Top 10 Tech Web Tips

Great SEO Table Tip

I found a great little SEO tip for working with Tables over at Smartlab Software.  It basically tells us (reminds some of us) that if you are working with tables, find a reason to work with tables, or maybe even if you go out of your way to work with tables, you can include the following code:

in order to help the search engines better understand what your table is about.  This will also likely help when it comes keyword density as well.

Now, I don’t want to just mention this great tip and give a shout out to Doug at Smartlab Software (They really do have some great tips there!)

But I also want to add to it with another tip to mix with the rest of the toys in your SEO toy box.

If you are writing articles for a blog or even if you are designing individual pages, you can use this tip for image optimization as well.

You could simply input your images straight into a page or site.  However, if you drop that image into a table, creating a caption box with a top row for the image and the bottom row for the image caption, you will then be able to include a table summary, include all the normal image information, plus include an image caption.

All of these steps will help your page performance around the image and it will also help your page for SEO, especially where keyword density applies.

CSS Menu Writer from Web Assist - Not What I expected, but there’s a back Way In

Much of last week for me was spent using and learning a piece of software that I expected would save me weeks of time.  I thought I was buying a solution that would assist me in creating dynamic CSS menus.

I have coded CSS menus by hand before in the past.  I know how to do it and it is a pain in the neck.  :)  So I was looking for a $100 solution that might save me at least $101 if not more.

I ended up investing about $700 in time learning to use the software and even more importantly learning how NOT to use the software.  It comes with a lot of kNOTs which I had to unravel out of my head.

Once that was accomplished I realized that the software could not be used the way I wanted.  It was not a solution and definitely not the solution I was looking for.

However, it did have a redeeming quality.  That quality even justified the price and possibly my unintentional investment.

The thing is when I test things or when I learn them the best, I usually do it by breaking the rules.  By using something in a way that it was never intended to be used.  For me it is tolerance measurement.

When I tried to make dynamic css menus with CSS Menu Writer with the menus built on Word Press dynamic posts and pages it did not work.

But after learning the ins and outs of the program from a tangent, I learned at the very end of things how to accomplish the trick.

It is possible to do and without having to go through half of the work and endless numbers of nested loops that would normally be prescribed by the very helpful WebAssist tech that ultimately helped me clear up the last few areas of doubt.  I spent all week answering my own questions as this new software was not terribly well documented.

Plus, the documentation it did have (a pdf doc) would not load correctly on my system despite the fact that I have almost all of the Adobe programs and every other pdf I have works fine.  So I had to approach my efforts not knowing how things worked or what to expect if I tried something.

I captured about 20 minutes of 30 second clips showing the software breaking down when I tried to make it do something that it shouldn’t or could not do.

Now I have a bloggers paradox to deal with.  Should I share the know how that I found by writing up a tutorial, should I drop it in a white paper, or should I exploit the potential with my own design work for however long it takes other people to figure out this method or find an actual software solution for dynamic menus in word press installations.

For right now, I am going to ponder it for a while before I make my determination.  Its not like I’m sharing information about travel supplies on a travel blog.  It is something that once shared rapidly loses its value.

To Widget or Not to Widget and the Server Speeds that Spoil Them

This weekend I am catching up with Utterz and came upon a great question by Matt Thomas of Matthom.com and PainInTheTech.com.

BTW he has a great article on Zoho Metting at PainInTheTech.

His Question in Audio below, asks what people think about Widgets and whether or not they should be used on sites at all as many of them reduce the load time of a website down significantly.  Websites that have many of these widgets can load painfully slow sometimes and that translates into a bad reader experience.

Bad reader experience is bad for publishers most of the time unless you are running an insult site or something.

So first let me ask you Matt’s Question, do you think widgets are bad? 

My Perspective - It Depends on the Server Speed of the Service

Tip!  Listen to my perspective and you will find out why I think widgets can enhance and add value to your site and I’ll give you a hint, you are looking right at it!

So if you listen to my perspective, you will see that my response to Matt simply indicates that you have to find a balance and monitor it.  If you are running a blog say on Dreamhost and paying $50 a year and you are loaded on to a server with 3000 other sites, you may not have the fastest load time in the world even if you are just sporting a Hello World page.

OK, that was an exaggeration.

But seriously, if you are picking up a widget from say Google or Yahoo or maybe even Flikr, which I do not use. Odds are these companies have better and faster servers than what you are paying for.  They are not likely to be culprits in slowing down your website.

Your reader is on the internet and has to hit your server already, another server will add some load time but if its a fast server it will not be noticeable.

The real issue to look out for is

1. Do not put too many widgets on your website that slows down performance all the way around
2. Pay attention to what is there, if you see a degradation you may need to pull something from your site.

Here are some follow up questions for you

1. Do you have widgets that are slowing your site down? 
2. Do you have Java script or a stats tool slowing you down?
3. Do you have a button or two that came with a hot linked image that loads notoriously slow?

Tip of the Obvious

You have probably heard this tip before, but if you are including a button on your site for something, download the graphic and host it yourself.  then change the code and load it on your site.  Do not hot link the graphic!  You can still give someone a recommendation link with the button if you choose (Google considerations aside).

So with that go forth and be happy.  This is something that I run into on a regular basis myself, especially with annoying button requests and more frequently with stat tools that run on javascript like google analytics.  When someone else’s server runs down like a rechargeable flashlight that has seen a few too many charging sessions, its time to swap out that code, that hot link, that button, or that widget for some new batteries and get yourself something that will keep your readers happy!

Check Out Matt’s Blog

Lastly, I do not know Matt from the next person, but he does have some good insights.  I’d recommend checking out his blog and some of his conversations.  The comment above by Matt is part of what may become a series of conversations.  In part 2 he talks about a concept that I use all the time on almost all of my sites and that is Feed incorporation of content.