Accessibility is an important part of our society that provides an equal opportunity for everyone to obtain information easily. In regards to technology and information, Section 508 is an amendment that was passed in 1998 in the US Government’s Rehabilitation Act. The amendment was created to set standards for the accessibility of information technology on a national level. All federal agencies must now abide by this amendment, by only providing and purchasing services and products that are compliant to Section 508 standards. In the industry of Advertising and Marketing, or more specifically website development, abiding by web standards is crucial in order for a web developer to truly optimize a website to its fullest potential. Standards are necessary to apply to web development in correlation with section 508 in order to improve the standards in advertising and marketing, technology, and open up more opportunities for more people to gain important information.
Ideally the industry aims to make all information presented on the web available to more and more users. One advantage of the standards is that it gives people with disabilities an equal opportunity to access information. As technology continues to evolve, we can see the advantages in overcoming obstacles and bridging communications gaps through standards and best practices. As technology improves in one area, such as the rise in mobile devices and smart phones, it must also improve and be compatible in web development. Section 508 also allows web developers to develop their sites to be accessed not only on multiple desktop browsers but mobile phones, iPods, iPad’s, and any other user agents and technology created to access information via the web.
One example of making the standard applicable is utilizing the Alt Tag (alternative text). This allows a description to be tagged onto an image or graphic. Whether the image is there for a decorative effect or if it is important with text in the image itself, it is always important to add the Alt Tag within the HTML code. It is important to add the Alt tag to each image, video file, plug-ins, audio files, graphics, charts, etc. The description should be brief but to the point, describing the image or the purpose of the image. This is important for anyone that cannot view an image or if the image was not displayed properly on the screen, the descriptive text will still be displayed. This is only one standard included in Section 508 web standards. To learn more about Section 508 Standards visit the World Wide Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative. Other standards can include procedures for electronic forms, animations, data tables and client-side image maps, multimedia presentations, frames, scripting, color conveying information, and more. It also includes web standards, software standards, information documentation, and support.
Magic Logix is a digital marketing solutions company that develops Section 508 compliant websites. As a company we adopt web standards in all forms of marketing, ecommerce shopping cart solutions, and more. Magic Logix is a GSA approved company that works with the federal government, abiding by section 508 and the web standards of W3C.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
Section 508: Web Standards for Accessibility Overview
Accessibility is an important part of our society that allows equal opportunity for everyone to gain information easily. In regards to technology and information, Section 508 is an amendment that was passed in 1998 in the US Government’s Rehabilitation Act. The amendment was created to set standards for the accessibility of information technology on a national level. All federal agencies must now abide by this amendment, by only providing and purchasing services and products that are compliant to Section 508 standards. In the industry of Advertising and Marketing or more specifically website development, abiding by web standards is a very important for a web developer to truly optimize website to its fullest potential. Standards are necessary to apply to web development in correlation with section 508 in order to improve the standards in advertising and marketing, technology, and open up more opportunities for more people to gain important information.
Ideally the industry aims to make all information presented on the web to be available to more and more users. One advantage of the standards is that it allows people with disabilities equal opportunity to access information. As technology continues to evolve, we can see the advantages to overcome obstacles and bridge communications gaps through standards and best practices. As technology improves in one area, such as the rise in mobile devices and smart phones, it must also improve and be compatible in web development. Section 508 also allows web developers to develop their sites to be accessed not only on multiple desktop browsers but mobile phones, iPods, iPad’s, and any other user agents and technology created to access information via the web.
On example of making the standard applicable is utilizing the Alt Tag (alternative text). This allows a description to be tagged onto an image or graphic. Whether the image is there for a decorative effect or if it is important with text in the image itself, it is always important to add the Alt Tag within the HTML code. It is important to add the Alt tag to each image, video file, plug-ins, audio files, graphics, charts, etc. The description should be brief but to the point, describing the image or the purpose of the image. This is important for anyone that cannot view an image or if the image was not displayed properly on the screen, the descriptive text will still be displayed. This is only one standard included in Section 508 web standards. To learn more about Section 508 Standards visit the World Wide Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative. Other standards can include procedures for electronic forms, animations, data tables and client-side image maps, multimedia presentations, frames, scripting, color conveying information, and more. It also includes web standards, software standards, information documentation, and support.
Magic Logix is a digital marketing solutions company that develops Section 508 compliant websites. As a company we adopt web standards in all forms of marketing, ecommerce shopping cart solutions, and more. Magic Logix is a GSA approved company that works with the federal government, abiding by section 508 and the web standards of W3C.
Ideally the industry aims to make all information presented on the web to be available to more and more users. One advantage of the standards is that it allows people with disabilities equal opportunity to access information. As technology continues to evolve, we can see the advantages to overcome obstacles and bridge communications gaps through standards and best practices. As technology improves in one area, such as the rise in mobile devices and smart phones, it must also improve and be compatible in web development. Section 508 also allows web developers to develop their sites to be accessed not only on multiple desktop browsers but mobile phones, iPods, iPad’s, and any other user agents and technology created to access information via the web.
On example of making the standard applicable is utilizing the Alt Tag (alternative text). This allows a description to be tagged onto an image or graphic. Whether the image is there for a decorative effect or if it is important with text in the image itself, it is always important to add the Alt Tag within the HTML code. It is important to add the Alt tag to each image, video file, plug-ins, audio files, graphics, charts, etc. The description should be brief but to the point, describing the image or the purpose of the image. This is important for anyone that cannot view an image or if the image was not displayed properly on the screen, the descriptive text will still be displayed. This is only one standard included in Section 508 web standards. To learn more about Section 508 Standards visit the World Wide Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative. Other standards can include procedures for electronic forms, animations, data tables and client-side image maps, multimedia presentations, frames, scripting, color conveying information, and more. It also includes web standards, software standards, information documentation, and support.
Magic Logix is a digital marketing solutions company that develops Section 508 compliant websites. As a company we adopt web standards in all forms of marketing, ecommerce shopping cart solutions, and more. Magic Logix is a GSA approved company that works with the federal government, abiding by section 508 and the web standards of W3C.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
SEO Tips for Website Designers
What are the advantages for a Website Designers utilizing SEO?
Do you feel that as a web designer, it is important to know everything about SEO? Surprisingly you will find that many web designers know very little about Search Engine Optimization. Often people associate SEO only with online marketing. If you are a web designer you most likely love to create wonderful, artistic designs for your clients. For a web designer the best portfolio is of course, their websites. So wouldn’t you think it would be valuable to create websites that are optimized and easily found in search engines?
A web designer is going to deal with the majority of the frontend development and a lot of the on-site SEO will fall into the responsibility of the designer and developer. SEO is important for people to find your website without having to directly type in the URL. When your website/websites are not easily found you are risking losing thousands of viewers per day. For example, let’s say you average 500 visits a day from direct traffic only, and imagine that with search engine visibility, you now receive over 2,000 visits per day. What if out of 500 visitors per month, 10% of the visitors were valuable leads, meaning 50 visitors were interested in your services. After the utilization of SEO you begin to notice a boost of traffic resulting in 2,000 visitors per month, taking your 50 leads up to 200 valuable leads per month. Of course this is not an accurate example; however it is evident that if your traffic increases with “relevant” traffic, your conversion is most likely going to increase as well. With search engine optimization you can gain an increase in traffic that is equally relevant to your previous traffic, higher conversions, and more sales and greater visibility for you business.
Basics of a Search Engine
A crawler-based search engine, for example Google, has its own algorithm and process for crawling and indexing each website. The Web crawler will crawl the website pages collecting information and data from your websites content, and then follow the internal and external links, and depositing the information in a database called the index. As a web designer, you are going to want to be aware of the factors that search engines place high importance on in regards to relevancy. Ultimately, you want to rank high for each factor to ensure that your website will be displayed in the top results for your desired keywords. It is important to recognize common mistakes that cause your website to rank low in searches.
What are the Designers, Developers and Online Marketing Roles in SEO?
It is important to understand the difference between On-Site SEO and Off-Site SEO. On-site SEO can be anything related to the HTML, Navigation and internal Linking, Site Map, Image Sizes and Website Loading time, Alt Attributes, Keywords, and etc. The off-site SEO includes link building off site through article submission, blogging, commenting, and way to build back links to your web page. So whether you are a designer and developer working on the on-site SEO or you are the Online Marketer working on the Off-site SEO, you want your SEO to be intertwined and relevant for your targeted audience as well as visible and ranked high in Search Engines. You will find that it is best to have the same person design, develop and optimize your website for search engines.
Common on-site SEO Mistakes made by Designers and Developers
Some designers will not optimize the keywords within the content. For example often times you will come across an anchor link to that says “Click here”, “Read More”, or “Learn More.” This is a prime example of missing an opportunity to link back to a page with a relevant keyword. So say you want your reader to “Read More” about your website design services you could always create content saying, “Read More about our Website Design Services.” This is only one minor mistake out of thousands of missed SEO opportunities. Now you can see the importance as well as the detailed knowledge that one must utilize in order to fully embark on good, strong, solid Search Engine Optimization Strategy.
Another Common mistake made is with Title Tags and keywords. Often times web designers and developers miss the opportunity to optimize the Title tags for each Page, Page URL’s, the Main headings on each page, the first paragraph of content on each page with keywords and the body of text, alt attribute for image tags, and etc. Often times there are broken links that are not identified; there is poor internal linking and navigation, no sitemap, etc. These are all some of the basic examples of common mistakes that web designers and developers make. Here is a great article on Common Mistakes of Web Designers and Developers in regards to SEO.
An SEO conclusion for Web designers, Web Developers, and Online Marketers
Stop first and examine your website for common mistakes. Take the viewpoint of the audience when designing your website. First ask yourself, is the information presented clearly and easy to navigate? When you begin to think like the consumer or targeted audience you can soon realize simple mistakes in design and development that may frustrate a potential customer. Search Engine Optimization is designed in such a way to connect the right people to the right information. You want to your information to be relevant, clear, and to the point. Make it simple and relevant and notice that not only will your traffic increase, but also your bounce rate will decrease leaving you with higher conversion and happy satisfied customers.
Here are some helpful resources to learn more about SEO: SEOMOZ (Great resources and SEO articles), Google’s Blog (Covers a wide range of information in regards to Google, SEO, etc.), Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (Great Resource for Understanding the Principles of SEO in Regards to Google’s Algorithm), and Search Engine Land (Great Search Engine Articles, Blogs, Forums, etc)
Although SEO is overwhelming at first it is important to know the wonderful outcomes it can provide for your businesses website, customers, and sales. Magic Logix is a Dallas Web Design Company that focuses on solutions for businesses wanting to utilize their Website Design, Website Development, SEO and Online Marketing to as a marketing resource it was intended to be. A website is not only a great tool for businesses to market their services online; it is also a great way for online merchants to manage their ecommerce websites through secure database applications, CMS, CRM, etc. At Magic Logix we believe that website design should be professional, website development should be validated and error free, and that SEO and online marketing should be relevant to the target audience that you are trying to reach.
Do you feel that as a web designer, it is important to know everything about SEO? Surprisingly you will find that many web designers know very little about Search Engine Optimization. Often people associate SEO only with online marketing. If you are a web designer you most likely love to create wonderful, artistic designs for your clients. For a web designer the best portfolio is of course, their websites. So wouldn’t you think it would be valuable to create websites that are optimized and easily found in search engines?
A web designer is going to deal with the majority of the frontend development and a lot of the on-site SEO will fall into the responsibility of the designer and developer. SEO is important for people to find your website without having to directly type in the URL. When your website/websites are not easily found you are risking losing thousands of viewers per day. For example, let’s say you average 500 visits a day from direct traffic only, and imagine that with search engine visibility, you now receive over 2,000 visits per day. What if out of 500 visitors per month, 10% of the visitors were valuable leads, meaning 50 visitors were interested in your services. After the utilization of SEO you begin to notice a boost of traffic resulting in 2,000 visitors per month, taking your 50 leads up to 200 valuable leads per month. Of course this is not an accurate example; however it is evident that if your traffic increases with “relevant” traffic, your conversion is most likely going to increase as well. With search engine optimization you can gain an increase in traffic that is equally relevant to your previous traffic, higher conversions, and more sales and greater visibility for you business.
Basics of a Search Engine
A crawler-based search engine, for example Google, has its own algorithm and process for crawling and indexing each website. The Web crawler will crawl the website pages collecting information and data from your websites content, and then follow the internal and external links, and depositing the information in a database called the index. As a web designer, you are going to want to be aware of the factors that search engines place high importance on in regards to relevancy. Ultimately, you want to rank high for each factor to ensure that your website will be displayed in the top results for your desired keywords. It is important to recognize common mistakes that cause your website to rank low in searches.
What are the Designers, Developers and Online Marketing Roles in SEO?
It is important to understand the difference between On-Site SEO and Off-Site SEO. On-site SEO can be anything related to the HTML, Navigation and internal Linking, Site Map, Image Sizes and Website Loading time, Alt Attributes, Keywords, and etc. The off-site SEO includes link building off site through article submission, blogging, commenting, and way to build back links to your web page. So whether you are a designer and developer working on the on-site SEO or you are the Online Marketer working on the Off-site SEO, you want your SEO to be intertwined and relevant for your targeted audience as well as visible and ranked high in Search Engines. You will find that it is best to have the same person design, develop and optimize your website for search engines.
Common on-site SEO Mistakes made by Designers and Developers
Some designers will not optimize the keywords within the content. For example often times you will come across an anchor link to that says “Click here”, “Read More”, or “Learn More.” This is a prime example of missing an opportunity to link back to a page with a relevant keyword. So say you want your reader to “Read More” about your website design services you could always create content saying, “Read More about our Website Design Services.” This is only one minor mistake out of thousands of missed SEO opportunities. Now you can see the importance as well as the detailed knowledge that one must utilize in order to fully embark on good, strong, solid Search Engine Optimization Strategy.
Another Common mistake made is with Title Tags and keywords. Often times web designers and developers miss the opportunity to optimize the Title tags for each Page, Page URL’s, the Main headings on each page, the first paragraph of content on each page with keywords and the body of text, alt attribute for image tags, and etc. Often times there are broken links that are not identified; there is poor internal linking and navigation, no sitemap, etc. These are all some of the basic examples of common mistakes that web designers and developers make. Here is a great article on Common Mistakes of Web Designers and Developers in regards to SEO.
An SEO conclusion for Web designers, Web Developers, and Online Marketers
Stop first and examine your website for common mistakes. Take the viewpoint of the audience when designing your website. First ask yourself, is the information presented clearly and easy to navigate? When you begin to think like the consumer or targeted audience you can soon realize simple mistakes in design and development that may frustrate a potential customer. Search Engine Optimization is designed in such a way to connect the right people to the right information. You want to your information to be relevant, clear, and to the point. Make it simple and relevant and notice that not only will your traffic increase, but also your bounce rate will decrease leaving you with higher conversion and happy satisfied customers.
Here are some helpful resources to learn more about SEO: SEOMOZ (Great resources and SEO articles), Google’s Blog (Covers a wide range of information in regards to Google, SEO, etc.), Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (Great Resource for Understanding the Principles of SEO in Regards to Google’s Algorithm), and Search Engine Land (Great Search Engine Articles, Blogs, Forums, etc)
Although SEO is overwhelming at first it is important to know the wonderful outcomes it can provide for your businesses website, customers, and sales. Magic Logix is a Dallas Web Design Company that focuses on solutions for businesses wanting to utilize their Website Design, Website Development, SEO and Online Marketing to as a marketing resource it was intended to be. A website is not only a great tool for businesses to market their services online; it is also a great way for online merchants to manage their ecommerce websites through secure database applications, CMS, CRM, etc. At Magic Logix we believe that website design should be professional, website development should be validated and error free, and that SEO and online marketing should be relevant to the target audience that you are trying to reach.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Going Back to the Basics of High Quality Web Design
From a webmasters prospective, you want your website to be easily found and indexed by search engines, in order to rank well and reach your targeted audience. Google, for example pays attention to Quality Guidelines that highly focus on usability and relevancy. A website should be a clear, relevant online description of who you are and what message you have to offer the user. A clear definition and navigation is important to those who want to learn more about your company. Each page on your website should be reachable to the user and should be represented by a clear hierarchy and text links. One thing to remember is to make it simple and easy on the eyes. You do not want to over stuff your links on one page. Be practical and strategic on how you organize your links.
Your content should be organized as well. Too much content can be overwhelming and sound fluffed up with useless content, while too little of content can leave the user confused with no understanding of who you are and what message you are trying to convey. Some people will provide limited content to entice the reader to fill out a form to inquire more information. In limited situations this is ok, however be careful to not mislead the user or put irrelevant content that leads to your landing page. Let us go back to the basic of high quality, professional website design by reviewing a few basic key components.
• Company Name and Logo
First of all the user will want to know who you are, so it is important to make this clear on every page. It is always important to have your name and logo one each page to remind the user who you are and to embed the brand into their thinking as they navigate through your products and services.
• Home Page Link
Have you ever come across a website that has completely horrible navigation? One good sign of horrible navigation is the inability to find your way back to the home page. The only page that should not have link back to the home page is the home page. Make sure you check for broken links and incorrect HTML.
• Search and Site Map
If your website contains a large amount of information and a ton of pages, sometimes it is nice to include a Search Feature within the website. This allows your user to quickly find what they wanted to learn about your company. Sometimes just a search feature alone can make or break a sale. Always keep the user in mind; they will remember this when viewing through your services.
About Magic Logix
Magic Logix, is a digital marketing solutions company that provides services in Professional Website Design, Website Development, SEO and Online Marketing. The company utilizes open source development to design and integrate customized CMS for online business management, web applications, as well as customizable ecommerce websites for online merchants. By combining high quality web design and online marketing, Magic Logix offers businesses highly customized, fully functional websites that are designed and developed for Search Engine Optimization. To learn more about Magic Logix web based marketing services please feel free to visit http://www.magiclogix.com.
Your content should be organized as well. Too much content can be overwhelming and sound fluffed up with useless content, while too little of content can leave the user confused with no understanding of who you are and what message you are trying to convey. Some people will provide limited content to entice the reader to fill out a form to inquire more information. In limited situations this is ok, however be careful to not mislead the user or put irrelevant content that leads to your landing page. Let us go back to the basic of high quality, professional website design by reviewing a few basic key components.
• Company Name and Logo
First of all the user will want to know who you are, so it is important to make this clear on every page. It is always important to have your name and logo one each page to remind the user who you are and to embed the brand into their thinking as they navigate through your products and services.
• Home Page Link
Have you ever come across a website that has completely horrible navigation? One good sign of horrible navigation is the inability to find your way back to the home page. The only page that should not have link back to the home page is the home page. Make sure you check for broken links and incorrect HTML.
• Search and Site Map
If your website contains a large amount of information and a ton of pages, sometimes it is nice to include a Search Feature within the website. This allows your user to quickly find what they wanted to learn about your company. Sometimes just a search feature alone can make or break a sale. Always keep the user in mind; they will remember this when viewing through your services.
About Magic Logix
Magic Logix, is a digital marketing solutions company that provides services in Professional Website Design, Website Development, SEO and Online Marketing. The company utilizes open source development to design and integrate customized CMS for online business management, web applications, as well as customizable ecommerce websites for online merchants. By combining high quality web design and online marketing, Magic Logix offers businesses highly customized, fully functional websites that are designed and developed for Search Engine Optimization. To learn more about Magic Logix web based marketing services please feel free to visit http://www.magiclogix.com.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
A Consistent Business Brand for Internet Marketing
No matter what form of business you are branding online, it is important that your online presence is represented with a consistent brand and marketing massage that clearly describes your business. To determine your “Online Brand” you must first evaluate your Niche Market. It is important to have a marketing statement that reaches multiple groups of people but also do not forget to target a smaller focused group called a Niche Market. Reaching millions of people may not mean that your sales will increase. Targeting a Niche Market, an audience that is truly interested in your services, may increase your conversion dramatically. You must always think of your audience and place yourself in their shoes. First, think about the overall design of your website. Is your website professional or suitable enough for the clients that will be interested in your services? Is the message clear in your content about your products and services? There is a lot of hard work that goes into Branding your business online; however once you evaluate every factor and thoroughly research your market, you can then begin to truly reach your audience.
First, start by defining your business in a few sentences. If you are creating profiles on the top social media sites you want to have a consistent description of your business. Evaluate what categories or industries you most likely fall under. This is the beginning of developing your personal online brand. Develop a list of 10 to 20 descriptive keywords that you can consistently use to describe your business and that match up with your websites content. You have to think of yourself as a client who is searching for your service information online. If you were the customer what keywords would you type in a search engine to find your products and services? If you offer more than one service it is important to develop a list of keywords relevant to each service. This may seem simple however it takes a lot of planning and developing to determine what keywords are most beneficial to use. You have to consider what keywords your competitors are using, what the monthly search rate is for your keywords (Are the words to broad? Do you have a chance to rank well for these words?), if you keywords not searched often enough, etc. It is important to find the appropriate keywords most suitable for your business that you have a chance of ranking high for and optimizing those words throughout you’re online marketing campaign.
Thorough descriptions, professional web design, relevant content, optimized keywords, targeted niche audience, these are all important factors to evaluate for your online brand and must all remain consistent across the board. If you are in the beginning of you’re developing your Business Website then you are better off finding a Web Design Company that focuses on Website Development, Website Design, and Online Marketing. Choosing one business to help develop all three categories will be best for your online branding to stay consistent. Luckily, there are companies that focus in great depth on Online Branding and can truly bring Success to your website through online marketing. It is very important to define and develop a consistent Online Business Brand.
First, start by defining your business in a few sentences. If you are creating profiles on the top social media sites you want to have a consistent description of your business. Evaluate what categories or industries you most likely fall under. This is the beginning of developing your personal online brand. Develop a list of 10 to 20 descriptive keywords that you can consistently use to describe your business and that match up with your websites content. You have to think of yourself as a client who is searching for your service information online. If you were the customer what keywords would you type in a search engine to find your products and services? If you offer more than one service it is important to develop a list of keywords relevant to each service. This may seem simple however it takes a lot of planning and developing to determine what keywords are most beneficial to use. You have to consider what keywords your competitors are using, what the monthly search rate is for your keywords (Are the words to broad? Do you have a chance to rank well for these words?), if you keywords not searched often enough, etc. It is important to find the appropriate keywords most suitable for your business that you have a chance of ranking high for and optimizing those words throughout you’re online marketing campaign.
Thorough descriptions, professional web design, relevant content, optimized keywords, targeted niche audience, these are all important factors to evaluate for your online brand and must all remain consistent across the board. If you are in the beginning of you’re developing your Business Website then you are better off finding a Web Design Company that focuses on Website Development, Website Design, and Online Marketing. Choosing one business to help develop all three categories will be best for your online branding to stay consistent. Luckily, there are companies that focus in great depth on Online Branding and can truly bring Success to your website through online marketing. It is very important to define and develop a consistent Online Business Brand.
Friday, July 16, 2010
3 Factors to Consider for Your Ecommerce Website
If a business obtains the ability to operate 24/7 on its own, you can only imagine the benefits that will emerge with online promotions. The key is not only to promote the website but modify the behavior of website visitors through usability, design, onsite promotion and creating brand awareness. We will take a quick look at three factors to consider when evaluating your ecommerce solutions.
1. Tracking Results and Transactions
- Through Google analytics you can track your total revenue, conversion rate, average order value, product performance, transactions, visits to purchase, days to purchase and more. It is important to track your performance online in order to understand which forms of marketing are most effective. Take advantage of online tools that can help you track your results more effectively. It is also helpful if your ecommerce web designer can Integrate Ecommerce and CMS to allow for better catalog and data management.
2. Ecommerce Community
- Learn from others by joining ecommerce networking groups such as Practical Ecommerce. This is an online community with blogs, articles, webinars, podcasts and more. It is good to learn from other people and share helpful tips. This is a good way to gain insight but also to build your reputation and trust in an online community and promote your business by contributing something of value. Other ways to get involved are through Facebook, Twitter,LinkedIn and Blog Marketing. Any way you can promote your products through giving back to a community will really play a large role in improving brand awareness. Through social networks you can offer coupons and discounts to your dedicated fans and loyal shoppers. It is a great platform to connect with potential customers.
3. Ensure the Security of your Ecommerce Site
- The main concern of online shoppers is that people don’t trust a website enough to give out their valuable and personal information. Security is a big part of online stores and must be evident to the buyer that the site is secure. The World Wide Consortium (w3c) has anElectronic Ecommerce Interest Group which sets standards and best practices for ecommerce websites to ensure the security of the buyer’s information. It is always important to include a Privacy Policy to inform users how their information will be used and who it will be distributed to. This is a good way to build the confidence of the buyer and hold the merchant accountable to the privacy of each buyer.
Friday, July 2, 2010
The Proper Use of an Alt Attribute for SEO and Validation
What is the Alt Attribute? The alt attribute is the “alternative text” for your images that allows text to appear if a user is viewing your website on a browser that does not support that image. It provides additional or “alternative” information about the picture. The text can also serve the purpose of allowing those with disabilities the chance to read a description if they are unable to see your image appear. The alt attribute serves the purpose of describing the picture or image, if the image is unable to appear.
Alt Attribute Standards of W3C and Google Guidelines
Although you may not be familiar with HTML or XHTML markup languages, it is still in your best interest to gain a better understanding of the importance of validation. If you website code is validated, you are ensuring that your website meets the necessary standards and high quality. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the worldwide accepted Web Standard led by web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeffrey Jaffe. With Search Engine Optimization small alterations to your code in Meta tags, headings, content, titles, and etc will go a long way for your websites success. On example of the importance of Validation in regards to SEO is the alt attribute. With any image file you have within your code, w3c requires you to include the alt attribute to each image. With the alt attribute you can present an “alternative” description for your image content where you can place descriptive keywords which will be acknowledged by search engines. It would not be wise to pack the description with multiple keywords. Keep your description brief but accurate. Google is pretty straight forward about the Google Webmaster Guidelines for Alt Text categorizing that as “keyword Stuffing.” Here is a great video of Matt Cutts describing Alt Text that briefly describes the proper use of Alt Attribute according to Google Image standards.
Conclusion and Best Practices
1. Brief Descriptive Alt Attribute Description- You can optimize the image file name with a short brief descriptive text as well as the alternative text
2. Alt Text for Image Links- If images are used as a link you can help search engines have a better idea of where you are linking your website. Consider “Image Links” to be similar to anchor links in regards to proper keywords and descriptions for indexing. This applies for images with or without links.
3. Do Not Abuse- Do not abuse the alt attribute to stuff a large amount of Keywords in the image description. Remember that Google is all about what is best for the user. Stuffing keywords will not benefit a user who is not able to view your image in their browser in any way.
4. Google Image Search- When you optimize your image file names as well as your alternative text you will be optimizing your images for Google Image Search.
Now that you know how to properly use the Alt Attribute, have fun describing your images. Remember that your websites validation and code plays a large role in Search Engine Optimization. If you have a business and want to properly develop your website in order to rank well for your keywords you want to create your website with professional web development strategy. As a Dallas Web design company, we fully understand the importance of implementing an SEO strategy into your website development. As the interent popularity grows so will the development of web standards. Remember to do your research and do things the right way. High Quality goes a long way in the long run.
Alt Attribute Standards of W3C and Google Guidelines
Although you may not be familiar with HTML or XHTML markup languages, it is still in your best interest to gain a better understanding of the importance of validation. If you website code is validated, you are ensuring that your website meets the necessary standards and high quality. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the worldwide accepted Web Standard led by web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeffrey Jaffe. With Search Engine Optimization small alterations to your code in Meta tags, headings, content, titles, and etc will go a long way for your websites success. On example of the importance of Validation in regards to SEO is the alt attribute. With any image file you have within your code, w3c requires you to include the alt attribute to each image. With the alt attribute you can present an “alternative” description for your image content where you can place descriptive keywords which will be acknowledged by search engines. It would not be wise to pack the description with multiple keywords. Keep your description brief but accurate. Google is pretty straight forward about the Google Webmaster Guidelines for Alt Text categorizing that as “keyword Stuffing.” Here is a great video of Matt Cutts describing Alt Text that briefly describes the proper use of Alt Attribute according to Google Image standards.
Conclusion and Best Practices
1. Brief Descriptive Alt Attribute Description- You can optimize the image file name with a short brief descriptive text as well as the alternative text
2. Alt Text for Image Links- If images are used as a link you can help search engines have a better idea of where you are linking your website. Consider “Image Links” to be similar to anchor links in regards to proper keywords and descriptions for indexing. This applies for images with or without links.
3. Do Not Abuse- Do not abuse the alt attribute to stuff a large amount of Keywords in the image description. Remember that Google is all about what is best for the user. Stuffing keywords will not benefit a user who is not able to view your image in their browser in any way.
4. Google Image Search- When you optimize your image file names as well as your alternative text you will be optimizing your images for Google Image Search.
Now that you know how to properly use the Alt Attribute, have fun describing your images. Remember that your websites validation and code plays a large role in Search Engine Optimization. If you have a business and want to properly develop your website in order to rank well for your keywords you want to create your website with professional web development strategy. As a Dallas Web design company, we fully understand the importance of implementing an SEO strategy into your website development. As the interent popularity grows so will the development of web standards. Remember to do your research and do things the right way. High Quality goes a long way in the long run.
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