Archive for May, 2007

As developers, we’re a technical bunch. We like to talk about the nuts and bolts of code and what makes the web work. While we try not to get too technical on people, sometimes we slip a little, especially when it comes to the idea of web standards and our approach to web site development and SEO.

Why?

Many reasons, really. Here are our top three.

1. Search Engine Optimization

As we discussed in the article on semantic tags, you want the HTML tags (the “markup”) in your site to be as minimal as possible, to convey meaning rather than visual formatting, and to be easy for search engine programs to catalog and rank. Devoting plenty of effort to creating a solid foundation based on web standards is well worth it, because it makes the search engines’ jobs much easier. The result? A better shot at good ranking.

By the way, when we start an SEO campaign on a typical web site, it generally takes $1-2k in work to get it standards-compliant and ready. When we do the development from the beginning, that work is already done, minimizing SEO startup costs. The benefit is a site that hits the ground running. That’s kind of a side point, though. On to our second reason:

2. Compatibility

Most web sites work perfectly fine in the browser the developer used, on the platform the developer ran. That much is a given; anybody with a simple web editor can do that. The difference between that and professional web development is vast. A standards-based web site works:

• in any web browser
• on any operating system
• on any device
• by any program

…that wants to consume the content on the site. Odds are that the majority of your site’s visitors will be people using something like Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, or Opera on a Windows PC or a Mac. However, you likely don’t want your web presence to exclude people on Blackberries or other PDAs, do you? What about screen readers for the vision impaired? It takes a professional group with expertise in web standards to build sites that have this level of cross-platform/device compatibility.

Oh, and you may have noticed how this ties in with the first point (and extra points to you if you saw it): what are search engine spiders but special vision-impaired programs that don’t have a web browser but still want to read your site? They’re the most common non-browser device there is!

3. The Future

This is a fairly simple extension of the second point. A year ago did anybody outside of Apple Inc have any idea that they’d be releasing a hybrid iPod/phone device? Nope. So what happens when the iPhone hits the market? Do we need to rebuild all of our web sites with a special iPhone version? Not if we built to web standards.

You see, living by web standards makes your web site future-proof. Web standards are methods and conventions that we all agree to follow for the sake of compatibility. New devices might work differently from old ones internally, but you can bet they work best in a standards-compliant environment. Building to standards now saves re-development costs tomorrow.

It’s an Issue of Quality

The whole thing revolves around the idea of quality. Next time we’ll discuss the implications of that idea, and why you should insist on high-quality work on your web presence.

Until then, realize that it boils down to this: we push web standards and quality because we care about our clients.

We love to dote on our clients. You deserve to be treated like royalty. Come on, contact us to get started. You know you want to.

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When we do SEO analysis for people, we often suggest a move to more “semantic markup” or “semantic tags.” If you’re wondering what this means, we’ve got you covered.

The semantics of semantics

First, some definitions:

Semantic

Of or relating to meaning, especially meaning in language (thank you, dictionary.com!).

Tags, markup, HTML

These are all the same thing. Have you ever used your browser’s View Source feature (e.g., in Firefox, View ⇒ Page Source) to look at what a web page really is under the hood? You’ll see lots of stuff that looks like this: <b>Bold stuff</b>, <i>italicized stuff</i>, <span class="complex"><span class="initialcap">C</span>omplex <em>markup</em> schemes</span>. Everything inside the < ... > markers is a tag. We also call it markup because the purpose of the tags is to “mark up” plain old text to help us give it meaning. This comes from the definition of HTML: hypertext markup language. Make sense? Enough to move on, at least?

Search engines are looking for meaning

It’s not that search engines are existential; it’s just that when a search engine visits your site to catalog the content on it, it’s not simply creating a list of words that appear on your site. That’s part of it, of course, but the real reason is to try and figure out what the words on your site mean; the more meaning they can extract, the better they’ll do at associating your site with somebody’s search, without the user having to search for the exact words you use on your site..

Extracting meaning is very complicated, so the more help you can give Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask, Looksmart, etc… the better off your site will be.

SEO & semantics

Ok, so what does all of this mean, at least for search engine optimization purposes? Good SEO is only possible when the HTML tags are semantic in nature. The HTML that builds your pages has to impart meaning, not just be a method of creating visual formatting. You see, there are lots of different tags, some more useful than others:

• The title of a page is set by the <title> tag.
• Headings are created by <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, <h6> (depending on their importance).
• Words are emphasized with the <em> tag.

And the list goes on. Hit Google for a tag list if want the details.

The key point is that semantic tags must give your text meaning. Take, for example, the <em> tag I just referred to. Most browsers render this by putting the words inside this tag in italics. There’s also a tag specifically for “italics”: <i>. It’s shorter! Why not use that? Because of semantics. The <i> tag instructs the browser to italicize the text, but the <em> means something: “emphasize this” (as opposed to straight italics, which could be a book title, a motto, or something else entirely).

The fact that both tags look the same in a default browser configuration is a red herring—since <em> has actual meaning, search engines can more easily figure out what to do with the text; this generally leads to better ranking for the page’s topic. The difference in one tag isn’t much, but multiply that over thousands of tags across a handful of pages, and you can see why it’s beneficial.

Good semantics mean more accessible sites

The web isn’t just people using web browsers on PCs and Macs. Cell phones, PDAs, screen readers for the blind, and yes, even search engines are non-browser devices that are interested in the content on your site. New devices enter the market every day. In order to be “future-proof” and not require redesign when some new gadget comes out, your web site has to be semantic in nature, or else people with these gadgets will have a hard time getting around on your site, or worse, be completely locked out of it (incidentally, this is one of the reasons why there’s such a huge difference between high quality web sites built by professionals and the stuff you can hire the neighbor kid to do; unfortunately, it’s also one of the things people tend to overlook until it’s too late, inevitably to their detriment).

Things to do

• Keep content separate from presentation when you’re writing for your site. Think Notepad rather than Word; the formatting comes later.
• Remember that HTML is supposed to describe what your content means rather than what it looks like.
• Try and keep your tag usage as minimal as possible. A good CSS artist can create beautiful designs with very few tags, and such pages almost always get better search visibility.

Things to avoid

• Archaic tags like <font>. These are presentational in nature, and only obscure the meaning you’re trying to convey.
• Embedding style into your markup, like <p style="color:blue">blue text</p>. This too provides noise that just gets in the way of the actual content itself. Keep stylesheets externally linked.
• WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors in products like Word, which generate absolutely horrid HTML. It might look okay on your screen, but you’re almost guaranteeing that it’ll be ugly on half of your visitors’ screens.

If all of this seems simple, then great! You’re ahead of the game. Get crackin’ retrofitting your site! Most of our clients are the kind of people that want to focus on being the best they can in their business, and not have to worry about the details of creating a truly top notch professional web presence. That’s why we’re here. All of our projects are built with 100% standards-compliant semantic HTML. We can be the web experts so you don’t have to be.

Contact us for more information about how we can put these principles to work for you!

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Dream Row Celebrates Launch of New Online Resource

Dream Row, a division of Elite Technology Systems, Inc., launches a new online
resource, www.dreamrow.com. The purpose of www.dreamrow.com is to guide
professionals in the entertainment industry with tips, tools and technology designed to
help them reach their fullest marketing potential.

Nashville, TN, May 1, 2007 - Dream Row launches a new online resource,
www.dreamrow.com. The primary purpose of www.dreamrow.com is to guide professionals in
the entertainment industry with tips, tools and technology designed to help them reach their
fullest marketing potential. The company motto, “Plug Yourself,” encourages readers to take
full advantage of the power of the Internet with a collection of services designed to take the
guesswork out of maintaining a successful online presence.

The Dream Row team’s intent to create quality, functional systems is a service that is
increasingly necessary in a changing industry. Their extensive offering of services, including
online business applications and web design, promises to help clients “plug themselves,” using
the web as an international platform for communication.

“Our team is ready and willing to serve, but who knows a given person’s business better than
they themselves?” says Dream Row co-founder and Director of Product Development Revin
Guillen. “We can lay the foundational tools to help them take the grief out of maintaining a
presence online.”

While the primary goal of www.dreamrow.com is to educate and assist the elite professional
in using the web as a marketing platform, it’s also a fun and up to the minute look into the
music scene in Nashville. Be sure to check out their blog to see which talented young stars are
on their radar.

For additional information about the Dream Row team and services offered, please visit
www.dreamrow.com.

About Dream Row:

Dream Row, a division of Elite Technology Systems, Inc. of Tennessee, is a Nashville-based
multimedia company offering comprehensive marketing systems and applications. With a
combined excess of 25 years in the industry, Dream Row’s founders have the knowledge and
experience needed to successfully guide their clients to success. Career and sales opportunities
are available at www.dreamrow.com.

Contact:
Dan Shaw, Director of Client Services
Dream Row
tel: (615) 866.0560 x. 102
http://www.dreamrow.com

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Search engine-related online marketing techniques can be divided into two distinct classes: SEO, or search engine optimization; and SEM, or search engine marketing. The former is more of a technical thing, having to do with how your HTML, metadata, and so forth are put together. The latter covers things like marketing to directories, running pay per click ad campaigns in sponsored listings, etc. They’re separate, but you need both if you’re going to put together a winning strategy (note that in practice, people often refer to everything collectively as “SEO”; it’s not technically accurate, but we won’t get our knickers in a twist over it).

When we at Dream Row do online marketing work, we tailor our process to each client’s needs, so no two campaigns are identical; overall, however, most follow a similar pattern:

Step #1: Set SEO goals

We always encourage you to plug yourself, of course, but what’s the end result you’re hoping for? Why do you want to market your site?

• Is your goal to sell more of a particular product?
• Are you selling ad space and wanting more traffic so your ad revenue increases?
• Are you trying to get as many people as possible to sign up for your newsletter?

The choices you make here make a difference, because a genuinely effective marketing campaign will squeeze every last bit of effectiveness out of each marketed page, all with the idea that we’ll meet the goal.

Only you can do step #1 for yourself. Once that’s done, we’ll be ready to jump in and lend a hand with the rest:

Step #2: Research keywords & write great copy (see also step #5)

There are a few different ways to get access to keyword popularity & competitiveness data; doing this kind of research takes time, but it’s a vital part of the process, because the copy—the actual words on your web pages—needs to be optimized to target users who search for the keywords and phrases you choose. It takes experience to find the right balance between getting maximum effect, where each search result comes from somebody looking for exactly what you provide, and overdoing it, where the search engines will treat your site as spam and blacklist it. You can never get it 100% perfect; the search engines are always changing and improving their ranking processes, so trying to “game the system” backfires more often than not (beware unscrupulous SEO companies who say they have “secret” or “proprietary” techniques to gain higher listings; that’s playing with fire). The best thing to do here is put together great writing with the results of step #3.

Step #3: Use high-quality, semantic markup

Have you ever used the “view source” function in your web browser? You’ll see the raw HTML “code” (called the “markup”) that creates a web page. There are good ways of writing markup, and there are bad—obsolete—ways. Unfortunately, quite a few web designers are still using poor HTML to create their web pages, reasoning that if it looks right in a web browser, it’s fine. We admire the pragmatism there, but the web is more than just people using web browsers. You’ve also got devices like screen readers for the blind, cell phones and PDAs, and the search engines themselves, all trying to view your web site in different ways. Unless your HTML markup is built in a simple, high-quality, standard way, your web site will fall flat in one or more of these less common usage scenarios. We almost can’t stress enough how true this is when we’re talking about SEO techniques; the cleaner your code is, the easier it will be for a search engine to understand it, and the higher your rank will tend to be.

Step #4: Publicize your site

Steps 1-3 have been laying the groundwork for this one. This is where the rubber meets the road. Here we start the active marketing phase of the campaign. Submitting to free directories, paid directories (when it’s worth it, of course), running pay per click ad campaigns on the search engines themselves—there are plenty of ways of spreading the word. The more we can help you to plug yourself on industry blogs, newsletters, and so forth, the more you’ll be able to increase what we call “organic” results, where people find your site simply by virtue of it being mentioned somewhere. It’s the web version of word of mouth advertising, and is just as valuable online as off.

There is quite a jungle of options here, but don’t be afraid; we can help you make sense of it all.

Step #5: Hire a professional writer

This is a separate step? You bet. Not every SEO campaign goes this far (depending on how much time the writing team needs to spend, the costs can add up pretty quickly), but for those who want the absolute best for their site, you can’t beat the work of a professional writer. You may have keyword-optimized copy from step #2, but if it doesn’t flow in a friendly, conversational way, while you may gain traffic coming in from the search engines, your visitors are just going to leave quickly because they won’t be very engaged.

What almost every SEO campaign comes down to is this: content. There really isn’t a way to make up for lack of it. The better your content is, the higher you’ll rank on search engine listings. The better your content is, the more other web site owners will link to you as a source of good information. As more people link to you, you’ll rank higher on search engine listings. If you put effort into creating great content, you really can’t lose. Done correctly, it creates a feedback cycle of higher rank, more visibility, more visitors & links, higher rank, more visibility, more visitors & links, and on and on. Keep it up, and your problem changes from one of visibility to one of having the technical infrastructure in place to keep up with the demand.

We can help with that, too.

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I just realized we never posted a link to our newsletter! How silly of us! Here it is: April 2007.

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Here at Dream Row, we fully embrace the term Plug Yourself, from concept to completion. That means we’re about more than simply building web sites for our clients. We realize that establishing a presence online is only the start. A successful web presence needs to be maintained to really work for its owner. There’s no way around it; it is absolutely necessary. Before any web site owner can successfully handle SEO (search engine optimization) or SEM (search engine marketing), he/she has to be in the right mindset. Here are a few tips.

#1: Be ready to establish a schedule for web site maintenance.

It might be something as simple as “spend 30 minutes each month looking through the web site for ways we can improve it.” Ideally you’ll be able to carve out more time than that—no matter how you cut it, the more energy you can devote to the task, the better. More and more people are online every day. If your industry is remotely competitive, chances are one of your competitors is working to establish themselves as the top web presence in your field. Don’t get left behind simply because you thought your web site was a “set it and forget it” kind of operation!

(more…)

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