So last night I launched a new site, I am actually still tired and didn't get much sleep. But I launched my new site TwitterBanking.com. I will talk about this tomorrow or maybe later today, but it is just a simple squeeze page. The problem is I created it from scratch and I always work in FireFox or Safari, so any changes or testing I am doing I view it in both those browsers. I just do not think anyone uses IE anymore.
I even tweeted a comment about how I hate IE and I got a ton of response via twitter:
- from aroussi: @ianternet IE Sucks. Here's why: http://tinyurl.com/57vm83
- from blackbottom_com: @ianternet ya -IE 6/7, Safari 3+, FF 2.0.0.16/20, 3.0+, and all the CSS intricacies, I'm usually tuckered out.
- from blackysky: @ianternet feel you for IE or I hope IE8 will be more like firefox 🙂
- from: quirkyjessi: @ianternet I couldn't agree more!
But last night while at launched, I got an email saying it looks messed up in IE. I decided to check and to my astonishment here is what I saw:
As you can see the dashed table is pushing into the sidebar, the reason for this is because the form button is extending too far out. So it pushes everything that is on the sidebar at the bottom of the table. I am too ashamed to show the whole site, but you can see it in crap action in POS IE!So lesson learned always test LPs in other browsers. The problem with me is that I usually outsource this all and I do not have to really worry because they do all the testing. But since it was a simple squeeze page I am creating, it should be easy right - so I did it. I was all super happy that it was getting traffic already and receiving optins - until someone emailed me how crappy it looks in IE.
According to analytics only 13.73% of my traffic is using IE, the majority is using FireFox! I still have to consider about the 13%, gah. But the site should look like this - click here.
When I find out it was all F'ed up I was too tired to try and fix it, I will probably end up giving it to my programmer to fix it and stuff. But lesson learned always cross test browser compatibility with your sites, landing pages, sales letters, etc - because it does matter.
You can be losing traffic, that small 13% can be the best buyers in your lists! So you really have to cater to all your traffic and make sure their user experience is the best - create that brand and credibility right away, with that you can easily grab attention.
So make sure you split test all your sites in multiple browsers - after I found that the site wasn't looking good in IE, I Googled 'cross browser testing' and found a really great site called Browsershots.org. What this specific site does is actually load your website in a browser, I guess on their backend and take a snapshot of it - providing you a screen shot of your site in multiple browsers.
It is pretty cool because you get to chose the browsers from Google Chrome to third party browsers such as Avant and Opera. There is a huge selection and it puts it in a queue for process, then you refresh the page every so often and it spits out a screenshot of the site. Great tool for your arsonal.
So to me there were some browsers that it does not work with at all, like old versions of Opera (who uses opera?), obviously IE all versions except 8 <- didn't know there was an 8. But overall FF took the chain and definitely made the site the way it is suppose to be. If your not with FireFox, go download it now!
So later today, I will be adjusting it - my programmer is already busy with things so I may have to do it - but it shold be a quick fix I think, if not to my programmer it goes too.
