After creating a website, it can be tempting to assume that everything will work properly when launching it onto the internet. However, even if you’re using a standard platform like WordPress, there’s a real possibility that your site will not look the way you want it right from the beginning.
While you can probably open your site on your own device to ensure it’s working, it’s essential to make sure that it loads smoothly every time. This means doing some cross-browser testing to make sure there are no problems.
To learn how to do this, you’ll need to understand:
- What is cross-browser testing?
- Why is testing your site in multiple browsers important?
- How to run tests in different browsers?
- What types of results should you expect?
- What to do after completing your testing?
How Do You Run a Test in Different Browsers?
There are quite a few different ways to run tests from various browsers. Figuring out which one is best for your situation largely depends on how much money and time you want to spend on testing.
Before testing, consider the following:
- Run tests manually yourself: The most accessible and most affordable option is installing multiple browsers on your computer and smartphone and then accessing your site from each of them to see how things function.
- Ask friends and family: If you’re testing a personal site or something for your small business, you can ask your friends and family to visit your site and provide you with feedback. Ask them to include what browser version they’re using for the testing. This information can help beyond whether the site works on each browser type.
- Use a cross-browser testing service: There are various services available online that do this type of testing for you. These services cost money but are also capable of doing more extensive testing. If you opt for this route, you also get a report listing which browsers you tested and what results you found.
The cross-browser testing service gives you the best information. Quite a few different services do this, including companies like TestComplete and LambdaTest.
You’ll want to find one with the right balance of features and prices to get the results you need.
What Browsers Should You Test With?
Whether you’re running the tests on your own or paying a service to do the testing for you, it’s vital to make sure that you complete the tests with all major browsers. To the extent possible, you want to run tests on current versions of every browser. Finally, running the test from different operating systems with each browser version is also a good idea.
Testing your site using standard browsers like Chrome and Firefox isn’t enough, and you want to use multiple versions of those browsers from Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android devices.
The more options you test, the more confident you can be that your site is working perfectly. Here are some of the most popular web browsers used today:
- Google Chrome
- Apple Safari
- Firefox
- Microsoft Edge
- Internet Explorer
- Opera
- Brave Browser
There are also dozens of other minor or niche-focused browsers out there. If you can add those to your test list, it can help to give you more accurate results.
What Results Are You Expected To Find?
If everything on your site is running properly, it will load and function on all major browsers. If your site generates errors or its features aren’t working, you should pinpoint whether your site or a browser is causing the problem.
The important thing is that you know how your site runs on all major browsers to decide.
How To Fix Problems With Your Site
Problems are fixed depending on the browser where the problem occurs. In many cases, you’re using a plug-in that is not supported by the browser. In this case, you should upgrade the plug-in, use another plug-in with the same features, or disable the plug-in entirely.
In other cases, you may have to look at your site’s back-end code to fix problems related to one browser or another. Of course, this is time-consuming and costly to complete.
You can reach out to your web hosting provider for support. They may be able to look at your site and give tips on what to do to fix any problems.
While troubleshooting browser-specific problems can be a challenge, this type of testing helps to give you the knowledge you need to ensure your site is working the way it should.
What Is Cross-browser Testing?
Cross-browser testing is the process of testing a website by using multiple browsers to ensure that it functions correctly on all of them. This is done to help ensure that every person who visits your website receives the same great experience regardless of the browser they’re using, or what version of the browser it’s that they’re on.
There are many ways that you can handle cross browser testing, so finding out what the best option for your specific site is important.
Once you understand how to efficiently perform this type of testing you can always be confident that your site is working for everyone who visits the page.
Why Is It Important To Test Your Site in Multiple Browsers?
It makes sense to ensure that your site works ― no matter what type of browser your visitors are using. If you put up a website, it should have the best user experience (UX) possible.
If you’re using your website to generate sales or leads for your business, you cannot afford to have users unable to access your site.
In addition to potentially reducing sales, a website that doesn’t load properly gives your business a bad reputation.
Running cross-browser testing for your website is a simple thing you can do, and depending on how you perform the tests, it’s entirely free.
What To Do Next
Once you have loaded your site in various web browsers and tested the functionality, it’s time to launch your site and bring in visitors. It’s also essential, however, to make sure that you rerun the cross-browser testing steps in the future.
We recommend that you perform these tests quarterly. We suggest this time frame because you are constantly updating your site, which could cause problems in some browsers.
Additionally, the web browsers are also updated regularly, which could cause plugins or other site apps and codes to stop working. If you’re using WordPress, plug-ins are also routinely updated and could lead to issues in specific browsers.
You or other factors periodically put changes in place that directly affect your site, your web hosting server, or the browsers themselves. You need to regularly test your site in all browsers to ensure your site is working its best at all times.
Visit our Best Web Hosts page for more information on choosing the best web hosting provider for your site.
