Archive for December, 2008
12/29/08 by admin | Web Design | No Comments »
Again, my friend Kyle Reddoch brings us another great web design tip. This is actually a 3 part series, but I’m going to include them all in this post for your convenience.
HTML TITLE tag – understanding web page titles
Many web developers ignore the importance of the <title> tag. Though, according to HTML specifications, the use of <title> is mandatory, I have come across many pages on the Internet in which this tag is just not used.
<title> provides us with an opportunity to spell out the content of our pages. It is also used by search engines to index pages. On search sites such as Hotbot, Altavista etc. the title of the web page is displayed as the link.
This tip will show you how to write titles better, or rather, in a more logical manner. I have adopted this style and it has helped me in maintaining my web sites and in search engine optimization.
Decide on the keywords for the page and then build the title tag around them. Make sure you have all the keywords / key phrases in the title tag.
Contents of the HTML title tag
I have always believed that <title> tags should contain the important keywords and key phrases. This helps the web page to rank higher in search engines. I usually follow the keywords with the web site structure. I first put the the description of the present page (so that all keywords are contained in this description). Be sure that all the keywords and key phrases are included in the <title> tag.
You can use commas or hyphens to separate the key phrases in the <title> tag.
You must remember not to use colons or the forward slash (/) in the<title> tag. When you save a web page using the “Save As” option from the browsers “File” menu, the contents of the <title>are used as the file name. Since colons are not allowed within filenames on a Macintosh system and slashes are used to represent directories, it’s best to avoid them. Hyphens and commas, thus, seem as the best good choice.
Importance of TITLE Tag in Search Engine Optimization
The TITLE of a web page is displayed on the title bar of the browser. The title text is placed between the <TITLE> - </TITLE> tags inside the HTML head section.
There are a few important reasons why you should choose an intelligent title for a web page
* Many search engines display the results using the content of the TITLE tag.
* If the title is missing, such search engines will display the page as “Untitled”. This is not only ugly but also very unprofessional.
* The contents of the TITLE tag are used by search engines to index the page.
* It’s recommended that you write down all the important keywords that describe the web page contents and compose a sentence that should be used as the title of the page.
I hope this gives you a better understanding of the title tag and why you should ensure your web pages includes it. If you have comments or questions regarding web page title tags, leave us a comment below.
12/28/08 by admin | Web Design | No Comments »
Here’s another tip from my friend Kyle Reddoch on the importance of headings and how best to use them for SEO purposes…
Headings form a part of the logical structure of an HTML document. There are six heading tags <h1> to <h6> each having its ending tag.
To get better ranking in search engines, make sure that the web page headings contain all (or the most important) keywords and key phrases. If the same keywords and key phrases are repeated in the paragraph following the heading, the page will certainly get a boost in ranking.
You should NEVER use headings to increase the size of text. You have at your disposal the <font>tag, and the <small>, <big> tags for that purpose. Furthermore, you can gain a better control over font size and other text properties using Cascading Style Sheets.
Since headings provide a logical structure to the document, another important thing to remember is NEVER to use smaller level headings before the higher. Thus, <h4> should not be used before <h2> (though, HTML does not enforce this).
If you found this tip on web page headings using HTML tags helpful, please let us know by posting below.
12/19/08 by admin | Web Design | No Comments »
Kyle has once again brought us a great tip, this time he shows us how to assigned different colors to our links using stylesheets.
Changing the properties of links on a web page
The color of link on a web page is set using the link attribute of the
tag. The default color is blue (#0000FF). That is, if you don’t supply a color value (or color name) to the link attribute, the browser makes all the links on the web page blue in color. Specifying another value, say green, to the link attribute will turn all links in the document into green color.
Two different colors for links
Only one color can be set through the link attribute. With Style Sheets, you can have links of different colors and styles in the same document.
Styles sheets can be applied to documents in three different ways. In this article, I’ll cover two ways to embed style information on a web page.
Continue Reading on Kyle`s Blog
12/17/08 by admin | Recent Posts, Wordpress | No Comments »
Do you want to increase the search engine ranking of your WordPress blog? Check out these 9 SEO WordPress plugins that Shawn Jooste from Elite Blogger has pulled together for us.
The best place by far to find traffic is from search engines. The art of Search Engine Optimization is often very daunting for new bloggers. Even some experienced bloggers just see SEO as a cloudy puddle of mud they would rather not play in.
WordPress by default is pretty decent at letting search engines see what’s going on. But there are a whole bunch of other things that can be done to make your blog rank better. Fortunately there are plugins available to help you get better rankings for your blog, so you don’t have to go digging into the code of your blog to get some results from search engines.
I’m not going to explain the validity or effects of each of these SEO tactics in detail. There is more than enough of that on the Internet already if you want to do some research. I’ll mention briefly what the benefits of each plugin is, and why you need it.
1. All in One SEO Pack
This allows you to set the basic SEO stuff for your blog. You need page titles, meta tags, keywords, and descriptions. This plugin allows you to configure them for either your entire blog or on a post by post basis.
2. Redirection
From time to time you make changes on your blog. Sometimes these changes end up breaking your Permalink structure. This often happens when you make a change to an old post, or do an upgrade to WordPress and make some changes to the permalinks. It’s very very common if you move your blog from one host to another.
Basically what happens is that each post has a unique URL, called a permalink. When this changes, visitors who go to that blog post won’t find it. The redirection plugin helps you fix these problems by redirecting the visitor to the new permalink. This reduces the amount of traffic you get to pages that don’t exist.
3. Robots Meta
By default search engines crawl and index ALL the pages on your blog. This isn’t ideal, because it creates duplicate content and you can get yourself punished by search engines without knowing it. What the Robots Meta plugin allows you to do is tell the search engines which sections of your blog to crawl. This means that you’ll get more respect from search engines, and likely more traffic.
4. SEO Smart Links
One of the key issues with SEO is your internal linking structure. The more you link to a certain page on your blog, the more important it is to your overall content. Search engines treat your internal links as an indication of how well structured your site is. The problem with this is that if you had to manually go and create links to relevant and important posts you’ll spend hours and hours doing it.
SEO Smart links allows you to specify a word, like ‘SEO’ and then link it to a post on your site. Then each time the word SEO appears on your site, it’s automatically turned into a link you specified.
5. SEO Friendly Images
Images also play an important role in your SEO strategy. So it’s important that you tag them correctly. SEO Friendly images allows you to do this, and saves you hours and hours of work. If, like most bloggers you use images in your posts, then this plugin is essential.
6. Google Positioner
It’s important to know your keywords. And this handy plugin allows you to track the keywords you’re getting searches for. It’s pointless selecting a few keywords, then writing some content for those keywords and hoping that the rest goes well. SEO is about being proactive and tracing what works and what doesn’t.
7. Permalinks Moved Permanently
A common mistake bloggers make is choosing the wrong permalink structure. When you start your blog you think you know which is best, and as time goes buy you want to change your permalink structure. The problem with changing your permalink structure is that your traffic will come to a standstill until your site is reindexed, and that could take months.
This plugin is similar to redirect but is an easier and better way to manage permanent permalink changes.
8. Nofollow Case by Case
The nofollow attribute over the last year or two has had a fairly large impact on the blogosphere. All comments in WordPress by default are nofollow links. This means that no Page Rank (PR) is being given via the link. This plugin changes that and makes comment links valuable again. There are a number of reasons you would want to give away link juice. It’s often used to attract people and encourage them to comment. It can be very useful for new blogs who need some exposure.
9. SEO Slugs
Stop words are ignored by search engines. So most of your post titles have them in, but they are meaningless to search engines. So when you have a post title like this: “What You Can Do Immediately For Higher Rankings” you have a permalink like this: ‘/what-you-can-do-immediately-for-higher-rankings’ but what you really want is for your permalink to look like this: /immediately-higher-rankings.
This plugin automatically removes stop words from the permalink, helping you to rank better.
Conclusion:
Getting better traffic from search engines will help you boost your blog. You’ll get better income, rank better, and be able to build a better brand.
Courtesy of problogger.net
12/08/08 by admin | Recent Posts, Social Marketing | 1 Comment »
Creating a blog is nothing that you need to be afraid of. There is no elaborate planning required either. However, there are a few things you would need to decide. Since these blogging service providers give you a lot of choice in terms of template and color themes, would be require to take those decisions yourself.
The following is a quick guide of what to think over before creating your blog:
• Theme: Determine what you would be writing about or the nature of the content that you would be sharing with your readers. This depends mainly on your interest. Topics blogging to the field of politics, poetry, arts, current affairs, or almost anything under the sun can be chosen. You can stick to one theme or you can choose to write about whatever concerns you on a day to day basis. Since it is your very own web journal, you can make it as flexible as possible in all aspects.
• Blogging Provider: Next you need to decide upon which blogging service provider you would like to use. This depends on the kind of reviews that you get about them from friends and acquaintances, or something about them that you may have read online. Otherwise, you can always try out something and find out if you like it. You can try out one of these popular sites: Blogger.com, WordPress.com, Typepad, Blogagotchi.com, Livejournal.com, JournalHome.com, TheDiary.org, Mindsay.com, Blog.com, Diaryland.com, Blogdrive.com, or Xanga.com.
• Templates: A wide range of templates will be made available on any blogging service you decide to start you blog. Select the one you most prefer or like.
• Freebies: The advantage with these blogging service providers is that they make your blogging experience as dynamic and interactive as possible. They enable you to install add-on features that include button, pictures, blog chalks, imoods, tagboards such as myshoutbox.com, guest maps, guestbooks, comment boxes for readers’ thoughts and views, etc.
• Additional Features: These interesting ones may not be free. By paying a price you can avail of them.
• Nature of Blog: You must determine who should read your blog-whether you want it to be read only by a select circle, or must it be open to all. This will depend upon the content, mainly.
• Layout: Again, there will be a wide range to choose from in terms of layout and color schemes.
• Content: You could pick up a specific theme and write about it consistently, or merely decide on any random topic as and when it interests you. You could try putting up content for a while and see the kind of response you get, and alter or modify it accordingly.
• Blogging Circle: Blogging is a great way to come in touch with people from across the globe. You can surf and visit other people’s blogs. Do not spam in their comment section, but write a genuine comment if you have something to say about a particular post.
• Skins: You can customize and personalize your blog as much as you want. Using software like Photoshop you can create your own skins and make your blog attractive as well as make it reflect you own personality.
• Publish: Finally when you are done selecting the setting and preferences, selecting a content to put up, you need to publish the content. Do not, however, forget to send the link to your blog to your friends and acquaintances so that they may come visit you.
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Once you have started your blog, you will have noticed that it hardly takes fifteen minutes to do so. Maintain the blog is even easier. Here are a few tips that would help you successfully keep your blog going:
• Update: Update frequently otherwise visitors may stop coming to your blog. It will also give you more confidence to churn out more well worded posts in the future.
• Personalize: Even though you might be discussing general and universal themes, add your own personal touch to make things lighter and interesting.
• Theme: If you have a theme blog you can Google for other blogs of a similar kind and build you network.
• Spelling and Grammar: Make sure you proof read your posts. Spelling and grammatical errors can be a major put-off for many readers.
• Advertisements: You could play host to sites like Google AdSense and earn revenue by placing their links on your blog.
Courtesy for this article is unknown, if you are the author please please let me know:)
12/03/08 by admin | Recent Posts, Web Design | 10 Comments »
A CSS or “Cascading Style Sheet” file allows you to separate your websites content from it’s style or appearance. While you would create the layout of your websites content using your (X)HTML file, the CSS stylesheet would control the way in which that content appears (fonts, colours, borders, backgrounds, margins, etc.).
There are 3 methods you can use to implement the css into your design, but which one is better is dependant on what you are doing, or where you are using it.
Let’s first see what each one involves, then we can decided on the ultimate CSS method for
your project.
We aren’t going to go into details on the styles themselves, rather we’ll just go over the three methods in general.
Internal Stylesheets
This method places the CSS code itself inside the tags of your page. With this method each page is separate, therefore, the code must be placed inside each page in order for the styles to work their magic on every page of your website.
Example:
<!--
p { font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: #000000;
h1 { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000099; }
-->
I’m sure you can imagine how tedious it would be to update every page of your website one-by-one, so let’s examine this option…
External Stylesheets
The external stylesheet is a file all on it’s own that can be created using something as simple as notepad. This file contains no html code. When you save it, give it the .css extension and you have yourself an external stylesheet.
The styles would be the same as those listed about, but with the external stylesheet, you would link to it from within your “head” tags.
Example:
You would then place this code in your html document as shown below:
Using this method would give you far more flexibilty and of course save you time. By simply updating your external stylesheet, every page on your site would be updated at once, rather than using the internal stylesheet where you would have to update and change each individual page.
And finally, the Inline Styles
I don’t use this too often, but I do find it handy when I’m putting together a quick blog post or adding adsense to a page or even on websites where I am posting but don’t have any control over the css files.
An example would be one I explained in my article “How to Wrap Text Around an Image“.
Then type your text here.
This code is an example of using inline css to wrap your text around an image or ad. You could add the style to your internal or external css, but if you are working on the fly, or simply can’t, this is one solution you could use.
So again, which one is better?
- If you are creating a multi-paged website, an external css file would be the better choice. It would save you time and make updating your pages almost an instant process.
- If you are creating a single page, you could use an internal stylesheet simply because you only have to update the one page.
- And if you are working on content to be placed somewhere that you don’t have access to css or just want a quick style change, inline will do.
Some would say using the external method is the best choice and I would tend to agree. But there are situations where you could use either the internal or the inline stylesheets as I mentioned above.
Consider the project you are working on, then decide which option you feel would be your best option.
