broBlog Articles

I don’t want to simply reiterate the authors well-made points, so I’ll just add that this article is relevant on so many different levels. Thanks BROTHERCAKE.

Stop using Ajax!

Who are we to force our users to interact with our websites a specific way? The traditional logic I’ve always heard various designers / developers /managers / site owners use to justify browser targeting is the notion that, “It keeps the users on the site.” This logic is short-sighted, pretentious, and obsolete.

It’s a Hardware Option Now

If users want a new window open, they know how to do it. Typically it is accomplished by “middle-clicking” (clicking the scroll wheel itself), but there are several other browser-based shortcuts and hotkeys that provide the same function. Users that like to open up several windows (or tabs), and navigate the www in a multi-windowed interface have probably already come up with their own system for doing so.

Can’t Go Back

Users that like to interact online in a single window traditionally use the “Back” button to return to previously viewed pages. Opening a new window for said users disables their browsing history. They can’t go back because there is nowhere to go back to.

Clutters the Taskbar

Most taskebars are already cluttered enough! Now your forcing another new window into the mess? No thanks!

Not that this is the most pressing issue the development community faces, but I think we owe our users a little more credit. Let’s let them decide if they want to “middle-click” or not.

When determining what keywords or keyphrases to optimize a website for, there are many things to consider. The goal is to pick phrases that have a large amount of searches and a little amount of competition. Golden rule - the phrases you pick MUST be relevant to your subject matter. If you optimize for terms that are too broad, you will likely increase traffic but decrease your action rate. Remember, the goal of most websites is to produce a specific response from users (which can be anything from purchasing an item to reading your information).

Quantity or Quality

It is important to differentiate between quantity traffic and quality traffic. Both play a role in online marketing, however quality traffic is far more significant. Quantity traffic is the total number of unique visitors your site attracts. Search engines keep track of this information and use it as one of many factors that determine a sites “importance”. For this reason alone, new websites do have to concern themselves a bit with getting quantity traffic. It is one of the first hurdles you must overcome while navigating the search engines relevancy highway. Quality traffic, on the other hand, occurs when a unique visitor enters your website, and produces a specific action intended by the website (as referenced earlier).

Selecting great keyphrases is a quick and easy solution to attract quantity traffic (as well as helping with quality traffic). Here are some ideas to help you select the keyphrases for your website:

• Online Keyword Tools - There are plenty of online tools to help you pick keyphrases. My favorite is the Google Adwords keyword tool.
• Regional Variations - Consider optimizing for variations of your main keyphrases. not everyone converses (or types) in the same dialect that you do.
• Geographic Variations - add the city, state, or county your business is located (or markets customers from).
• Competitors Analysis - Look at your competitors websites. what keyphrases are they using?
• Friends and Family - Talk to friends and family and ask them how they would describe your business. you might be surprised at the terms they use.

Every static page on your website should be optimized for 1-3 keyphrases. There is a wealth of information and resources out there, and no real mystery to it, so use it to your advantage.

Business owners want a website that looks better than their competitors for two reasons; 1. they think that having a more professional, better looking website than their primary competitors will give them the edge when it comes time for their potential clients to make a choice, and 2. because it’s measurable. This post intends to explore the differences between graphic design and web design, and put some of their subsidiary issues into perspective.

The first order of business is to think about the two afore-mentioned reasons that people place so much weight on design. Without a doubt, if your website looks better than your competition, you are more likely to land the big client. I can shoot no holes in that theory.

Measuring a Site’s Worth

Now let’s think about measurability. When you look at a website, you can say, “that site looks nice.”, “that site looks horrible.”, or anywhere in between the two ends of your aesthetic spectrum. It’s your prerogative. When you look at the code that a site is built with, you probably don’t have the same options. Unfortunately, that codebase is the difference between your site attracting unique visitors on it’s own, or only being viewed by the people you drop a business card off to, and ask to look at your site. To put it mildly…your code is pretty important. I’m suggesting that looking at a website from it’s visual perspective is not nearly as accurate a representation of the value of that website as looking at it from a coding perspective.

At the end of the day, it’s imperative that your website can be found by people searching for the information, product, or service you’re offering. On top of that, a properly coded website can always add a more artistic design style down the road. One of the most important fundamentals of writing good code is to make it flexible so you can add new features down the road without having to redo the whole site.