| When it comes to doing business on the internet, the | | | | Confirm your links |
| reputation and subsequent success of your business | | | | This is another issue that you must address before |
| will be based to a large extent on the perceived and | | | | allowing your ecommerce web hosting service to |
| actual quality of your website. Many website owners | | | | move your website to live. It can potentially kill any |
| lose out on business simply because a small detail on | | | | visitor's interest in your website. Clicking on a link and |
| their website was not right and this eventually turned | | | | getting a ‘Page not found' error is an absolute |
| away many potential customers. Therefore, every | | | | no-no. Same applies to a link that leads to the wrong |
| single detail of your website must be confirmed | | | | page. Depending on the size of your website, counter |
| before giving the ‘go live' approval to your | | | | checking all links might seem like an overly arduous |
| ecommerce web hosting service. That way, anyone | | | | process. But it is something that you must do. You |
| who comes to your website will be more convinced | | | | can even get someone else to check your website |
| on the credibility of your website. Don't focus on the | | | | on your behalf. |
| major things and forget the small things as even the | | | | Test your shopping cart |
| seemingly minor things can cost you business. The | | | | The reason for setting up an ecommerce website is |
| following checklist is great way to check that | | | | to buy and sell products. Your shopping card not |
| everything is alright prior to giving your web hosting | | | | working correctly or not working at all is a big deal. |
| service provider the go ahead. | | | | This should be one area you must focus on and test |
| Confirm your website images | | | | again and again to make sure it works correctly in all |
| Before giving the go ahead to your ecommerce web | | | | kinds of scenarios. Place a dummy order and go |
| hosting service, it is important that you ensure all | | | | through the entire process from the point of placing |
| images are correctly referenced and positioned. If | | | | an order to the time the transaction is passed to |
| your images do not load correctly, they give a very | | | | your bank or credit card account. You should test |
| bad impression about your website and by extension | | | | before the web hosting service goes live and after it |
| your business. Try avoiding very bulky images as | | | | is live. |
| these will slow down the loading speed of your | | | | Check Your Website Scripts |
| website. If your website has many images and you | | | | If your website is running Java, PHP, CGI or any |
| need to keep updating more, ensure that your web | | | | other scripts, the scripts must run as required. Take |
| hosting service provider factors in this additional | | | | a look at your discussion forums and your website's |
| space when it is required. | | | | search function to confirm each is functioning well. In |
| Proofread your web content | | | | case a visitor keys in an erroneous command on |
| Read through all your content to ensure that there | | | | your website, it should display a friendly error report |
| are no grammatical or typographical errors. Ensure | | | | and not display a technical error report or even crash |
| that your website layout comes across as neat and | | | | the website. The error message should provide too |
| professional. Use moderate and consistent formatting | | | | much technical information as this is one loophole |
| throughout the website. Do not go overboard with | | | | used by hackers to understand the architecture of |
| emphasized text such as bold, italic, red colored fonts | | | | your website. |
| or exclamation marks as this may make your visitors | | | | Confirm Your Contact Details |
| lose confidence in your site. Pick a nice looking | | | | Your contact details must be up to date. If someone |
| professional font and try and keep to it throughout | | | | needs to get in touch with you whether on phone, |
| your website. | | | | fax, email or by visiting your office if you have one, |
| Test with all browsers | | | | the data on the website should be detailed enough |
| Ensure that you test access to your website on all | | | | to make you quickly reachable. Even though you are |
| the common browsers including Mozilla, Internet | | | | relying on an ecommerce web hosting service for |
| Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera, Netscape and Safari | | | | your website, people still feel more comfortable |
| to establish that your website works well on each. It | | | | when dealing with someone with a reachable address |
| is quite possible to have your website work properly | | | | as opposed to someone whose only contact is an |
| with one browser and still be dysfunctional on | | | | email address. |
| another. | | | | |