How To Optimizing Your Web Page

Meta tags are not a magic solution. Meta tags are HTML codes that are inserted into the header on a web page, after the title tag. Meta tags are contained in the HEAD section near the top of the page. Meta tags are HTML tags that help you control how some search engines may index your site, by using the keywords and descriptions you provide. A good question to ask is if meta tags are still necessary. Meta tags are useful in getting better listings in the search engines. The title, keyword and description meta tags are standard HTML tags and should be placed within the HEAD section of a Web page.

Some believe that HTML meta tags will bring you to the top of the search engine rankings. Many vendors of software that generates HTML will make use of their own custom Meta Tags to identify different pieces of information about the document. You can define your own search fields with HTML meta tags. While many search engines are placing more and more emphasis on the keywords used on your actual HTML page, some are still looking at your meta tags.

Everyone knows that to obtain high search engine rankings all you have to do is put the keywords that you want to rank high with into your meta tags, right. You know that keywords should go into your HTML title and meta tags, but did you know that you also need to place them in heading tags. The description meta tag explains your site’s content and data, giving the search engines’ robots and spiders a brief summary of your site. Use the keywords in the META tags in your ALT image description for a boost in some search engines. Being specific and accurate are the ingredients to success with keywords. At the present time, most search services extract keywords from the page text, but some services may use the keywords meta tag. It’s important not to repeat words in the description or keywords meta tags; Meta is not the only way to have your site seen by search engines. Keywords may be separated by a space or a comma or a comma followed by a space. Never, repeat the same word over and over in any single one of those places.

The meta description tag describes your site’s content, giving search engines’ spiders an accurate summary filled with multiple keywords. In search engine listings you see a title and a short description. Titles and Description tags are the most important meta-tags that search engines consider to determine relevancy. Try to always include your keywords within the description tags, if you can put the keywords near the beginning of the meta tag. We recommend keeping your description tag to 170 characters or less. Some services obtain descriptions from the text of the page, while other services use descriptions given in description meta tags. Just a few years ago, good META description and keyword tags were a ticket to success for many sites and many spammers. The Keyword and Description Meta Tags are the two principle META tags that search engines look for when indexing your website. The keyword, title, description tags, have been abused by many seo gurus, because of this many search engines do not pay attention to the meta tags.

Meta tags are used to provide structured data about data, similar in many ways to the information provided in traditional library catalogue records. Meta Tags are most commonly used to distinguish the keywords that are relevant to a page’s content. The robots meta tags are used and respected by all major search engine robots. META Tags are still important today.

Mistakes in Web Design Avoid These Design Mistakes

Mistakes in Web Design Avoid These Design Mistakes That Will Shy Viewers Away

When creating your Website there are many things to think about, but lets not forget the basics. This includes your primary design plan or rather the first colors, background and words the visitor sees. Discussed below are ways to successfully execute those three components.

Color Scheme

If you already have a company logo with designated colors, use those and continue the theme. Otherwise choose two to three colors for use on your Website. Stick with these colors and use them on every page. Once you assign a pattern to those colors stay consistent on each page. Example: White background, blue writing and orange bordering. Pull out or download a color wheel. This will help you choose colors that naturally accent one another. You want to catch your viewers’ eye so shy away from dark colors on top of dark colors.

Most commonly used color schemes:

~Red, yellow and white
~Blue and white
~Red, grey and white
~Blue, orange and white
~Yellow, grey and white
~Onion shade, Tan, white

Page Background

The most common mistake here is having a dark background with dark writing or white background with yellow or light pink writing. This is very strenuous to the viewers’ eyes. White backgrounds are used most often and are safe with darker writing. If you have a pattern as your page background, make sure the colors stand out from all the background patterns colors, if not done in black and white. Be sure that your hyperlink doesn’t blend before or after it has been clicked. Links most commonly appear blue before clicked and burgundy after.

Grammar and Spelling

We’re all aware of the spelling and grammar tool on our computers, but sometimes they don’t catch everything. It’s helpful to print the page out and review it from a hard copy. The eye sometimes catches mistakes it may not have seen on the computer screen. Have a peer look over your work – this will help in finding mistakes. Watch out for grammatical and punctuation mistakes your computer may not pick up on. Ex: your, you’re, there, their, its, it’s, viewers’, viewer’s and some time, sometimes.

Think simple with these three components. Complex colors, backgrounds, or words will lead your viewer away. Be inviting to your audience by making your site ‘easy on the eyes.’ Don’t forget to proofread – and remember that two heads are better than one.

Fixed Font Size
CSS style sheets unfortunately give websites the power to disable a Web browser’s “change font size” button and specify a fixed font size. About 95% of the time, this fixed size is tiny , reducing readability significantly for most people over the age of 40.

Respect the user’s preferences and let them resize text as needed. Also, specify font sizes in relative terms — not as an absolute number of pixels

Violating Design Conventions
Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don’t have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience. Every time you release an apple over Sir Isaac Newton, it will drop on his head. That’s good.

The more users’ expectations prove right, the more they will feel in control of the system and the more they will like it. And the more the system breaks users’ expectations, the more they will feel insecure. Oops, maybe if I let go of this apple, it will turn into a tomato and jump a mile into the sky.

Benefits Of An Accessible Website- Increase In Reach

Benefits Of An Accessible Website- Increase In Reach

The DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) states that service providers must not discriminate against disabled people. A website is regarded as a service and therefore falls under this law, and as such must be made accessible to everyone.

Some organisations are making accessibility improvements to their websites, but many are seemingly not making the accessibility adjustments. Disabled people don’t access their website, they say, so why should they care?

Why you should care about disabled Internet users

The statistics on the number of users who may face difficulties due to your website’s accessibility are quite startling:

• There are 8.6 million registered disabled people in the UK – 14% of the population (source: DRC)
• One in 12 men and one in 200 women have some form of colour blindness – 9% of the UK population (source: Institution of Electrical Engineers)
• Two million UK residents have a sight problem – 4% of the population (source: RNIB)
• There are 12 million people aged 60 or over – 21% of the UK population (source: UK government)

Although there is inevitably some overlap between the aforementioned groups, adding up these numbers provides a total of 48% of the UK population that could potentially face problems with your website’s accessibility. That’s an extraordinarily high number.

It’s not just disabled users who can’t access your website

Non-disabled people may also experience difficulties with your website’s accessibility. Not everyone is viewing your website on the latest version of Internet Explorer, with all the plug-ins and programs that you may require them to have for optimal access.

If your website relies on images, Flash or JavaScript, and fails to provide alternatives, then your website won’t be accessible to a number of web users. The following examples are a common occurrence:

• Users on slow connections regularly turn images off to enable a quicker download time. Some browsers, such as the text-only Lynx browser do not display images at all.
• Not every user has downloaded the latest Flash program that’s needed to access your site. Additionally, the download time on Flash websites often takes so long that users lose patience and don’t even wait to see the content. Just 25% of web users in the UK are connected to the Internet via broadband (source: National Statistics).
• JavaScript is a scripting language that can cause changes to a page, often through mouse functions, buttons, or other actions from the user. For example, pop-ups are opened using JavaScript. JavaScript is unsupported by about 5% of web users, either because they have turned it off to prevent pop-up adverts or because their browser doesn’t support it (source: The Counter). Any JavaScript-driven content provided on your website won’t be accessible to these users.
• PDAs, mobile phones and WebTV have limited support for large images, Flash and JavaScript. You can test your website by downloading the free WebTV viewer. You can also check how your website looks on a mobile phone with the Wapalizer. Don’t underestimate the importance of this: in 2008 alone an estimated 58 million PDAs will be sold (source: eTForecast) and one third of the world’s population will own a wireless device (source: ClickZ)

Quality Website Design and Development

Quality Website Design and Development

There’s two ways to get a website developed – pay, or design it yourself. If you’ve chosen the latter, you’ll need several things. First, you’ll need web hosting. Web hosting can range from $2 to $200 per month, depending on your needs. Consult a web hosting review site for more information. Next, you’ll have to have some background in computing or internet programming. You’ll need to know at least HTML. Thirdly, you’ll have to have a way to upload your files. Some hosts have online uploads, others require FTP.

Today’s web design encompasses many different technologies that must blend seamlessly to allow for the best combination of form and function in a site. If you’ve decided to design your first website, it can be a daunting task. Rather, most professionals suggest finding a low-cost alternative. Many web developers have a forte – either design or programming. Finding a well-rounded website design firm or individual is difficult, but the business’ portfolio is the best indication.

website design company that offers a wide range of Website Design solutions specializing in construction of quality websites for today’s challenging internet market. We specialize in custom quality web design, web development, search engine optimization and ecommerce websites.By providing a full range of website design services including custom web design from a simple web page to the complex internet solutions including content management systems, portals, ecommerce websites setup and SEO. Our web design team will deign you a fully functioning website that enhances your business that will improve customer awareness of your products and services.

Whether you are developing your existing website or considering developing a brand new website designed to deliver genuine business benefits Suncoast Internet can manage and implement the entire project, the end result of which is an effective, fast-loading, easy-to-use quality web design that will yield results.

How to Optimize WebSite Navigation

How to Optimize WebSite Navigation

Make no mistake. the most impressive looking and product rich web site will fail to convert visitors into paying customers if they are unable to more quickly and easily find what they are looking for, that is, proper web site navigation. There’s a lot of competition out there. Develop and design a web site that’s easy to understand and use, and you’ll attract more than your fair share of visitors – visitors that will return, and buy, again and again. Fail in this, and the only one’s smiling will

How do we accomplish this? By utilizing intuitive navigation techniques. Use them in the development and design of your web site; then sit back as hordes of satisfied customers return to your internet business on a regular basis. And you’ll find when marketing online, return business is your key to significant and effortless profits.

Ok, so what exactly is intuitive navigation – and how do we design it into our web site? I can tell you what it’s not. It is not flashy, creative designs that entertain and distinguish you from the other ‘dull’ web sites out there. Simply defined, intuitive navigation implements a familiar and consistent look and feel across all the design elements of your web site. These elements include;

GOOGLE ADSENSE MENU:

Your website menu – the table of contents if you will – that directs visitors throughout the various pages of your site should be consistent, and included on every page. Websites that contain a menu on the home page only or certain select pages on the web site (and I’ve seen far too many of these), force visitors to use the Back button (or click on the logo to return to the home page). The common result, visitors do more clicking and visitors get lost. And visitors who get lost… well, ‘get lost’.

And for Pete’s sake, keep your menu style and placement consistent from page to page. Again, fancy and different equals confusion. Confusion equals frustration. And frustration equals ‘no sale’.

Site map:

Another useful website element, and one that’s missing in many business web sites, the site map is a web page that contains a hierarchical, top-down, organized list of all the sections, or pages, on your website. It’s a road map through your web labyrinth, which can get you where you want to go more directly, that is, quicker (especially to access links). It can also make up for any design ‘sins’ on your menu. And for many left brainers, like myself, it is sometimes the preferred route.

Subtitle index:

For those large pages on your web site, which require page scrolling, it is preferable to include subtitles in your copy, for readability. Repeating these subtitles at the top of your page, linked to the subtitle in the copy, makes it easier for visitors to access or return to those sections of the copy that most interest them.

Back to top link:

Again, for large pages on your web site, having ‘Back to top’ links, between subtitles, or at the very least the bottom of your page’s copy, allows visitors to return to the top of your web page with one click, without the need to scroll.

Text links:

Whether it’s a menu item or other link throughout your web site, the use of simple and efficient text links is the preferred navigation method in most instances.

Yes, there’s an overabundance of fancy and impressive buttons, graphics and rollovers available for navigating your web site. However, this is an area where it is mindful to employ the well-known K.I.S.S. method for keeping things simple. Text links are much faster loading than images. Now, for fast broadband internet access, the difference between text and image load may be negligible. However, there are still many potential customers out there still surfing on slow connections. For them, the difference can be significant. So, until we are all on the same connection page, you would do well to accommodate all visitors.

In addition, text navigation menus can contribute relevant text for the search engines, which image navigation bars cannot. And of course, text is often easier than an image for understanding the purpose of the link. Just remember – on the web, and for your internet business, it is always preferable to err on the side of efficiency over impressiveness.

Page Footer Menu:

Ok, we have our menu items at the top (or side) of all our web pages. So, why would we want to repeat them at the bottom of every page? Well, in addition to providing your visitors with just another, alternative, option for navigating your website, there are two instances when placing your menu on your page footer is more an essential, than a ‘nice to have’.

(1) If you insist on using graphics for your main menu items, the inclusion of a text menu on the page footer aids both reader viewability and understanding, and ensures that search engine spiders can see you.

(2) Placing your menu on a frame is an easy way to ensure that your menu items stay fixed and in sight, even as you’re scrolling through a long web page. However, although there are many advantages to using frames on your web site, there are disadvantages as well. Although more detail on the pros and cons is fodder for another article, let’s just say there are many web sites that prefer not to use frames. In such instances, scrolling down a long page will also scroll your menu items, sometimes out of sight. A page footer menu provides a convenient way to access these items without the necessity for scrolling back up the page.

Containing an abundance of particulars, a context-rich web site can be a dense, confusing and intimidating jungle of information for internet visitors. However, by using time-tested intuitive navigation techniques, you can turn potential chaos (and lost customers) into a smooth and pleasant ride across the web superhighway.