Part 1 |
Part 2 |
Part 3 |
Part 4 |
Part 5 |
Part 6 |
Part 7 |
Part 8 |
Part 9 |
Part 10 |
Glossary
Part 8
SEO |
Web Browsers |
Flash |
Blogs |
Domain Names |
Web 2.0 |
Email
Along with clever acronyms like TCP/IP, TLC, TCB and ASAP, we have been recently gifted with the term S.E.O., which stands for Search Engine Optimization. There is actually quite a hot debate out there about the true definition and effectiveness of S.E.O. Some believe that S.E.O. is a way of creating websites whereby search engine spiders can more easily access the content of your website. This is accomplished by using clean website development techniques like programming with valid XHTML and using external Cascading Style Sheets to build your website's style with. On the other hand, there is an equally vocal majority who say that S.E.O. is a way of marketing your website and brand on the internet. This includes things like paying for ads on sponsor driven websites, or paying people to chat about your website on forums and blogs.
There is sort of a "holy-grail" of a myth out there about S.E.O., that you can pay some company $250.00 a month to publish your site into the Search Engines and boost your internet exposure 10000% in the first month. This myth usually involves you giving your credit card information to a company you have never heard of, and is often times located out of the country you live in. It also usually involves using techniques like spam and other clandestine activities to get any sort of traffic onto your site. I'm not going to go out of my way and call these types of services a scam, but I will tell you that you can do everything that these companies want to charge you for on your own for free, and will get you the traffic you want on your website.
Search Engine's are smart pieces of software. They can do everything they need to do in order to categorize and index your website. If you are willing to play by the rules and can live with organic growth of your website, you will be much better off in the long run and get high quality Search Engine visibility vs. hi concentration of lo low quality visibility.
There are few things you can do on your own to boost your internet visibility, outside of simply making a Search Engine friendly website to begin with. You can create a blog on a popular blog site like "blogger.com", get professional organizations you are a member of to link to you, list your website on the Google local business search, or get an online news outlet to talk about you. These are all examples of good organic growth, which will pay off in the long run.
It seems that every other week another web browser is popping up out there. You have your Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera, FireFox, Safari, Chrome and many others. The question you may be asking yourself at this point is; why are there so many web browsers out there? I have often asked myself the same question, and usually come up with the same answer. It's because they can. Companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google are into the web browser making business because it reinforces their branding. Think about it, when was the last time you paid for a web browser?
While a little competition never hurt anyone, there are a few issues you need to be aware of when making a website that will be viewed by many different web browsers. The main thing you need to be aware of is the fact that they all render web pages differently. One example that happens all of the time is how HTML tables will act on different web browsers. Some browsers will put them at one location on a page, and others will put it in a different place altogether.
To really understand why this happens, you have to take a trip with me down memory lane. We will visit a more innocent time, a time when the word internet was just a buzz word, a time when there was no JavaScript or Flash, a time called 1996. The world's first web browsers were making their debuts along with thousands of fledgling websites. When the internet became popular, there was a massive push to make a website for everything. Unfortunately, at the time there wasn't really a mature programming language ready to handle what the world was about to ask of it. The language that ended up making the cut was HTML. HyperText Markup Language, as it's called, was smart enough to show some basic words and picture on the computer screen, but was not equipped to handle the burden it was about to be put under. HTML was not outfitted to handle things like animations, or changing data.
As time went on, the things people wanted to do with web pages grew, and thus the technology for those things grew. The problem was, that there was no industry standardization happening. Each web browser manufacturer had its own ideas and solutions to the problems at hand and thus the browser wars were started. You may remember the infamous Microsoft vs. Netscape lawsuit.
Fast forward to today. We have over a decade's worth of non-standardized technology growth. You have different web browsers fighting each other, you have animation technologies like Flash and Silverlight fighting each other, you have Scripting languages like VBScript and JavaScript fighting each other and to top it off, you have programming camps like PHP fighting ASP.NET for the back end side of things.
So, you may now be asking yourself, which web browser is the right one?
The answer is: All and none of them! Unfortunately since there is no standard, there is no right or wrong. Actually, things are getting better these days. There are standardized versions of HTML coming out, which if followed will render the same on all browsers. Some web browsers are already on board.
What can you do to make sure that your website looks the same on all web browsers?
The main thing you can do is write your web pages in XHTML. You also need to use external CSS documents, to make sure that there is no ambiguity in the page markup itself. You also have to install all web browsers you want to support and test your page on them. The best thing you can do to make sure that your website looks great on all web browsers is to, work with a professional web designer who knows how to make websites that work on all browsers.
If you are unsure if your web designer is using web standards, you can ask them the following questions. If they answer no to any of them, there is a problem.
- Are you using either XHTML or HTML4
- Are you using CSS to style the pages?
- Are you using External CSS documents
- Are you using External JavaScript and or VBScript documents?
- Are you using Tables for design purposes?
- Are you testing the pages on all versions of IE, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, Safari and Chrome?
- Are you using PNG graphics format yet?
While there is no question about how beautiful Flash animations look, you need to be very aware of the ramifications of heavy flash usage on your website. Flash animations are a great way of making fun and interactive websites, but you have to realize that any information presented in those animations are completely invisible to search engines. So if you show 3 pages worth of information about how your company can custom make widgets, search engines will not see that information, as they ignore flash documents. You should also consider that not everyone has the flash player installed on their computer, so you limit your website's audience to only people who use Flash.
Another fundamental problem with Flash style websites is the bandwidth/connection speeds required in order to effectively download them.
The same can actually be said for the following:
- Flash Animations
- Silverlight Animations
- Windows Media Player sounds and video
- Real Player sound and video
- Tiff Images
- PowerPoint Presentations
- Adobe Acrobat files
- JavaScript
- AJAX
It's ok to offer these types of media files on your website, but just be sure that your website is not dependent upon these technologies in order to function. If your careful, you can strike the perfect balance of XHTML, CSS and Flash, and have a fantastic website that will work across all browsers.
Blogging is a great way to boost your website's popularity in the big search engines. Since the advent of web 2.0, the word blog has been abuzz like a hummingbird. Actually an abbreviation of the term "Web Log", blogs have been around for quite some time in one form or another. One of the early adopters of blogging was actually the website Live Journal. In a lot of respects, they pioneered and perfected blogging back in the late 90s.
Blogging is simply a method of self publication for the masses. A blog is a collection of short journal entries, which catalog any subject you would like them to. Some people blog about their jobs, some people blog about their relationships. Many businesses have taken to blogging as a tool for keeping their customers and clients up to date with day to day changes to the business. In fact some CEOs maintain personal blogs.
In the early part of 2007 search engines really started to take notice of blogs, and began using them as a resource for their indexes. To this day, search engines like Google, who actually own blogger.com, use the data on blogs to fill in the gaps in their search engine indexes.
If you have the discipline, you should publish a blog. You should get into the habit of writing something meaningful into it at least once a week. Before you know it, people will be subscribing to your blog, and looking to you for advice. On top of that, it will boost your visibility in the big search engines.
So, you've seen the GoDaddy commercials trying to sell you domain names for $1.99, but what does that mean, what IS a domain name? A domain name is simply one of those www.yourcompany.com names. Without getting too technical, your website will actually be hosted on a server owned by your web hosting company. This server will have one or many IP addresses assigned to it, which will need to be configured by your host to translate to your www name. This is managed via an elaborate internet naming system called DNS (Domain Name System).
When you buy a domain name, you are actually leasing the rights to use that name for a specific period of time from a company called a domain registrar. It's important to understand that you never actually own anything. There are companies like GoDaddy; Network Solutions & NameJuice who can help you register these names for a fair price. Once you have registered a name, you can then configure it to go where you want it to. 99% of the time, you are going to point the name to your web hosting company, so they can make sure that when someone types in www.yourcompany.com in their web browser, it shows your website.
If you are upgrading your website, or moving from one hosting company to another, there is a pitfall you should be aware of. In some cases when you first created your website, your developer or hosting company may have registered the domain name under their company name on your behalf. This means that only they can make changes to the account, and under a worst case scenario, could point your website to another server without your knowledge or consent. It is always in your best interest to have your domain name registration under your company's account. If you are unsure of who owns the lease for your domain name, don't hesitate to ask the people who setup your website. There may be a small fee associated with the transfer of the domain name to you, but in the long run it's worth the trouble.
No internet term has been named as cleverly as web 2.0. The term web 2.0 became popular back in about 2004. It refers to a way of making the internet, and specifically websites, more user-friendly and uniform in presentation. Since the ideas of web 2.0 surfaced, web designers have been working together more in order to provide a consistent internet experience. Web 2.0 allows internet users to interact with the internet more easily and share more information than ever before. A few good examples of web 2.0 websites are MySpace, Flickr, Wikipedia, and Google Maps. All of these websites offer their users a clear and easy user interface, allow their users to interact with every element of the website, lets users self publish their own information, and interact with other users.
When developing a business website, you should consider the overall user experience that people have become accustom to on the internet. While you don't have to clone go and MySpace, you should try to use their experience to your advantage, and incorporate as many web 2.0 elements into your website as you can.
Along with any great business website, there should be a great email system to back it.
Most modern web designers and web hosts will also offer an inexpensive email system for you to access. In most cases you can setup dozens of individual email accounts and store tens of thousands of emails. You should always be able to access these email systems from your mail programs like Outlook, Outlook Express, Entourage etc…, but most web hosts will allow you to access your email via a webpage (called webmail) as well.
If you are moving to another web design company or web host, there is a potential pitfall you can avoid with email if you catch it early. You must transfer or copy all of you email data from one provider to the other if you want to keep all of your existing accounts and messages. Also be aware that not all hosts use the same email system, and there may be a considerable amount of work and fees involved with transferring your accounts.
Part 1 |
Part 2 |
Part 3 |
Part 4 |
Part 5 |
Part 6 |
Part 7 |
Part 8 |
Part 9 |
Part 10 |
Glossary
-Rossitter Consulting is a Shreveport-Bossier City web design firm that offers affordable web design and hosting. Click HERE to read more