Posts Tagged ‘navigation’

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When making changes to my website I always take the time to view them live on the web before closing up my editing software and patting myself on the back in self-satisfaction of a job well done. Even with minor changes, I like to view them one last time to make sure my changes didn’t cause any shifts in on-page display, or I didn’t inadvertently create an error somewhere that inadvertently jacked everything up (believe me, it’s happened more times than I can count!) But regardless of how careful I am to double check my work, there is one thing I almost always overlook; verifying that my site looks good in the “other” browser.

At any given time I have three FireFox browser widows open, each with their own number of open tabs. So it’s natural for me to check and verify my changes using my browser of choice. Sometimes, I even think to check my changes in Internet Explorer. Admittedly, I don’t regularly check IE when the changes are relatively minor, but always when the changes effect formatting. But that’s not the other browser I’m referring to.

We get so accustomed to our own way of surfing the web that we forget that there many other browsers and browsing experiences that may be foreign to us. Now most web designers will do their due diligence and check a site in multiple versions of FireFox, Internet Explorer, Netscape and Safari. Heck you might look at a half of dozen other browsers that most people, including myself, have never even heard of. But those are not the browsers I’m referring to either.

There are four primary “other” browsers and browsing experiences that are typically overlooked by site owners, casual webmaster and, yes, even by the average web designer. But with more and more users moving to these alternate browsing experiences, it is even more important to check your websites to make sure that they function properly for these users.

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When providing SEO advice on the topic of website design, we often warn against placing important content into images. This is because search engines can’t read images like a person can. To them, an image with text is just an image. They really have no idea what the image is or if, in fact, it says anything at all. So when optimizing sites, anytime we are dealing with keyword optimized content, we want to make sure it’s standard HTML text. This includes headers, benefit lits, and even normal body copy.

While the search engines can’t read actual images, they can read what we say about the image. This information can be gleaned a few different ways:

• Image file name (image1234.jpg vs. mustang-gt.jpg)
• Text immediately surrounding the image
• The overall content of the page the image is on
• Image ALT attribute in the image tag

When trying to optimize images for image search, all of these can provide important indicators the search engines use to produce the best set of image results. In terms of traditional optimization and website usability, the ALT attribute plays an important role.

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Yesterday I discussed code bloat by looking at how we can move style sheets and JavaScripts off the page in order to clean the coding up quite a bit. I this third post about cleaning up bloated code I wanted to address Tables and other typical causes of bloated HTML.

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I’m continuing to work my way through questions submitted during a webinar I gave on Website Architecture. You can check out Parts one, two, three, four, five and six. This post covers questions on URLs, breadcrumb navigation, CMS, Database driven sites, 301 and 302 redirects, navigation, heading tags, broken links and HTML theft.

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When performing a site architectural review, one of the first things I look at is the site’s main navigation elements. This includes top, side and footer navigation. Together, they all play an important role in both the ability of the search engines to properly spider your website, as well as allowing your visitors to find important areas and information quickly and efficiently.

Site navigation can come in many different flavors. There isn’t just ONE way to do it correctly. If there were then every site would have navigation that looked exactly the same. So while navigation can vary greatly between sites and industries, there are certain navigational elements that should be implemented to ensure solid usability and effective website architecture.

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Many years ago I put my site through a re-design. I worked hard to make sure everything was done just right, including the images and navigation. But one thing I failed to consider was internal linking, separate from the navigational elements. It wasn’t until much later that I realized how much traffic I was losing because my internal linking was (or lack thereof) wasn’t benefiting my visitors.

In-site link implementation can make a considerable difference in how effective your optimization campaign is. Or isn’t. While your site’s primary and secondary navigation is extremely important, you shouldn’t make that the only way for visitors to get around your website.

There are advantages and disadvantages to using both absolute and relative links. Here I will explore the differences between the two, outline some pros and cons and also provide some additional information on how you can create hyperlinks in your site that will ensure that all links to your content remain in tact and properly functioning.

Back in the day, you know… the early 2000’s I loved to use relative links. Inserting relative links made websites development easy in cutting-edge programs such as Microsoft FrontPage. By using relative links you could move files around in your directory structure and FrontPage would automatically update all your link paths throughout the site, keeping them connected to the pages in their new location. No more manually updating all your internal links by hand! It was brilliant.

But now I’m not so big of a fan as relative links as I once was. I don’t have huge problems with them, but I understand the value in using absolute links rather than relative links. But perhaps I should take a step back and explain the difference between the two.

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When a website goes into development most of the attention is usually paid to the design elements. That’s obviously the most important thing, right? The images, the layout, the colors, the navigation, how the user will interact with the site? These are all important elements to consider and necessary for developing a site that provides the best usability experience for your visitors. But what often doesn’t get enough attention is the site’s directory structure.

When I talk of a site’s directory structure I refer to both the file directory and internal link structures. They are two very different things, but in reality they should often mirror each other very closely, but not always…

Yesterday we rolled out a a brand new design for EMP. Aside from the design improvements (the first in three years) we added a lot of customization that will benefit us and hopefully make for a better usability experience for all of you. We’re still tinkering with some things, fixing broken links, etc. so be patient.

One of the biggest changes we’ve made is moving (EMP) E-Marketing Performance back to our company domain. As of now, www.eMarketingPerformance.com redirects to www.PolePositionMarketing.com/emp, it’s new permanent home. All the redirects are in place but if you’ve linked to this blog recently and you would like to go back and change the URL of the link, that would be greatly appreciated!

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• Feel Great Naked: Confidence Boosters for Getting Personal
• Do You Know Your Visitors? 5 Points to Consider
• Content Strategy: Key Elements To Grab Online Readers Attention
• Site Navigation and Usability: Easy Tips for Happy Users
• Tips on Content Centered Link Building
• 5 Recommended Ways to Build Your Opt-In List
• Are Internal Links Weighted the Same as External Links by Google?