You've labored for weeks, maybe months, developing that "perfect" website. And now, you're finally there. Or are you? Are you absolutely sure it's complete and ready to be viewed by the rest of the world? What about all the stuff that you can't see? You know the stuff that, if done poorly, will give your visitors anxiety attacks. Before you take the final plunge and turn on the switch, lets make sure that the "behind the scenes" (technical) development is as solid as the "up front" aesthetics.

Where do I Start?
Five of the most important technical aspects of a well designed website are:
• Image Efficiency/Page Size
• Browser Compatibility
• Hyperlink Validity
• HTML Correctness
• Resolution Settings

Image Efficiency/Page Size
How quickly does your home page load on someone else's machine? How quickly does the rest of your site load? Does the text load first, and then the images? The single most probable cause of slow download speeds is GIF/JPEG image size and definition. You've probably heard this many, many times, but there is a direct relationship between the length of time it takes a web page to load, and the resulting number of visitors lost. The below table makes an attempt at quantifying the effect of "wait time".

SPEED CONSIDERATION
Assumption: Your homepage size is 50 KB and 20% of your visitors will leave for every 10 seconds of load time
If your visitors connection speed is only 1200 bps Then 100% will leave before all of your page content loads.
If 2400 bps (2.4K) Then 99% will leave.
If 9600 bps (9.6K) Then 67% will leave.
If 14.4 K Then 49% will leave.
If 28.8K Then 20% will leave.
If 33.3K Then 18% will leave.
If 56K (ISDN1) Then none will leave.
If 128K (ISDN2) Then none will leave.
If T1, cable or ASDL Then none will leave.
If T3 Then none will leave.

As you can see, the longer your visitors wait, the more likely they won't be your visitors. It's definitely in your best interest to do everything possible to minimize this effect. Some simple guidelines/suggestions are listed below:
• Keep your page size to a maximum of 50Kb. obviously, the smaller the better, but we think it's a good rule of thumb to max out at 50kb. The standard modem used today is 56Kb, but there are still a substantial number of web surfers using slower modems. If nothing else makes sure your home page is as small as possible. This is typically the first page your visitors see, and we all know the importance of that first impression. Here again one question that you may ask for, & that is, if there’s something that you would like to show the viewer where your file size exceeds 70K then probably we suggest to use a gateway link, where visitors have the option to skip the Intro page.
• Use the HTML height and width tags whenever you use graphics. Doing this will allow browsers to pre-allocate page space for graphics and load the text first. As a result, your visitors will have meaningful information to view relatively quickly.
• Optimize your graphics. In most cases, you'll be able to reduce image size with little or no degradation in image quality.
• Use the appropriate image format. The JPEG format should be used for photographs or any images where there are lots of smooth color changes. The GIF format works best for images with a few distinctive colors, such as buttons and icons. If you have any photographs in a GIF format, changing from GIF to JPEG for photographs should also reduce the size of some of your images, thereby reducing download time.

Browser Compatibility
This is a common oversight, especially for newcomers to the website creation arena. Many web developers view their sites through whichever browser is loaded on their PC and assume that everyone sees their site the same way they do. This couldn't be further from the truth. Even viewing the same page through the two most popular browsers, Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator will yield very different results. Each of these two popular browsers has their own set of proprietary features that is not recognized or supported by the other. Probably you personally have to learn this the hard way. That's why it's extremely important to view your site through as many browsers as possible before publishing it for the first time. Hyperlink Validity

If your site contains links to other sites, it's very important to periodically test those links and make sure that they all still work. In today's world, websites come and go very quickly, so never assume that just because it was there today, it will still be there tomorrow.
If you only have a handful of links, it's easy to check them manually. However, if your site contains upwards of 40 or 50 links, you may want to consider link validation software. A good product for this purpose can be found at www.alertbookmarks.com  Their product (LinkRunner) not only checks your hyperlinks, but also checks banners and FTP. It's not free, but they do have a trial version.

HTML Correctness
One of the most common causes of problems associated with viewing a website is HTML errors. In fact, a subtle HTML error may be the culprit for browser incompatibility. Unfortunately, many web designers rely on HTML editors such as FrontPage and therefore have limited HTML knowledge and skills. Even experienced HTML coders can encounter that elusive bug that's harder to find than a needle in a haystack.

Resolution Settings
Never, ever design a web page that will require your visitors to scroll horizontally. Unfortunately, the only way you can guarantee that this won't happen is to check your visitors’ resolution setting before displaying a page, and then display the version of the page with the most appropriate horizontal width. Another approach would be to design your pages to be viewed at 800x600, a resolution that is acceptable by the vast majority of web surfers.

In Summary
Making a website technically sound doesn't have to be a difficult chore. Half the battle knows what to look for. If you focus on the above five items, you'll have addressed over 90% of the possible technical problems any site can have.