Saturday, December 3, 2011

Essential Online Tools for Testing Your Websites


Usually Jawad writes a web design tutorial on Fridays, but this time he told me that he had a headache so I should fill in for him.  That sounds like a lame excuse, I think he learned this from his wife. This post lined up for Wednesday but this is going out today, let’s see what we do on Wednesday.
Anyways, getting back to today’s post, this is a collection of 15 essential tools to test a website for seo, accessibility, compatibility and performance. I highly recommend this post if you are a web designer or beginning programmer.
Note: To reach the source, click on the title/name. Don’t miss the last tool!!

W3C Validators

I’m sure you already know about W3C validators but if not, here they are. The title link reaches their HTML Markup tool for SEO and performance. W3C are considered the most essential tools for testing any website.

Here are the others: 

Pingdom Tools

Although its still in beta, Pingdom is arguably the best tool for deeply testing a site’s load time and relevant analysis.

YSlow

YSlow is one the most hit tools by Yahoo’s Developer Tools. The solutions this tool provides are pretty good. Its sad that we use Yahoo’s tool to improve our site in Google…

Load Impact

If you are making a site for corporate client, this tool is a must. This is a “test and report” system for B2B sites.

Website Pulse

There are many tools this company provides, the load time tester has a specialty. Apart from its very very simple analysis, they provide Free Service to monitor your site for one month. I really like their slogan: “take IT easy“.

Microsoft Expression

A relatively new tool, it hasn’t created much hype but it certainly is a good resource. You can use it to check a website’s SEO, compatibility and performance. There’s a free trial period of 60 days, then you’ll have to buy it.

Browser Shots

The ultimate tool to check your website on the all versions of all browsers. Yes!! they do that for free. ::applause::

Functional Accessibility Evaluator

Accessibility is something that we we don’t focus on much when we are beginners. Ask any professional, they give it its due credit. Accessibility test provide you tips to enhance user-experience and SEO.

Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool

This is a revolutionary tool in accessibility testing. Just “wave” a page on this site to see what’s different.

Hera

Their slogan is: “Testing Accessibility with Style“. This is the same as FAE (the first accessibility tool you just read about) but it provides a very very very detailed analysis. Good only for serious developers.

UI Test Site Check

This tool doesn’t run a test itself, rather it just compiles up tests which you might need to test a blog or website. This is a All-in-One tool, a one stop shop kind of a thing. I really like it, it gives a lot of peace of mind when you know that you are sorted by using just this one site.

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