If you are designing your site for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer only, listen up. This year, 100 million people have downloaded the Firefox web browser, and up to 35% of your site traffic could be from Firefox users.
What’s the risk, you ask? First, Firefox is a standards-compliant browser, where Internet Explorer is not. Your pages may not render properly in Firefox. In addition, some shopping carts, interactive site functions, survey tools, registration functions and more can be rendered totally useless. That’s not good for business.
Redesigning your site to accommodate Firefox is something to budget for now, and it’s a necessity, especially if you have a cutting-edge audience. Even though Firefox users might comprise 5% of your total site traffic, Marketing Sherpa has published six business cases for redesigning your site to be Firefox-compliant:
- Improve your search engine optimization
Even if 100% of your site traffic uses Internet Explorer, a redesign presents the opportunity to re-structure your pages to make them easier for search engines to index. - Proper presentation, including key pages like shopping carts and contact forms
You want your pages to look the same in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. After all, that’s how it was designed to look. Also, you don’t want to lose customers — contact forms and shopping carts that work in both browsers ensure maximum leads/revenue. - Decrease your development time and maintenance costs
Using web standards-based pages, you can change the look and feel of your web site in 30% less time. In addition, you’ll reduce customer complaints because a standards-based site will render properly in all browsers. - Save money on bandwidth
Because standards-based HTML code is shorter and cleaner, the core pages (not counting functions, Flash movies, etc.) don’t use as much bandwidth, saving you money if you pay for the amount of bandwidth you use. - Quicker page download times
Because standards-based HTML code is shorter and cleaner, it takes less time to download. Less download time means a better customer experience. - Compatibility with wireless devices
In preparation for the future of web browsing, your page display can vary based on the device people are viewing it on. Because standards-based pages separate the content from the presentation, you can easily set your site up for viewing on a computer screen, handheld, RSS reader, Blackberry or wireless phone.
Your action plan should be to assess the percentage of Firefox visitors that visit your site. Figure out how much a redesign is going to cost (consult a good web designer or your in-house staff), and try to assess how much you’re losing by not redesigning. You’ll then need to find a designer that can code a web standards-based site and get started.
Finally, if you prefer the look of your existing site, you don’t necessarily need to change the look and feel of your site to redesign it for Firefox using web standards.
