Keyword

Keyword is a vital issue in SEO.
Good keywords are frequently searched for (high demand) but not being targeted by many other websites (low competition).
Therefore, web developer usually need to put effort on find the keyword the web site.

By using Keyword software, web site developers can find the keyword of their pages effectively and scientifically.
Besides, web developers can also save time since “keyword suggestion” will be provided by the software.
Apart from that, misspelled keyword will be shown to enhance the accuracy of the keyword.

The link to download keyword management software:
http://www.goodkeywords.com/

PS
Google also provids a similar service on keyword management:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Everything You Need to Know About Web 2.0

Here is the article that I read recently about Web 2.0:
http://www.techsoup.org/toolkits/web2/

PS Here is the Best Web 2.0 software of 2006:
http://web2.socialcomputingmagazine.com/the_best_web_20_software_of_2006.htm

Among the best Web2.0 software, I highly recommend you to try to use StumbleUpon.
This software collects the good web site in the related field (e.g. computer, music, graphic designing ant etc ) recommended by the StumbleUpon user.
For my experience, I usually found a very good web site in the related topic by StumbleUpon.
I even feel that the site is better than you search in Google.

Web Style

This is the articles I read recently:
http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/current-style.cfm

It is about the layout of current web style.
Lots of examples is listed in the article.

The style such as “Centered orientation”, 3D effect are now the trendy in web2.0 web design.
Hope you can get some ideas to make a web 2.0 style web site.

Banner blindness

Banner blindness is a phenomenon in web usability where visitors on a website ignore ignore banner-like information.

Although Ameritech web design guideline state that:

In general, the larger an item is, the greater its perceived visual importance and likelihood of attracting attention. Make sure that items of greatest important are easy to see, and clearly distinguished from other items.

This may not true according to some usability testings.
http://www.internettg.org/newsletter/dec98/banner_blindness.html

From the above testing, I get the message is ” The irrelevant ads were also largely ignored by the participants ” and “ignoring salient items”.

Personally, when I notice that there is a banner-like item, I usually use my past experience to determine whether I will read it. Since this banner-like item is usually an advertisement that I have no interest in my past experience, I will not fall into the trap this time!

PS In my opinion, Google Ads has at least two advantages over banner ad

• using text ads instead of using banner ads
• the text formatting is similar to the nearby text in the web page
• the ads may related to some words of the article in the web page

PS Some figure about web advertisement:
http://www.calacanis.com/2006/11/15/the-real-story-of-web-2-0-advertising-2-0/

How to make more money?

Before making more money , the web site needs to attract more people first.

Here are some hints that we can do to attract people:

1. Email Newsletters
2. Informative Product Pages
3. High-Quality Photography
4. Product Differentiation and Comparisons
5. Support for Reordering
6. Simplified Text
7. Catering to Seniors
8. Gift-Giving Support
9. Search
10. User Testing

Reference from:  http://www.useit.com/alertbox/roi.html

Is your CSS maintainable?

The layout design will be amended because of the customer suggestion.
Having maintainable CSS will be a must in order to help you a lot in rewriting it.

Here is some suggestion about writing maintainable CSS :

1. Breaking up your CSS into the smallest possible coherent concept
2. organize files into a set of directories that allow you to easily figure out the purpose of each file
3. Use IDs sparingly
4. Avoid using the same classname for different purposes
5. always use the same classname for similar purposes
6. always use intention revealing classnames
7. always put your classname on the outer most element on which it makes sense

Reference from:
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=MaintainableCss

Browser @ web standards

Reference article: http://webstandards.raquedan.com/?p=89

Different browser in the browser market. Each has its own standard. This make the web designer are tired on working on the compatibility for browser.

Advantage on IE:

• widely used

Advantage on Firefox:

• stable

Disadvantage on Firefox:

• some web pages does not support Firefox
  eg (using Active X)
• Acrobat doesn’t work well on Firefox.

What we do? What we expect?

Let’s talk about “What we do?” first.

Clicking Back Button for “escaping” is one of the common action for many people when they come across boring content. You should not do anything to block this button. However, you can still do something to take advantage of the Back Button suggested by
The Back Button – How people use Web Sites
http://webdesign.about.com/od/usability/a/aa051506.htm

• Place your branding up near the back button
  This may draw the customer when they leave.
• Make items in that area click-able
  If they miss the back button, they might go somewhere else useful on your web site.

Then, What we expect?

Global “Home Link” is also a vital help tool when they get loss in your web site.
Here is a site about the arrangement of the Homelink:
http://www.webdesignpractices.com/navigation/globalhome.html#

Besides, here are information of how people expect where the common element (e.g. search engine) is located.
http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/41/web_object-ecom.htm

I hope the above information can give you some idea how to convenient the users on web design.

Different People Different Screen Resolution

Different people will use different screen resolution, thus the same web page will looks different when coming across different screen resolution.

Web developer need to take this issue into account when building websites.

Fluid design
This enables the web site to use as much as the “space” under the specific screen resolution. No space will be unused.

Javascript
It can detect screen resolution and redirect the visitor to a page optimized for their particular resolution.

Researching for the visitors is also vital:

Studying web site log files
This provides the web developer s with advanced information on the most popular screen resolution, browsers, browser version and … etc.

Test web site
Practice becomes perfect. Try to test the site under different screen resolution, browsers, versions and operation system combinations.

 

Information from:
http://www.search-this.com/2007/09/10/you-could-use-an-extra-2-inches/
http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol4/accessibility_no24.htm

Where did users look?

To answer “Where did users look”, eyetracking may help.
By introducing eyetracking, heatmap will be generated.

What is eyetracking?
Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze (i.e. where we are looking) or the motion of an eye relative to the head.

What is heatmap?
A heatmap represents which content was seen by a group of participants. A heatmap helps to answer the questions “Where did users look?” and “Where didn’t users look?“.

an example of a heatmap for a web page

If we have heatmap, we may discover:
What layout element draw the user attention?
Does photo always draw the user attention?

Here is the articles I read about the hints bring by the heatmap:
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070312ruel/

Besides, web site is for users! Therefore, we should know more about them, especially — User don’t read pages but scan the pages.

The reasons include:

User’s time is valuable
They are interested in the material that is necessary for them, so they choose some but not get all in order to save their time.

User has habit of scanning
When reading newspapers or magazine, they have been scanning and finding the part interesting them. Therefore, users tend to scan the web pages instead of reading page.

 

Here is more detailed information about eyetracking and heatmap:
http://blog.eyetools.net/
Example of eyetracking equipment:
http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/ags/ni/projects/eyetrack/index.html