A recent video posted onto the Google Webmaster Central Youtube Channel and highlighted by Search Engine Land shows Matt Cutts setting out how Google determines page speed.

Within the video, Matt Cutts explains that around 1 out of 100 searches carried out on Google are affected by slow page speed and this amounts to roughly 1 in every 1000 websites that have an issue with site speed.

If your website is slow then Google isn’t the only one who will potentially penalise it, as your site visitors are unlikely to wait around either, which will directly affect the number of enquiries or sales that you receive.

It has been a busy couple of months here at WebDepend. We’ve been working hard testing ecommerce sites, testing websites in brand new browsers including IE9 and Firefox 4 plus testing a variety of digital projects for a well known operator in the leisure industry.

But as you can tell, that’s not the subject of this blog post. Website monitoring is the topic and I don’t mean the boring kind that pings your site every 5 minutes and alerts you if it is down, although it is definitely worthwhile to have at least some kind of monitoring in place.

Continuing our blog series on areas typically covered within a website audit, we’re auditing accessibility to make sure that all users can browse, understand and fully use your website.

This post is the 4th in the series, we focused on functionality the first time around, then checked our browser compatibility before going onto uncover usability issues.

Auditing your website’s accessibility is an important step that should not be overlooked, an accessible website has many benefits and the focus should not be to just ensure the site passes automated accessibility tests.

We’ll look at what can be done to check how accessible your website is but first here are the main benefits of having an accessible website.

The third post in our blog series covering each aspect of auditing a typical website. We’re tackling usability and how to uncover issues surrounding how people actually use your website.

In the last post we were breaking down browser compatibility and our first post in the series focused on functionality.

An unusable website or one with poor usability is not much good to anyone, especially you as the site owner or manager. In fact, issues with the usability of your website can mean that users don’t buy from you, don’t come back to your site or recommend you to others. Problems with your website’s usability can even have a negative impact on the perception of your organisation as a whole, extending further than just the website.

So how do you go about assessing the usability of your website to make sure it is not turning potential customers away? Here are some suggestions:

We continue our blog series to delve into each aspect of what a thorough website audit covers. This time we are breaking down the subject of browser compatibility and how that can greatly affect your website.

The first post in this series focused on functionality, expressing how users hate errors and will abandon purchases if they encounter problems.

Browser compatibility testing or browser checking is a logical next step when auditing your website and involves testing your website thoroughly to make sure it displays and works correctly in all of the main web browsers that people use to visit your website.

A thorough audit of any website covers numerous aspects. In this blog series we will take a look at each in turn and to start us off let’s audit some functionality.

Website Functionality

The functionality of a website is how it works or how it functions. A website’s functionality can be straightforward and simple, you click on a link and view a page, which leads to another page containing a form where you can submit an enquiry to the organisation whose site you are on.

Just in case you hadn’t noticed or were trying to avoid it, the buildup to Christmas is in full swing. Trees and decorations are going up in the high street, Christmas advertising is on the telly and most things will start to be accompanied with a sprig of holly, a dusting of fake snow and a mince pie.

November is often the month where website owners and managers dress the homepage of their website with the aforementioned sprig of holly and extend their seasonal good wishes. Somehow, this visual update will impress upon the visitor that Christmas is upon us and compel them to make more purchases.

I actually don’t mind the little snowmen standing next to the logo or the snowflakes, baubles and tinsel that start to adorn many a homepage at this time of the year.

But whilst you are planning these seasonal updates to spruce up your website it makes sense to carry out a thorough audit of the site at the same time.