Test Your Website

You’ve got everything on your new site up and running in a development folder. Now’s the time to launch it, right?

Wrong.

You need to test it first.

Testing means trying — aggressively — to find errors. Essentially you want to try to break the site, the way you would test a child’s toy by trying to break it.

Testing is especially important with database-driven e-commerce sites. The last thing you want to do when you open your online store is give people products or services for free — or worse, overcharge them and then have to refund money.

First impressions can make or break your site. You don’t want to give your first users a bad experience: they will never return, and they will tell their friends.

Proofread all text (preferably by a professional proofreader), and test all email links by using them to send yourself a test email. Keep track of all the emails you send and compare that list with the list of emails you receive.

Go out of your way to find errors;  then track the errors you find, correct them, and verify that each error has been corrected. You must be able to reproduce the error.

For professional proofreading, contact Christopher Merrill.