There is no doubt that websites today have taken design and technology to a new level. While progression is almost always a good thing - It seems like these new technologies such as Flash, PHP, AJAX, XHTML, etc aren't always making the sites any easier to use.

Case in point: Yesterday, my mom called me into her home office with a frustrated tone. While navigating through a realestate education website she found herself at a dead end. Normally, when she asks for my help I can find her a way out. In this case, there was no way out. The link to the information she was looking for was somehow overlooked. Whether it hadn't loaded properly or the the information was left out entirely - Im not sure. But the information that she needed was not available. So we picked up the phone and called a real live person. Problem solved.

This brings me to my topic - a site that is not easy to use is not helping anybody. In order for your Web site to be successful, users must visit the site and find what they are looking for quickly and easily. Bottom line - stick to the basics when designing a site and dont let the technology come before the purpose.

Last time we discussed the factors on your site that affect your rankings. Today we're going to explore the most important offsite issue, links. The number and the type of web sites that link to your site are very important. If you want to achieve higher rankings, try to get as many links from related web sites as possible. It's not only important that many other web sites link to yours, it's also important that the links are from related sites and that the link texts contain keywords that are related to the keywords for which you want to have high rankings.

If you had good rankings that suddenly dropped and none of the on-site factors mentioned in my previous post apply to your site, then it is very likely that search engines have re-evaluated the links to your site. If this is the case, the search engine will either think that the links to your site are not from related sites or other sites have better links than you so in turn listing them higher.

Other sites don't necessarily have to have more links than you. They just need to links that are related to the keyword for which you want to have high rankings. In that case, you should try to get new links from related sites that contain your keyword.

Stay Tuned for the exciting Conclusion of The Lost Rankings Trilogy.

So you've set up a blog now what? What do you write about? These are just two of many questions that arise once you or your company set up a blog. Here are a few guidelines I usually follow when writing blog entries.

1. Write as if you're talking to one person. It'll be one person reading your entry so make it seem even more personal by addressing them individually. Use "you" and "your" instead of "you guys" or "everybody".

2. Write about things you know about.... or things you want to. By writing about things you're either an expert about or very familiar with gives the subject an honest point of view and you're not just regurgitating something someone else has already written about. Writing about questions or challenges you've run into and had to problem solve on is also a great method of spreading online knowledge. If you've taken the time to research a problem chances are someone else out there will too and may just hit your blog looking for the same answer.

3. Write like you talk but don't overdo it. Slang terms and OMG (text shorthand) are primary no-no's. The best way to convey a story, subject or experience is to write in fist person and let it flow just like a conversations. That is, in fact, what you're having with your readers.

4. Keep it short. We all have a tendency to overwrite when a subject really interests us. By writing short conversational pieces you'll engage your readers without making it seem too much like work. If you do need to continue writing put it on another blog page by utilizing the "read more..." aspect of most blogs. This normally opens up a full page for your entire article.

5.Grab their interests. The subject is the first and sometimes the last thing your reader ever sees. Keep them short, snappy and descriptive. Questions in subjects often get the greatest response because the user knows whether or not they care to find the answer.

6. Write as if you're future or current boss will read it. Refrain from cursing or sticking your foot in your mouth. It can and probably will come back to haunt you.

If you haven't heard the buzz about this little add-on to Mozilla's Firefox browser, let me enlighten you. Firebug is pure and simply one of the easiest ways to live-debug your CSS, Javascript and HTML pages. As a simple plug-in for the ever popular open source FireFox browser it's a perfect addition to your coding programs.



"Firebug is always just a keystroke away, but it never gets in your way. You can open Firebug in a separate window, or as a bar at the bottom of your browser. Firebug also gives you fine-grained control over which websites you want to enable it for." - getFirebug.com

A few key features are:

- Inspect and edit HTML on the fly
- Tweak CSS within your browser/FireBug window
- Visualize CSS metrics and box models
- Accurately monitor network activity
- Debug and profile JavaScript problems
- Quickly find errors throughout your web docs
- Explore the DOM
- Execute JavaScript on the fly
- Logging for JavaScript

So if you're having issues with your code you've got to give this little FireFox add-on a try. Click here to download and install the plug-in for yourself.

If so there are a few things you can do to help get you back where you need to be.

First let's look at some On-Site Factors:

It is very important that your web pages contain no spam. Sometimes when making changes to your site you have changed something on your pages that might be considered spam.

Make sure that your web site doesn't use hidden text, keyword stuffing, cloaking or too many redirects. Search engines don't like it and visitors are becoming keener on what happens in front of them. They don't like it either.

If you have new pages that aren't listed, make sure that you have enough text. Search engines need text to index web pages. Overusing frames can cause your information to be passed over by spiders.

Google(as well as every other major search engine) has difficulty indexing dynamically created pages. If you must use dynamically created pages and if your web page URLs contain questions marks, the & symbol and other special characters, consider rewriting your URLs so that your pages appear as static pages.

Make sure that your robots.txt file allows search engines to index your web site. A broken robots.txt file can send search engine spiders away from your pages.

It's also important that you have plain text links on your web pages. If you only use image or JavaScript links on your pages, chances are that search engine spiders cannot follow the links so that it looks as if your web site consisted of only one page. Spiders love plain text links.

You should also make sure that your web pages have valid HTML code. While most HTML errors don't cause problems, some of them can prevent search engine spiders from indexing your site. Validation is very helpful in this case.

Next time: Off-Site Factors and how they affect your rankings.

One aspect of web design that presents a challenge for designers is screen size. In print design, your canvas is fixed - once the size is set it wont change. On the web, not only do you have multiple screen sizes, but the user can also resize his browser window at any time.

The safest approach is to design for all monitors. However, many users have 14" monitors. The solution seems simple. Design your pages to fit on a 14" monitor.

While this solution does take everyone into consideration, it leaves those with high resolution screens with the short end of the stick. Fortunately there is a solution that cures all in my opinion. Its called fullscreen flash and it is becoming the new standard for presenting interactive content on the web.

Click here to see an example of FULLSCREEN FLASH

Notice that the content will fit whatever space is available and on resize the content streches and/or repositions itself to the available space.

Designers today are faced with several new challenges in the world of web and technology. In the past designers were perfectly content to create the day away with their primary worry of making that all important deadline.

Today a solid designer needs a firm understanding of the technology associated with their individual field. Web designers especially need to have a firm grasp of much more than just design theory and a natural skill and eye for design. They need to know the various programming languages behind the pretty pages you see online like CSS, PHP, ActionScript, Javascript, AJAX and XHTML. Without this knowledge todays designers fall short of their client's needs and wants and ulitmately are pigeon-holed into strictly creative. Though this may not sound like "such a bad thing" to some designers but in todays market clients love the idea of the "one stop shop" and the ability to complete the job from start to finish has a certain personal reward as well.

The trick as a designer is to constantly educate yourself on the current technology trends, tips and techniques. You need to constantly challenge yourself not only in the creative mind but also in the logical and analytical mind. Possessing a complete skill set, both code and design you'll find yourself able to handle almost every job presented to you without the initial hesitation of whether or not it's possible. Almost anything's possible in the web world. Dig in a do the research you'll find the answer.

Google is one of the first major search engines to test this new "Personalized Search" technology. This month alone, Google has released a total of 15 new patent applications relating to this new technology.

They have already begun testing many of these new search features in Google's personalized search http://www.google.com/psearch, which is currently in beta test mode.

Because traditional algorithmic search engines have reached a pinnacle, "personalized search" is just a natural, and necessary, progression for Google.

The following is an abstract from one of the Google patents entitled, Systems and methods for analyzing a user's web history http://tinyurl.com/ycdhxl:

A user's prior searching and browsing activities are recorded for subsequent use. A user may examine the user's prior searching and browsing activities in a number of different ways, including indications of the user's prior activities related to advertisements. A set of search results may be modified in accordance with the user's historical activities. The user's activities may be examined to identify a set of preferred locations. The user's set of activities may be shared with one or more other users. The set of preferred locations presented to the user may be enhanced to include the preferred locations of one or more other users. A user's browsing activities may be monitored from one or more different client devices or client application. A user's browsing volume may be graphically displayed.

Basically, what that abstract is saying, is that over time we develop a history of search queries, results that were clicked, advertisements that were click, and a bunch of other browsing activities. Each one of these actions define what our preferences and interests are. Additionally, Google has mentioned that they may begin tracking users instant messaging, word processing, participation in chat rooms, and internet phone calls in later editions.

» Read More

Last week I had a meeting with Jeff Ramsey fom eMarketer and he shared some statistics that you may find interesting:

Blog stats:
Percent of Internet users that read blogs according to the diferent on-line research companies:
Forrester 10%
BIGresearch 13%
eMarketer 17%
Gallup Poll 20%
Harris/Makovsky 21%
JupiterKagan 22%
Princeton survey 27%
comScore 30%
Ipsos 32%
PEW 39%

Gallup Poll says:
9% read frequently
11% occasionally

3.6% trust blogs as a news source. (Source:Insight Express)
8% trust blogs when making a purchase. (Source:JupiterReseach)
9% trust Blogs as source of information about products (Source:Universal McCann/InsightExpress)
12% trust blogs always or most of the time (Source:Princeton Research Assoc)
38% of firms monitor Blogs (Source:Reveries.com)

» Read More

During a HSMAI travel internet marketing strategy conference in Sunny Isles Florida yesterday we were fortunate enough to have a panel that comprised three top level executives from Google. As would be expected a member asked the panel “what can they do to have their site indexed quicker”.

Google’s team went through the channels that most of us are familiar with explaining that the site must be built properly, setup Google’s sitemap and obtain natural listings. The members then complained that they had done these eight months ago and still have a page rank of 0. Google’s team then explained that Google is not the one that decides how quickly your site is ranked that the general public decides by how often your site is visited. Google then explained that using Google’s Adwords is a great way to drive traffic to the site, hence creating traffic. This is only one aspect of the algorithms that the search engines use but today you may need to buy your way to the position you need.

You may think that's there's some complicated procedure for doing this but the answer is actually quite simple.

Most CSS layouts have background images for basic image rollovers. A lot of web browsers have a tendency to "flicker" the image to white just after the mouse enters the live area of the desired link. One way to avoid this is to preload all background images specified in CSS into the browsers cache, thus allowing the user to continue without waiting for CSS to load and cache out the image.

To preload the image(s) you'll just need to create a basic CSS id like this:

.preloadImage {display:none;}

Once that's done just create a <div> container at the bottom of your html document with all of your needed imagery.

<div class="preloadImage">

<img src="myimage.jpg" alt="My Image"/>

</div>

Because the CSS display property is set to "none" the image will not show up in the layout at all but the image itself will be loaded into the browser cache for on-demand use when the user key's your rollover. Simple yet very effective.