As a website designer, I need to make sure that my client’s sites render well across all browsers. I pay particular attention to how websites look on Internet Explorer.
How Websites Look on Internet Explorer
What a lot of people don’t realize is that Internet Explorer renders websites differently than all the other browsers. Because of this, a site that looks great on Firefox or Chrome may look weird on Internet Explorer.
To add to the problem, the Mac doesn’t support the Internet Explorer browser.
Sure, you can download a program such as Parallels to run Windows on, and load Internet Explorer that way.
But not only does it nearly crash your computer to use Parallels, but you only see one version of Internet Explorer. Currently, there are four versions of Internet Explorer in use.
Luckily there is a FREE solution to all of this. There’s a great site called www.netrenderer.com, and it allows you to view your site from any browser; IE 7, IE 8, IE 9 and even Opera.
Is Your Site Mobile-Friendly?
Another important consideration is whether or not your website looks good on a mobile device.
Google announced late last year that they plan to shift their search index (ranking) to favor mobile-friendly sites.
Since the number of people who search using smartphones and tablets continues to rise, this makes sense. Consequently, you need to make sure your site looks good on a smaller screen.
To let you see how your website does on mobile, Google created a free tool.
The point is that you should always test your site on multiple venues. It may look good in one place, but not another. Your web designer should help you fix any problems that occur. If you find that your site does not render well on a given platform, call us. In many cases, it just requires a small tweak to get things up and running well.
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