My Twitter feed brought this article on Outspoken Media to my attention. And while it and the source of its inspiration read like some kind of business blogger throwdown, they do raise some important points about the changing face of SEO. This is what I’ve gleaned. (more…)
With the constant advancements in web design, I’m stunned to see how often I still come across examples of “old fashioned” thinking. Such terms as Web 2.0, CSS, progressive enhancement, AJAX, and the Semantic Web (to name a few) have evolved beyond niche concepts into public consciousness. And yet I still come across sites employing antiquated frame- or tables- based layouts, ones employing clunky Javascript rollover or dropdown menu effects, or even gaudy animated GIFs. Seeing this on a dated layout badly in need of a redesign is one thing; but these still happen in what are clearly relatively new designs. And I’m witnessing a similar occurrence in the SEO realm. (more…)
The debate among top-tier Content Management Systems is a well-documented one. Proponents and opponents alike will weigh in about a chosen application’s ease of installation, customizing options, extensibility, templating systems, and so on. In Open Source circles, this has largely been a three-horse race between Joomla!, Drupal, and Wordpress. Chances are, if you were to aggregate all discussion about these top three CMS options, you would discover it to be mostly a dead heat; one system would excel at a given feature, while another would be the best at a different feature. (more…)
Modal windows are by no stretch new technology. And their usage on the web becomes more and more prevalent seemingly by the day. Yet at the same time, there are still so many more opportunities to put the tech to use. Including the chance to optimize pages.
There’s a chance you haven’t heard of them. Or maybe you’ve heard of them called something else, such as “lightboxes” or even “Web 2.0 pop-ups”. Traditionally when clicking on a link or image, you would expect to be taken to another page, or a window or alert message would pop up onscreen. With modal windows, you stay on the same page, and the new content will display in an overlay of sorts. You may get visual cues, such as the screen darkening around the window, or the window itself animating, but the function is mostly the same.
One of the great things about this technology is that it’s readily and freely available to anyone who’s a little code-savvy and suitably motivated. Modal window plugins are found in the form of packages containing a handful of javascript and css files, and are usually quite well documented and supported. Some of the more widely implemented examples of such plugins include Lightbox2, Fancybox, Lightwindow, and Thickbox. (more…)
“When designing or redesigning a website, build in SEO best practices from the very beginning”. I’ve seen this nugget of wisdom (or variations thereof) more and more often among SEO “how-to” lists, columns, and books. And what a joy this is to see, considering I’ve touted the importance of web designers/developers and SEO experts happily coexisting on projects. But what exactly does this mean? What optimization considerations should web professionals and website owners make when planning a new web presence? Having conducted my own research and work, as well as working with others, on both sides of the fence, I’ve established a few areas of focus that allow webmasters to build their sites with SEO already running strongly at launch.
In this our very first blog on our shiny new Smart Spark web site, I’d like to put your mind at ease about dealing with SEO professionals such as us. Firstly, the application of Search Engine Optimization practices is not a deep dark secret nor is it rocket science. The only thing that’s a deep dark secret are the algorithms that the search engine companies such and Google, Yahoo et al use to find sites and index them. (more…)