5 Techniques that Will Take your Design to the Next Level

Want to know what the top designers are doing to take their web site designs to the “next level”? Webitech.net has broken down five of those techniques so you can add them to your design arsenal.

The Journalism Now Podcast

Sponsored by the Center for Media Innovation and Research at UF and the Poytner Institute, this podcast discusses “multimedia, data and social aspects of modern news”.

Check My Colours

Check my Colours is a “tool for checking foreground and background color combinations of all DOM elements and determining if they provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone having color deficits.”

Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (PDF)

Instead of guessing what Google is looking for in order to maximize SEO on your web site, why not go to the source? Google has provided this wonderful guide that aids site developers in creating the most search-engine-friendly site possible.

Smush.it

Image optimization is a terrific way of improving site performance, and Smush.it is an easy way of slimming your images - yes, even compressed JPG images - without any loss of quality. Also, it’s free!

Since then, she has received a lot of follow-up questions, so I posted them here.

From Barbara Lindsey, Department of Neurosurgery

BL: First question is about the use of header tags in the menu section of the page. Is it OK or does it mess with the hierarchy of the content?

For example, I was given a template which uses <h4> for the quick menu, but there is no other <h4> in my content, therefore everything below that level, is potentially irrelevant content to the <h4> level… Do you agree? Or is it OK if the content is relevant to another higher level header ?

PL: Using the <h4> tag in your menu could potentially create problems with your site later on as you add more content and find a need to use the <h4> tag. A better practice for menu items is to use an unordered item list to create an SEO friendly menu. You can use your CSS to create a style specific to the menu so that it still “looks” like the inherent <h4> style.

BL: Second question, what is your opinion about <dl>, definition list? I have read mixed reviews about whether search engines index these constructs and whether or not they are a useful construct from SEO point of view.

PL: I do know that Google will give you a nice trust rank boost for using definition lists, but as to how it plays in with the overall ranking, I’m not entirely sure. It is certainly an under-used tag and as far as I’m concerned, if used properly, could give you an extra boost that other sites most likely will not have. You can use the <dl> tag not only to list terms and definitions, but can also use it with images and captions. Using it with images and captions will require working with the CSS to get the image and caption to display properly, but is a really cool way to use this tag.

From Micah Bolen, IFAS

MB: Does it really matter whether hyphens are used instead of underscores as dividers when naming web pages with respect to SOE? Furthermore, do you agree with the answer here: http://www.prweaver.com/blog/2004/08/26/2-hyphen-and-underscore?

PL: The article you included below agrees with most of what I have seen and read as well. Like I said in the SEO presentation, underscores are considered ‘old skool’ . In the programming word, underscores are seen as joining words, while hyphens as word separators. Google specifically treats hyphens as word separators.

Vanessa Fox, SEO guru and Webmaster Central creator for Google, recently addressed this in a podcast in March. One thing she says is that having hyphens is important for the user experience because they do a good job of visually separating words, which underscores are not often seen. It leaves user to wonder if there’s a space or an underscore because links get underscored. She talks about this in a podcast on March 6, 2009 which you can find on itunes – her channel is Office Hours and the session is called Cannonical Tag Adoption. Her talk (and unofficial transcript) was referenced here as well: http://pixelposition.com/hyphens-underscores/.