A Website can be seen by different point of views, each raising points to be observed and improved, that contributes to the overall result. I propose seven correlated aspects of a global website (plus an eighth overall aspect) that can be evaluated, measured and improved constantly for a professional web site, and present available tools and best practices for each of them:

"Content, Appearance, Functionality, Compatibility, Performance, Localization, Promotion, and Security"

Content

The content and structure is what your website is all about, and it should be based on concrete goals and your target audience (public). With that you can define the content and content structure, and then user navigation and flows.

  1. Goals & Targets
  2. Target Audience
  3. Content
  4. Content Structure
  5. Navigation
  6. User flows

Tools & Best Practices:

Appearance

How the content will be displayed to your public.

  1. Layout
  2. Colors
  3. Design Assets (icons, buttons, images, pictures, videos, etc)
  4. Typography (text font, size, style, etc)
  5. User Interaction

Tools & Best Practices:

Functionality

Besides displaying content, your website can interact with users or other websites in several ways.

  1. Server-side Technologies (PHP, Java, ASP, Apache, etc)
  2. Client-side technologies (Javascript, Flash, Silverlight, HTML5, etc)
  3. Web 2.0 (how your website interact with users and other websites)
  4. User Generated Content

Tools & Best Practices:

Compatibility

Where your target will see your content? Does it display correctly?

  1. Devices (smartphone, tabled, netbook, computer)
  2. Operational System (windows, mac, linux)
  3. Browser (IE7, IE8, IE9, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera...)
  4. Web Standards

Tools & Best Practices:

  • Web Page Test - Test page layout and performance in a real browser (IE/FF/Chrome)
  • Browser Screenshots - Screenshots for several browser and OS versions
  • IE NetRenderer - Screenshots for different versions of IE browser
  • Responsinator - Check website in different viewports (mobile, tablet, etc)

Performance

Performance of your website includes:

  1. Web Hosting bandwidth, traffic, uptime
  2. Page load time (html, images, css, javascript)
  3. Server side and Client side (browser) caching
  4. Minification and Compression
  5. Monitoring (performance, up time)
  6. Graceful degradation (slow internet connection, old browsers, etc)
  7. Cloud computing (EC2, Azure, CDNs, distributed DNS)

Tools & Best Practices:

  • Google Page Speed - tools and best practices for web performance from Google
  • Yahoo YSlow - tools and best practices for web performance from Yahoo
  • Web Page Test - Test page layout and performance in a real browser (IE/FF/Chrome)
  • Pingdom - Website uptime and performance monitoring
  • HTTP Compression Test - Check your browser and website for HTTP compression
  • YUI Compressor - Minify HTML/CSS/JS
  • Cloudfare - Free and commercial cloud-based services (CDN, distributed DNS, etc)

Localization

If your target speak more than one language, or is located in more than one country, you need to pay attention to localization of your website.

  1. Translation
  2. Proof reading
  3. Currency
  4. Number and Date formats
  5. Right to Left layout (Arabic, Hebrew, etc)

Tools & Best Practices:

  • TODO

Promoting

Aside from Google and Bing SEO, there are several other ways to promote your website. Regional search companies may be more relevant in some countries, also, web directories listing and social networks are free options available. You can also invest money in advertising your website online and on traditional media.

  1. Domain name and Page URL
  2. Page Title, Keywords & Meta Tags
  3. SEO (Google, Bing)
  4. Social Networks (Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Bebo, Friendster, Myspace, LinkedIn, vKontakt, Hi5, QZone, etc)
  5. Web directories: ODP, Yahoo Directory...
  6. Regional Search & Web directories (Yandex - RU, Baidu - CN, Delfi - EE)
  7. Online Advertising (Adwords, etc)
  8. Traditional media Advertising

Tools & Best Practices:

  • TODO

Security

Last but most important, this aspect should make you rethink all your website. Any system has inherent security features and flaws. Your website might include several different systems and tools, that must be verified for possible security issues.

  1. Authentication & Authorization (who have access to what, password security)
  2. Backup & Restore (Regular full backup stored safely, regular backup restoration tests)
  3. System updates (Keep systems up to date with new releases and security patches)
  4. Emergency Plans
  5. Social engineering

Tools & Best Practices:

  • TODO