Web Design Tips and Tricks

What's Wrong With My Website?

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I ask myself that question about once a month.My website looks fine to me, but what are otherpeople seeing? And what are the Search Enginesseeing? Here's a checklist of 10 ways to optimizeyour website for peak performance:

1. Browser Compatibility

The first thing is to look at your website throughother people's browsers. I do this regularly and I'vesometimes been shocked at what I saw!

ANYBROWSERhttp://www.anybrowser.com

2. Broken Links

About 5% of all links on the Internet are broken. Asite that contains broken links gives a bad impressionto visitors and is a frequent cause of lost sales.Also, the major Search Engines and Directories will notlist your page if it contains any broken links or missingimages.

Here are some free link validators:

LINK SCANhttp://www.elsop.com/linkscan/quickcheck.html

NET MECHANIChttp://www.netmechanic.com/maintain.htm

WEBSITE GARAGE DEADLINK CHECKhttp://websitegarage.netscape.com/O=wsg/tuneup_plus/index.html

3. Web Safe Colors

Are the colors on your web site displaying properly onother people's browsers? You may have a beautifulshade of lilac on your index page but it could lookvery strange on someone else's computer.

There are only 216 colors that you can safely use onthe Web. These colors display solid and consistent onany computer monitor or web browser that is able todisplay at least 8-bit color.

The Web Safe Palette contains six groups of colorswith 36 colors per group. These 216 web safe colorscan have any combination of the following RGB (RedGreen Blue) values: 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, 255 (eachRGB value must be divisible by 51).

Here's a good palette of web safe colors:

WEB-SOURCE SAFE COLORShttp://www.web-source.net/216_color_chart.htm

4. ALT Tags

ALT Tags allow you to give an alternative to peoplewho have the 'view images' function turned off intheir browser. Let's say the navigation system on yourwebsite is a series of buttons that link to otherpages on your site. If you don't have ALT Tags, peoplewho have the 'view images' function turned off willbe unable to navigate through your site - in placeof your button they will just see an empty space.

But an ALT Tag allows you to tell those people whatthat button does. For example, if the button is a linkto your 'Site Map' you could insert the following ALTTag:

ALT Tags also allow you to raise your keyword density.For every image that is not hyperlinked you couldinsert your main keywords. For example:

5. Meta Tags

Meta Tags are so important they deserve a wholearticle on their own. The most important Meta Tags arethe Title Tag, the Keywords Tag and the Description Tag.

The Title Tag should be no more than 64 characters(longer than that and it will be cut off in someSearch Engines).

The Keyword Tag should contain about 5 to 10 keywordsthat appear on your page. Never include words that donot appear on that page - in some Search Engines your websitewill be penalized for this. Do not repeat the same keyword - this is called 'keyword stuffing' and is also frowned upon bythe Search Engines.

Separate your keywords with spaces (not commas). Thisallows the Search Engines to combine your keywords into phrases,for people who do 'phrase searching'.

The Description Tag should be no more than 200 characters.Include as many of your keywords as you can. Remember also thatyour Description Tag must be enticing - it must make peoplewant to visit your site.

Here are some programs that will generate your MetaTags for you:

WEBSITE GARAGEhttp://websitegarage.netscape.com/turbocharge/metatag/

META MEDIChttp://www.northernwebs.com/set/setsimjr.html

MULTI-META-MAKERhttp://www.multimeta.com/tools/multimetamaker.html

6. Load Time

A slow-loading index page is one of the main reasonsfor lost sales. The generally accepted maximum timefor a page to load is around 15 seconds. Here is afree service that tells you how long your web pagetakes to load:

NETMECHANIChttp://www.netmechanic.com/cobrands/FutureQuest/load_check.htm

Your pages should be no more than about 30Kb in size. To calculate the size of your web page, highlight theHTML document and then click on 'File' and'Properties' and note down the file size. Then do thesame for any graphics you have on that page. Then addthose figures together to get your page size.

If your page is less than 30Kb and takes more than 15seconds to load, the problem is most likely with yourweb host. The solution is to change web host. Here are2 services that will check the speed of your web host'sserver and compare it with other web hosts:

HOST COMPAREhttp://www.hostcompare.com/testtools.htm

CNET WEBSERVICEShttp://webservices.cnet.com/ping/

7. GIF (or JPEG) Cruncher

Shrinking the size of your images is one of the bestways to get a faster-loading web page. You can usuallyreduce a GIF or JPEG image by 40% to 50% withoutlosing any significant definition or sharpness.

SPINWAVEhttp://www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html

8. HTML Optimizer

Another way to make your page load faster is tocompress (or optimize) your HTML code. An HTMLOptimizer removes all blank spaces in your HTML codeand also removes certain unnecessary tags.

On average, an HTML optimizer will reduce the size ofyour page by 15% to 20%. That percentage may not seemmuch, but the saving in load time is much higher, asyour visitor's browser will parse your page much moreefficiently.

A word of caution: in most HTML Optimizers you willfind an 'Options' menu that tells the program toignore certain parts of your code. Make sure yourOptimizer does not compress embedded script tags - ifthey get compressed, the script will usually not work.

ADVANCED HTML OPTIMIZERhttp://www.pcbit.com/htmlopt/

9. WIDTH, HEIGHT and BORDER Tags

The WIDTH, HEIGHT and BORDER attributes are essentialfor each image that you have on your website. When youhyperlink an image, always make sure that the BORDERattribute is set to zero (BORDER=0). If you don't dothis, your hyperlinked image will have an ugly blueborder around it.

The WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes allow your page toload faster, as the browser knows in advance howmuch space the image requires. To find out the widthand height of any image, just double click on theimage file. This will automatically open 'MicrosoftPhoto Editor' - your image will appear, with the widthand height of your image (in pixels) displayed on thetool bar.

10. HTML Validator

Always check the validity of your HTML. Some SearchEngines give lower rankings to pages that have poorquality HTML (such as incorrect nesting of elements).

Here are some free online validators:

HTML HELPhttp://www.htmlhelp.org/tools/validator/

BOBBYhttp://www.cast.org/bobby/

WATSONhttp://watson.addy.com/

Lately I've taken to subscribing to many newsletters and the "free" programs being offered by internet marketers - think Frank Kern, Yanik Silver et al. - and people like Aaron Wall and Shoemoney and that Brian fellow over at Copyblogger.

If you, like me, receive some of these emails, you may have noticed how their sales methods have taken the typical long web page sales pitch and turned it on its side. They've spliced it into emails and videos and feed that info to us in a much more interactive and entertaining manner then the long winded sales pages of old.

So this morning while trying to convince my 21 month old son to go to the park (that's right, to convince him to go to the park) I found that the usual things were not working. That is when it hit me.

Parental persuasion ala Frank Kern

Please note that I have not met nor do I know Frank Kern, and I am only singling him out because his name stuck with me. I suppose this parody below could be recognizable to Jeff Walker's children as well. One last note, I have found the free info they give away as they get you to the offer/pitch/monthly service to be quite valuable.

• Dad: Hey son, want to go to the park with your favorite car and play on the swings?
• Son: No!
• Dad: Oh, did I mention that I found some extra strawberries, your favorite fruit? I figured you would want them and washed some for you. Want to go to the park with your favorite car and play on the swings and have some strawberries?
• Son: My car...? No!
• Dad: We can take the little soccer ball and some balloons. We know you like balloons so we bought some extras last night. Want to go to the park with your favorite car and play on the swings, with the ball and the balloons and have some strawberries? You don't have to do anything, just have fun!
• Son: Balloons...? Where's my car? No!
• Dad: Hey listen. Its 8:00, the street cleaner will pass soon. If we go now we can also see the street cleaner! You love the street cleaner and if we don't go now who knows when he will pass again.. Maybe never! Want to go downstairs and see the street cleaner, then go to the park with your favorite car and play on the swings, with the ball and the balloons and have some strawberries?
• Son: Street cleaner...? Balloons...? Where's my car? Hmm... (asks for shoes, walks over to the car...) No!

• Dad: Listen. If we go down now, we can stop at the bakery. I'll order an espresso (you love the noise from the espresso machine!) and get you some toast and jam (I'll pay; you get this fre.e!) and we can sit at a table outside and watch the street cleaner. Then we can go to the park with your favorite car and play on the swings, with the ball and the balloons and have some strawberries? And one last BONUS: we can stop at the fountain and throw in some rocks!!

  Look, if you don't have fun doing this, later I will take you to the pool.
  YOU CAN"T LOSE!!

• Son: (getting up on the car...) Yes! Lets do it! (makes some vroom vroom noises with the car).

Father and son head down the elevator out to the bakery. Son demands the water fountain in the park so we head straight there, where strawberries are eaten and some rocks thrown in. Then he says "casa" (hey, we live in Spain) and demands to go home. We stop to watch the street cleaner pass by and head home, not having visited the swings, played with the balloon or balls or had breakfast at the bakery.

(Okay, so in the end I also pick on we folks who buy these things - be they live the internet lifestyle products or self-help books - and don't implement them to the fullest :)

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