Doing some research for one of my clients today (a big one with 300,000+employees), I decided to check their web standards and guidelines. On the first page of their standards was the reminder to avoid templates that create horizontal scroll, and to design with 1024 pixel width in mind. Good advice. Too bad they can’t follow their advice themselves though. Continue reading »
Mar 302010
Feb 252010
Are you suffering from Giant Image Syndrome? The common symptoms are: squished content, wrapped content, horizontal scrolling, super long lines of text, and basic site destruction.
Right now I am working for a Fortune 100 company that has a ton of intranet sites. The IT department was nice enough to create a default template so that anyone can build a site. They even allow them to use their own creativity, by not specifying a style guide. Oops. Continue reading »
Sep 152008
Flash is cool, but you still need to be careful how you use it. A classic mistake to make when designing a website is to use images to convey a text message. Search engines can’t read them, some pda’s won’t display them, and it will most likely create an accessibility problem for those who rely on text version only browsing. Having text in a flash object is basically the same thing for most search engines, and for those of you that have heard that Google can now start reading text in flash, don’t think that it can read all text.
Text in Images is Invisible
Text in an image is invisible to search engines, and when that image is in flash it’s just as invisible. Using this Austin Real Estate site, you can see a great example of flash failing the owner, the search engines, and the users. Looking at their screen shot below you can see the flash they used in the header.
I don’t know about you, but if this was my real estate site, I would definitely want those keywords visible to search engines. Search engines can’t read them. How do I know? Well for one, Google is the only search engine currently claiming they can read flash sites. So that means unless it’s Google, it can’t read it. The second more important reason, is actually seeing that Google did not read it. Here is a link to text version Google has cached of the site. Notice the text Google indexes for the site starts at the menu below the header flash. Text in this flash? It’s invisible.
Google Can Read Flash
If Google can read text in flash, why can’t it read this sites text? It can’t read the text in this flash because, really, there is none. It’s just an animated image that has some text on it. There is no menu, text content, or links for Google to do anything with. When Google finds text in flash, it’s reading things like the flash menu, or links within the menu, not the pictures. What failed this sites SEO? Images conveying a text message!
Sep 062008
Last week I took on a quest to look at 1,000 blogs and websites. I was looking for that special something that draws me into a site, and actually read some of their content. Well I found something, and to no surprise to some, it was images.
The Biggest Draw
What I found after looking at all those sites is the power of the image. I’m sure that most of you have heard “An image is worth a 1,000 words”, and that fact is important here. On the web most people scan for content. We read headers only, we skim text at best, and we look for lists. One of the best methods to quickly gain information is to scan images. They provide massive amounts of information in seconds.
While on my quest of 1,000 blogs I also came across many websites, and the fact stayed the same. Images get you to look. The screen shot you see here is from a skin cream manufacturer. They used a basic shopping cart software to host their site. I could have easily skipped over this site without paying much attention, but the image draws attention. They also had images of their products on the home page, something I would also strongly suggest if you run an online store.
What Kind of Images?
Well their were all sorts of images that got me to look a little deeper, and on all sorts of different kind of site layouts. A few keys I found were:
- Make your image fairly large – 300 pixels or so wide
- Center it in your layout – So it is obviously the first thing you should look at
- Keep it above the fold – Obviously you don’t want to hide it if you are using it to draw visitors in
This doesn’t work for everyone’s layout though, like mine for instance. I do plan on adding something though to get that walker by to look though. The image draws you in.
Here are two other things I noticed. Images with animals almost always got me to look. This might be just a personality thing though, so don’t go designing a site with animals all over it just because I like to see pictures of them. I don’t consider myself a big animal fanatic, so I do wonder what the connection is, and if others have noticed this.
The other thing I saw, and it really started to bug me was YouTube videos. I saw a ton of blogs with YouTube videos. Videos are great, but they come at a price. The video screen shot takes longer to load than the rest of the site. When I looked at all those sites the video at first seemed like a good idea. Then I turned, and started thinking, “another stupid video”, then it turned into “done looking at that site” the second I saw it had a video. I do not have a problem with YouTube videos, but I am thinking you might want to be careful where you place it.
Jul 172008
My last post was about how a site missed the opportunity to use text in their menu. They used graphics, and SEO wise, it not a great idea. It will also fail you if someone visits your site, and their browser does not load images. An example of this might be a pda. Well, here is a great example of making your menu with text, but still giving it some style. Check out this Website Design Company.
If you look at the left menu underneath the logo you will see the menu items appear like graphics, especially when you hover over, but really, they are not images. They are text with style. The style has not been made with the usual CSS style sheet, but with JavaScript. I did a little check of my stats from one of my busier sites, and found 98% of the visitor’s browsers supported JavaScript. I think you are safe to use. In the case of the Michigan design site, they also supported their menu with just plain text in the footer of the site. Double SEO factor, and usability supported.
If you are looking for some cool JavaScript’s to give similar effects as Michigan Website Design, check out Script.aculo.us
Jul 162008
I hate writing about SEO, because it isn’t really my speciality. I am compentent at it, just not an expert. One thing that kills me though is when a site misses out on a chance for some easy SEO, and make a usability error at the same time.
Check out this Toronto Immigration Lawyer site. It has a wonderful looking layout, but the left menu items are all images. They have actually been caught in a triple play. They have made the usability error of using an image where text could have been used, they have not included an alt tag description for the images, and they have lost out on an opportunity to improve their sites keyword value. Try searching for one of their menu items, and include Canada as a keyword. Survey says, not in the top 100 search results using Google. I tried all of their menu items, and it failed for all with exception to the first one, Family Sponsorhsip.
I can only imagine if they are offering those services they would love their site to come up in the results. Images can make a site look great, but know when to use them. As a replacement for text? No way!
Jun 282008
A big no no in site design is using images to convey a text message. It takes more time for your site to load, it has little to no seo value, and is difficult to change style compared to editing a CSS file. There are usability issues as well.
You can break this rule though, when the text absolutely requires special handling like in a logo. The site Orlando Visiting is a blog about Disney World, and Orlando. Looking at their logo, you will see an obvious good reason to break the rule, and go with the image. Imagine this blog with just “Orlando Visiting” in regular text. Yuck, boring. Another really positive use of this image besides the text message, is that it clearly indicates to a new visitor that they are on a site about Disney because of the font they chose to use. Now that is how you make an image talk, and make it vital to the site.
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