed and sent out to new and repeat customers, and a close eye is kept on the buying trends. And for the third punch, a monthly e-newsletter is sent out to those who have opted-in, showcasing a new product or offering an exclusive incentive.

From the unique perspective of the print and web marketer, I can say that the catalog still has merit in your marketing arsenal. We find that the right customers get excited when they receive a catalog. They will keep it around and casually flip through it, sometimes only throwing it away when the newest catalog design arrives. (not everyone can take their computer on the back porch or with them on a trip) This type of customer wants a handy reference nearby and if she has to take the action of going to her computer to find what she needs, she may just as easily end up on your competitor’s eCommerce website.