• Check your links! There’s nothing more annoying or amateurish then trying to follow a link on a website and getting nothing but a 404 page or even worse just an error! One really easy way to check links is by using a Google Sitemap Generator…I like the one at Audit My PC. Whenever I generate the sitemap, it highlights any errors including broken links.
• See Your Site In Another’s Eyes I am a full-on Firefox devotee, but unfortunately, not everyone in the world is! So you need to check your designs in every possible browser that you can. Now, that can seem like a very daunting task. I personally have 4 different browsers on my PC’s. But there’s a great service that I’ve found invaluable for checking browser compatibility. Check out BrowserShots.org. It couldn’t be easier and it gives you a look at screenshots of your page on over 50 browsers at one time!

• Have Your Grandpa Try Out Your Website  Ok, so it doesn’t need to be your grandpa, though I’d gladly pass your site along to mine for you :)  My reasoning here is two-fold.  First, my grandpa still has a dial-up connection.  Secondly, God bless him, he’s not too comfortable surfing the net.  So when I am designing a site, I like to keep in mind that as hard as it is to believe, there are still plenty of people out there like my Grandpa, and I need to design accordingly.  I always try to make sure there is clear, easy to use navigation included on every page.  I also take into account that not all of my potential visitors are viewing the site on a blazing broadband connection, so the site needs to load as quickly and efficiently as possible!

All these elements may seem minor, but just ask OJ, sometimes the small stuff is what gets you in the end!

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