Killer Tip Killer Book

In my last post I said that this article would have a killer tip. I lied, it has three.

Killer Tip 1 - CSS Pseudo-elements

I learnt yesterday about the incredible power of CSS pseudo elements. With regards to screen media there are two relevant classes. before and after. So if for example your building an ecommerce site and you wanted to show a size of an item. You could create this code in your markup.

<h3 class="size">12</h3>

And these two lines to your CSS

h3.size:before {content:";Size: ";}
h3.size:after {content:"; inches";}

Which would render in a browser/user agent as - Size: 12 inches. This is great for working with database driven content and the killer part is it removes the "Size: " and " inches" text from your markup. Which reduces the page weight slightly, causing the real marketing copy, the stuff that you do want the search engines to index to have a little bit more weight.

Killer Tip 2 - Stylin' with CSS

Killer Tip 1 I culled from a new book on CSS by Charles Wyke-Smith. "Stylin' with CSS - A designer's guide". Is crammed with great practical tips and examples. Like the one that made my footer on this page, move up and down in relation to the size of my content. I just added this before the end of my content wrapper.

<div class="clearfloats"><!-- --></div>

And this new class to my css

.clearfloats {clear: both;}

Charles also has a more sophisticated variation on this technique in his book - the Alsett Clearing method. Which does away with the need for the extra "clearfloats" markup. This is a killer book on CSS

Killer Tip 3 - The Killers

Buy Hot Stuff by The Killers - a killer album if ever I heard one.

Killer Search Marketing Strategies

I had the pleasure of attending a S.E.O and internet marketing seminar today, in a swanky hotel in Victoria, London. Entitled "Killer Search Marketing Strategies for ROI Success". Swanky title huh? Not an area that I particularly focus on, but I felt it might be useful anyway. The subheading "Exploring Innovative strategies and technical Insight to revitalise your search marketing strategy and provide a stronger return on investment". didn't instil much excitement, but it was interesting never-the-less.

I enjoyed the presentation by Arjo Gosh. "Discover how web-site content can increase traffic from search engine listings". He kicked it off with a quote by Larry Page of Google, whose idea and guiding mantra for his search engine was that it " understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want."

I think for the most part he has achieved his vision, but Arjo shared some ideas to help Google fulfil this promise...

• Content adds value to search and the user journey
• Can be used to deep link paid search
• Good content helps natural search visibility
• Content alone does not produce good search results
• Get it right and results will outstrip cost

Getting it right

So how do we get it right? Ken McEwan from MediaCo had some suggestions on the body text:

• The lead statement should be between 150-250 characters (first 2-3 paragraphs)
• Use key-phrases consistently and logically
• Ideal word count: 250-350 words (450-500 possibly)
• Emphasis should be on key phrases, not single words (Some 60% of surfers use three or more keywords)
• Single topic per page
• Best practice is three to five targeted phrases per page

I think the best bit of his advice though was "Writing for readers = Writing for search engines = Higher rankings

On the way home I saw Chris Evans and Paul Gascoigne waiting for a taxi, and Gazza even gave me smile... the highlight of the day though, besides lunch with Simon from Hitwise, was a revelation in S.E.O that I discovered in Charles Wyke-Smith's fantastic book "Stylin' with CSS" on the Tube. Now this is a killer tip. More on this, and other PTA's, PTC's and ROI next time, but remember "Optimisation is not about complicated formulas and algorithms it's about the written word!"

If you do nothing else - slight return

After devouring Mr Zeldman's delicious Designing with Web Standards. I happened across a book that shows you how to put your new found web design mantras into practice.

Dan Cederholm's "Web Standards Solutions" may not have had the lightning bolt effect that Mr. Z's book had on me; because I knew what was possible by using Web Standards by then. Still it is as every bit as tasty and important to me now in my day to day work as Mr Zeldmans iBible. It is easy to read and easy to understand; a friendly book filled with real-world CSS and XHTML examples that you will be itching to include in your next web development project.

In my opinion the two books should be welded together, they are so essential to my ilife now that I might consider having their text engraved on my skin. My Free tip - Don't ever ask to borrow this book from me; you have been warned!

Why Validate?

So why do I put a validate link on my pages? Is it to show how well made my pages are? Hardly. It's a quality control system. It checks that my markup is valid XHTML and ensures I haven't forgotten to close any tags or included any proprietory markup. It doesn't check my speeling or grammar, but shows that I care about any surfers that have slinked over to any of my sites.

Ok, not all my sites validate. MacIDOL has more errors than I can count. It's a combination of my "just-get-it-working" mantra that drove me to build it within my limited free time and I didn't know any better...

My enlightenment means that what I once considered great; now just grates me. Not a reflection on the hundreds of amazing artists that freely share their music. Just a damnation of my sloppy coding. Now I have seen the light, I can't wait to start giving MacIDOL a Web Standards makeover. A redesign to Web Standards will make the pages load faster, they will be a lot easier to maintain and I hope the artists and music lovers will get more from the site.

The proposed changes will not be a 5 minute job. I want to introduce some really cool new features and the jamroom system, needs more than just a few tweaks to get it, complying with all rules of Strict XHTML. The site and artists deserve it though and I won't get a horrible polystyrene scrape whenever I view source. I plan to cover the forthcoming changes at this site, so stay tuned and in the meantime, fill up your iPod with some fantastic music, and what ever you do, do not pass it through the W3C's validator.... Thanks

Validate your markup (if you dare)

If you do nothing else

The Darkness

So, you want to develop websites, excellent - me too. I have been developing sites since 1997. You would think that I should know everything I need to know by now. I learnt the basics of html using one of those teach yourself html books in 24 hours; which was a good start. Then did a course at Thames Valley University which was good too. I trawled news groups and viewed a lot of source code. Armed with DrumBeat 2000, I started dipping my toe in the water of dynamic sites. DrumBeat moved over to Dreamweaver and everything went swimmingly, I dabbled in Macromedia Flash and was quite a happy bunny.

That is, until I discovered CSS, after which it all went a bit pear shaped. I grappled with styling with this new-fangled technique, before finally throwing the towel in. I decided to stick to what I knew; copious amounts of font tags and tables nestled within tables within tables ad infinitum.

Let there be light

I started hanging out round a new breed of web heads. These guys n gals, didn't talk about spacer gifs and photoshop slicing and dicing. They had found a new religion, a new belief in some thing called, cue drum roll - Web Standards. So what's it all about Alfie? Well it goes something like this...

• you create a page and it works on any recent browser.
• You don't need complicated sniffers, scripts or any fancy stuff
• Your page weight is put on a turbo charged Atkins Diet
• Your pages will only get better with age

All very well in theory, but I have heard all these claims before about CSS. Then a geezer called Zeldman entered the equation, I liked his style and thought I would treat myself to his book "Designing with Web Standards".

"Do you like the book Rich?" Sue asked me. "Does the Pope wear a funny hat?" I replied. The truth is I didn't like this book; I loved it. I still do, I will not lend it, so don't ask to borrow it. This is not a book, it is the Holy Grail of Web Design. A Highway Code of pointers, tips, tricks and wit, that will make sure that you take the right path in web development.

"So what does your new Guru say in his book Rich?" Well, I am just a disciple, I will not dilute Mr Zeldman's message with my unworthy interpretations and distortions, but read this book. It will change your life. 'Nuff said - Peace.