Adding Better Images Optimization To Your Web Development

November 10th, 2010 by Mads Kristensen

Most web developers know the importance of optimizing images for faster page loading times, but it’s also a very cumbersome, time consuming and boring process. Then when you are done, the customer or designer gives you new images to use and you can start the process over and over and over again. The result is that we spend a lot of time optimizing images and also forget to do it from time to time.

That’s why I’ve been experimenting with a way to automate the process of optimizing images for use on web pages. This has resulted in a Visual Studio 2010 extension to do just that.

The extension

The idea with automating the optimization is that the images must have the same quality in color and fidelity as before they were optimized. That is done with proven algorithms, and when an image has been optimized, it cannot be further optimized by the same algorithm. Nothing happens if you run the optimization multiple times on the same image – it will only be optimized the first time.

If you run the optimization on an image that has already been optimized using other tools, you might still be able to optimize further, but often nothing will happen – the image will not be touched when it has been analyzed and no optimization is found possible.

In this beta of the Image Optimizer extension, only JPEG and PNG files are supported, but that should hopefully cover ~90% of images in modern websites.

When you right-click a folder in the Solution Explorer in Visual Studio, you now have a new menu item called “Optimize images”.

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Building Custom Menus Within WordPress

October 27th, 2010 by Danny Brown

With the introduction of WordPress 3.0, bloggers can create a host of different menus for use either on the blog template or as a sidebar widget.

This allows you to create child pages, sub-categories, navigation tabs with external links and much more.

Here, we show you how simple it is to create and get a custom menu up and running in a matter of clicks.

This post contains a video. If you can’t see it in your feed, click here to view it directly.

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Are You Making These SEO Mistakes?

October 13th, 2010 by Joe Griffin

The goal of every site owner is to get his website exposed and ranking high up on search engine results pages. However, there are those who fall into the common pitfall of practicing illegal techniques in search engine optimization, which damages their PageRank.

A link analysis algorithm used by Google, the PageRank determines the position of a webpage on the search engines result pages.

Here are just some of the usual mistakes people make in SEO:

•    Poor choice of keywords. It is important to do research for potential keywords prior to working on the content of a site. Pick keywords that are searched most often. However, take care not to use ones that make you site go against heavy competition. Choosing which ones require you to walk a fine line between competition and user search demands. Selecting key phrases can make or break your search engine optimization campaign, so be careful.

•    Inappropriate usage of keywords. Keywords should be placed in the first few lines of your article. Failing to do this will make search engines overlook your article. They will also consider it as unimportant, giving it a lower PageRank.

•    Overuse of keywords. Filling your entire article with too many keywords will degrade its readability, confusing readers with the deluge. Use just enough keywords for your articles and you are sure to get a high PageRank. A technique for making your keywords noticeable is to highlight them.

•    Little focus on your URL and title. Having the right title and URL is important since it is a way of attracting visitors; having keywords in your URL and title is even more beneficial. It is possible to rank high even without keywords in the title and only in the URL, but having them in both is, of course, way better.

•    Not focusing on meta tags. Meta tags are source codes that should contain details and keywords about your page. Use different descriptions—with related keywords—about the pages in your site. However, don’t focus too much on your meta tags, as there are other factors that you need to focus on if you are to get a higher PageRank.

•    Less site content. Sites with too few content generally do not fare well in the rankings, while those with rich content and whose owners practice good search engine optimization strategies garner better PageRanks.

•    Using unrelated and broken links. Placing links on your website without checking their reliability can cause low rankings. It is best to check the sites out for credibility and broken links before putting them up on your site, and make sure that they are relevant to your content.

As a site owner, you need to familiarize yourself with these mistakes and avoid them as much as possible. If you are having trouble with maintaining your site, you can hire reliable SEO experts to do the job for you (choose wisely though). In no time, your articles and your website will start to go up in the rankings.

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Google Introduces New Multi-lingual SEO Attributes

September 29th, 2010 by Navneet Kaushal

Google has introduced new SEO attributes – rel=”alternate” and hreflang=”x”, for better handling of multi-lingual pages and content. This feature is predominantly for websites, that contain:

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The Benefits And Risks Of Domain Name Changes

September 15th, 2010 by Joe Griffin

A domain name is an ID label that defines a field of administrative authority or control on the Net, according to the Domain Name System or DNS. It is used to supply easily identifiable names to address Web resources numerically.

While some might still question the importance of having a domain name, there are those who recognize the importance of having one and so have established their own domains. Just think of it this way: if you have a website with free Web hosting assistance but without a domain name, the company that will be earning from it is the hosting company and not you.

Your domain name is your online address. It can either make or break your presence on the Web. It needs to be easily recognizable to gather enough visitors, contain keywords for it to be search engine-friendly, and not difficult to spell to avoid losing traffic. It is basically your way of putting yourself out there and earning money.

Why change?

There are times, however, when you have to change your domain name for certain reasons. You may want to diversify and consider putting a lot of thought and advanced planning to your domain purchase. You may also do that after a corporate re-brand or if you have chosen a poor name the first time. Also, when your business has now outgrown its original status or when your business needs an upgrade, renewing the domain might be appropriate.

With every action, there is always a risk, including the renaming of your domain. You may lose the support and word of mouth your previous clients have under your old domain name. You may also need to take time to re-introduce your new domain to your clients; some of them will not be available or will be difficult to contact by then.

Square one

Your marketing material, with a link to your web address, will appear on catalogs, brochures, business cards, billboards, television ads and printed pamphlets, but they will likely be rendered questionable once you change your domain. It will also cost you in reprinting material to add to your new address.

The brand that you have built with your old domain name will not be as significant when you have acquired your new address, as impressions and reputations need time to develop and will not immediately be transferred to the new domain. Regaining the value of your brand requires hard work and patience.

Things to look out for

Having a new site design for the new address is essential. While it would be a good idea to move the elements found in the old domain to the new, there has to be changes in the visual design — logos, footers and headers, for instance.

Lastly, and most importantly, the domain change might affect the organic search volume. One of the most common errors site owners do is point their old site to the new one, without a 301 redirect implementation. If you just park your old domain and link it to the new address, you are at risk of a duplicate content issue, making your rankings slowly go down, affecting your SERP visibility and your traffic.

The benefits that eclipse all (if you changed your domain name for the right reasons)

Due to these risks, one might think that a domain change is not worth it. However, it can be. It is important to weigh the advantage from the disadvantage before choosing to change your name permanently.

Having a new domain is good to reach a wider scale, without the risk of losing browsers who recognize the old domain and believe that you focus only on one product or service.

Moreover, having a renamed domain helps the rankings in the search engine as well as online marketing. Since the new site is better, it will be more recognizable and users will easily remember it, resulting to a greater traffic influx. Keywords included in the new address will help SEO efforts and will eventually achieve a higher place in the search results.

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Using Your Common Sense To Write SEO Copy

September 1st, 2010 by Courtney Mills

The copy (or content) within your website needs to have 2 purposes. Firstly, it must be optimized properly to help get the maximum exposure to searchers through the crawling of the search engine spiders and it must also be engaging and compelling for the reader or customer.

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Building A Better Tweet Button For Your Site Content

August 18th, 2010 by Andy Beard

Having criticized the new retweet or “tweet” button that Twitter have introduced, lets see if we can make it better.

This mainly covers WordPress – if you are on another platform, find a geek that uses it to try to do the equivalent, but I doubt this is possible on Blogger.

I should point out there are already implementations out in the wild that are significantly better in some ways, though might not meet all the goals of the Twitter developers.

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Guidelines For New Web Analysts / Strategists

August 4th, 2010 by Manoj Jasra

I often receive emails from new web analysts/strategists who are fresh out of University or a year into their careers asking what they can do enhance their career and how they can fine-tune their skills. Below are 5 tips definitely worth looking into: Read the rest of this entry »

Creating Great Landing Pages For Conversions

July 21st, 2010 by Courtney Mills

Most website owners know that a great landing page is the key to turning visitors into buyers. The main point to getting a landing page that converts is to test, test test.

This is a mantra that Anne Holland from MarketingSherpa swears by. In a recent interview with Revenews, Anne explains her testing tactics, common mistakes and why lies ahead for landing pages in the future.

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Build Your Site For Tomorrow’s Algorithm Change

July 7th, 2010 by Patrick Hare

When it comes to search engine algorithms, the one thing you can count on is change. Google says there were hundreds of tweaks last year, Bing is always refining its indexing, and scores of other “Google Killers” are trying to worm their way into the market with a better search experience. In the  process of all these changes, there are sites that keep their positions, ones that suddenly move up, and others that drop off the map. People who employ search engine optimization tactics usually see their sites hold positions or improve slightly during these updates. Despite this, the majority of SEO work involves playing “catch up” with the latest indexing changes, even though they could have been anticipated with a little foresight.

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