As the owner of a travel website that’s meant to boost your tour bookings or other travel services, you may have put down a significant amount of time and money to have your business website professionally made. But the question is, will your target audience be able to see it, and will the appeal of your travel website come through regardless of what browser a visitor uses to access it?
At worst, if your visitors are having difficulty accessing your website using their preferred browsers, they’ll likely leave and take their business elsewhere. That’s why it’s in your best interest to avoid such scenarios and to invest in professional web design services for ensuring cross-browser compatibility for your travel website.
Let’s take a look at what cross-browser compatibility is, the role of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in achieving cross-browser compatibility, and how a travel website that’s cross-browser compatible will boost revenue potential for bookings, reservations, tours, and other travel-related services.
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Cross-Browser Compatible Explained
#1 What Is Cross-Browser Compatibility? A Layman’s Definition
Simply put, cross-browser compatibility is the ability of a website to meet the different requirements of multiple browsers so that it can be supported by each browser’s operating system. To check the compatibility of your business website across different browsers, web designers will use cross-browser testing tools to see if your website’s appearance remains intact and stays responsive across various desktop and mobile browsers.
This is where your website’s Cascading Style Sheets or CSS come in. For any customer to be able to access your website and make a booking or reservation, they must be able to access it using some type of online browser on their desktop or mobile device. But the CSS design language, which is responsible for describing the presentation of a web page written in a markup language like HTML or XML, differs across desktop and mobile browsers.
If your website’s code doesn’t meet the requirements of a browser’s CSS, it won’t function or even load properly on that particular browser—which means that travelers trying to access your website won’t be treated to the experience you want for them. It takes work to ensure that a website’s style elements are all aligned and that its appearance is consistent across browsers. But in today’s fast-paced travel economy, where users are likely to make their travel bookings on different browsers—both on their desktops and on their mobile devices—it’s an improvement that’s worth undertaking.
#2 The Benefits of Designing a Cross-Browser Compatible Travel Website
When cross-browser compatibility is properly implemented for a web property dealing in travel and tourism, it can lead to the following benefits:
Uniformity Across All Platforms
Cross-browser compatibility gives you the assurance that your travel website will look and work the way you want it to across all platforms. This way, you can give your online users the same level of satisfaction, no matter what browser they use. Ultimately, that means that your travel business can provide your target audience with a positive online experience that will keep them interested in your website and increase their likelihood of booking a room, a tour, or other travel-related service with you.
Aside from ensuring website uniformity across different desktop browsers, cross-browser compatibility can also make your travel website both more mobile-friendly and more responsive. Travelers who are using their smart devices to access your website largely expect to get the same kind of user experience they’d get on their desktops. But it’s worth noting that smart devices have smaller screens compared to desktops and laptops, and that they also use different operating systems to run applications and programs.
A competent web designer will be able to run a browser compatibility check to see what requirements they’ll need to implement so that your travel website can run smoothly on mobile devices. Partner up with one so that you can appeal to travel customers from across any type of browser and screen.
The Website Is Curated to Fit a User’s Browser Preference
Although modern web browsers have a similar approach when it comes to browsing for and showing websites to their users, different browsers offer different features so that they can be distinguished from their competition. Some browsers connect to a user’s email and save their browser settings so that the user doesn’t have to manually restore their browser view when using a new computer. Others offer optimal memory management and are thrifty on disk space.
As a result of this variety, people gravitate to web browsers that fit their online browsing preferences and lifestyle. You’ll want to keep this in mind when improving your travel website’s cross-browser compatibility and matching it to the needs of travelers who have different browsing habits.
#3 Organic Target Audience Growth
One of the best things about cross-browser compatibility is it can help grow your online audience organically—meaning that travelers visiting your website are being drawn in from authentic searches, not through paid means.
Good things will happen to your travel business as a result of a steady flow of organic traffic. Your website will be prioritized by search engines and, as a result, may become travelers’ top choice when they see it pop up in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Improved SEO
If greater cross-browser compatibility enhances your travel website’s performance and attracts more organic traffic from people using different web browsers, it’s a sign that your business website’s SEO has improved. SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it plays a crucial role in strengthening your travel business’s online presence.
Travel websites that implement good SEO practices, such as making their website more accessible to people of different backgrounds, will garner more trust within the travel and tourism industry. A high level of trust will also mean that travelers will view your brand as credible and worth supporting in either the near or far future.
>>Learn more about link building basics
Cross-Browser Compatible – Takeaway
As seen above, there are many perks to owning a travel website that’s designed for cross-browser compatibility. When your website is supported by multiple web browsers and appreciated by search engines and your target audience alike, your travel business will end up tapping a wider online market.
You may soon see the difference in the amount of buzz you’ve generated for your business and the locations it services, as well as in the number of tours or room reservations coming in through your website. Get in touch with a competent web designer and make the move to launch a cross-browser compatible travel website.
