- Above the Fold: Understanding the Principles of Successful Web Site De
- Adapting to Web Standards
- Art of Non-Conformity
- Art of Readable Code
- Art of SEO
- Back to the User
- Beginning PHP6, Apache, MySQL Web Development
- Book Notes
- Books to Read
- Bored and Brilliant
- Born For This
- Choosing A Vocation
- Complete E-Commerce Book
- Content Inc
- Core PHP Programming
- CRM Fundamentals
- CSS Text
- Dealing with Difficult People
- Defensive Design for the Web
- Deliver First Class Web sites
- Design for Hackers: Reverse-Engineering Beauty
- Designing Web Interfaces
- Designing Web sites that Work: Usability for the Web
- Designing with Progressive Enhancement
- Developing Large Web Applications
- Developing with Web Standards
- Economics of Software Quality
- Effortless commerce with php and MySQL
- Epic Content Marketing
- Extending Bootstrap
- Foundation Version Control for Web Developers
- Guerrilla Marketing for a Bulletproof Career
- HACKING EXPOSED WEB APPLICATIONS, 3rd Edition
- Hacking Web Apps
- Happiness At Work
- Implementing Responsive Design
- Inmates Are Running the Asylum
- Instant LESS CSS Preprocessor How-to
- jQuery Pocket Reference
- Letting Go of the Words
- Lost and Found: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World
- Making Every Meeting Matter
- Manage Your Day to Day
- Marketing to Millenials
- Mobile First
- Monster Loyalty
- More Eric Meye on CSS
- Official Ubuntu Book
- Organized Home
- Pay Me… Or Else!
- Perennial Seller
- Pet Food Nation
- PHP 5 E commerce Development
- PHP In a NutShell
- PHP Refactoring
- PHP5 and MySQL Bible
- PHP5 CMS Framework Development
- PHP5 Power Programming
- Preventing Web Attacks with Apache
- Pro PHP and jQuery
- Professional LAMP
- Purple Cow: Transform Your Business
- Responsive Web Design with HTML and CSS3
- Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS3
- Rules of Thumb
- Saleable Software
- Search Engine Optimization Secrets
- Securing PHP Web Applications
- Serving Online Customers
- Simple and Usable Web, Mobile and Interaction Design
- Smart Organizing
- Smashing UX Design: Foundations for Designing Online User Experiences
- Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
- Talent is Not Enough
- The 10x Rule
- The Benefits of Working with Git In Your Software Projects
- The Clean Coder
- The Herbal Handbook for Home & Health
- The Life-changing Magic of Tidying up
- The Modern Web
- Think First
- This Is Marketing
- Traction
- Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition
- Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Cus
- Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide
- Web Word Wizardry
- Web Word Wizardy
- Website Owner’s Manual
- Whats Stopping Me
- Work for Money, Design for Love
- Your Google® Game Plan for Success: Increasing Your Web Presence with
- Checklists I Have Collected or Created
- Crafts To Do
- Database and Data Relations Checklist
- Ecommerce Website Checklist
- Learning Stuff From Blogs
- My Front End UI Checklist
- New Client Needs Analysis
- Newsletters I Read
- Puzzles
- Style Guides
- User Review Questions
- Web Designer's SEO Checklist
- Web site Review
- Website Code Checklist
- Website Final Approval Form
- Writing Content For Your Website
- Writing Styleguide
- Writing Tips
- 7 essentialls of graphic design
- Accidental Creative
- Choosing the right color for your logo
- CMS Design
- Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and
- Designing for Web Performance
- Eat That Frog
- Elements of User Experience
- Flexible Web Design
- Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability
- Homepage Usability
- Responsive Web Design
- Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective Use
- Strategic Web Designer
- Submit Now: Designing Persuasive Web sites
- The Zen of CSS Design
- Complete Book of Potatoes
- Creating Custom Soil Mixes for Healthy, Happy Plants
- Edible Forest Garden
- Garden Design
- Gardening Tips and Tricks
- Gardens and History
- Herbs
- Houseplants
- Light Candle Levels
- My Garden
- My Garden To Plant
- Organic Fertilizers
- Organic Gardening in Alberta
- Plant Nurseries
- Plant Suggestions
- Planting Tips and Ideas
- Root Cellaring
- Things I Planted in My Yard
- Way We Garden Now
- Weed Decoder
- 101 Organic Gardening Hacks
- 2015 Herbal Almanac
- Beautiful No-Mow Lawns
- Beginner's Guide to Heirloom Vegetables
- Best of Lois Hole
- Design in Nature
- Eradicate Invasive Plants
- Gardening Books to Read
- Gardens West
- Grow Organic
- Grow Your own Herbs
- Guerilla Gardening
- Heirloom Life Gardener
- Hellstrip Gardening
- Indoor Gardening: The Organic Way
- Landscaping with Fruits and Vegetables
- Real Gardens Grow Natives
- Seed Underground
- Small plot, high yield gardening
- Thrifty Gardening from the Ground Up
- Vegetables
- Veggie Garden Remix
- Weeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants
- What Grows Here
- Activities for Kids
- Animals In My Yard
- Baking & Cooking Tips
- Bertrand Russell
- Can I Get that on Sale?
- Cleaning Tips and Tricks
- Colour Palettes I Like
- Compound Time
- Cooking Tips
- Crafts
- Crafts for Kids
- Household Tips
- Inspiration
- Interesting
- Interior Design
- Keywording & Tags
- Latin Phrases
- Laundry Tips
- Learn Something New
- Links, Information, and Cool Videos - Stuff for My Kids
- Music Websites for Parents and Kids
- My Miscellany
- Organizing
- Quotes
- Reading List
- Renovations
- Silly Sites
- Things that Make Me Laugh
- Videos to Watch
- Ways to Be Nice
- YouTube Hacks
- Bug Tracking Tool
- Business Tips
- Code Packages I Like on GitHub
- Content Management systems
- Creating Emails & Email Newsletters
- Games
- I Made A Framework
- Open Source
- Patterns, Textures and other media
- PHP Coding Standards
- Programming
- Project Verbs for to do lists
- Qualities of Creative Leaders
- Scalable Vector Graphics
- SEO
- Software Design
- The Shell, Scripts and Such
- Writing Instructions
- Accessibility
- CSS Frameworks
- CSS Reading List
- CSS Sticky Footer
- Design of Sites
- htaccess files
- HTML Tips and Tricks
- Javascript (and jQuery)
- Landing Page Tips
- Making Better Websites
- More Information on CSS
- MySQL and Databases
- Navigation
- Responsive Design
- Robots.txt File
- Security and Secure Websites
- SVG Images
- Types of Content
- UI and UX and Design
- Web Design and Development
- Web Design Tools
- Web Error Codes
- Website Testing Checklist
- Writing for the Web
- Writing Ideas for your website
- Animations and Interactions
- Being a Better Designer
- Bootstrap Resources
- Color in Web Design
- Colour
- CSS Preprocessors: Sass and Less
- CSS Tips Tricks
- Customer Centered Design Myths
- Design Systems
- Designing User Interfaces
- Font & Typographical Inspiration
- Fonts, Typography, Letters & Symbols
- Icons
- Logo Designs
- Photoshop Tips and Tricks
- Sketch
- UX and UI and Design Reading List
- Web Forms
- Well Designed
Bill of Writes
- Write to be found
- Write to be skim-read
- Write to be understood
- Write to be trusted
- Write to get results
Goals for the site
- Find the best niche for the site, then dominate it.
- Attract the visitors you want and turn them into loyal customers.
- Win the trust of visitors.
- Persuade people to email you or buy something.
- Achieve high ranking in search results.
- Make every web page a legitimate doorway to the site.
- Go beyond the brochure - get results.
- Forge relationships with individual visitors or customers.
- Promote the web site worldwide and make the site accessible to all.
Page Content
Since the web is a collection of millions of separate pages, the text of every web page should be self-explanatory and make sense by itself.All content must be high quality.A web site's credibility can be destroyed by a single stupid page.
Provide context for every individual web page.The text of every page should start by signaling its context and purpose.Write every page:
- For a specific reason
- For a specific type of reader
- For a specific result
Each page should have a key message that you can summarize in one sentence.
What type of visitors do you want for this page?
What response do you want?
Use the Inverted Pyramid structure: start with your description, your main point, or a summary of what's on the page.Then work down to the smallest/least important point at the end of the document.
Vary the length of paragraphs but keep them short.The rule of thumb is to limit yourself to a maximum of 65-100 words.
Headings
Use specific, explanatory headings.For example, 'introduction' is a bad heading whereas 'Window cleaning for beginners' is a good heading.Think about your keywords when writing headings.
Write hypertext links that work like headings.
Checking
Use a variety of computers and browsers to check the text legibility.Look at the page in "grey" mode - are the words still legible? Check the words with your monitor brightness at different levels. Print your page from the screen. Do you see a partial printing or a gray blur? Ask your friends and relations for honest feedback.
Forms
Editing the contents of forms:
- Break every online procedure or task into its components, and do one at a time.
- Ask for information essential to the task at hand, and no more. If you ask for optional information, ask for it last and mark it as optional.
- Keep the form as short as possible, and provide a printable versions for people who prefer to reply by mail or fax.
- State your privacy policy clearly
- Never ask for credit card information until it's needed to complete a transaction. Don't ask for an address unless you need to deliver something.
What to put in Alt Text?
First, identify the function of every image.Think about what purpose it servers.Think of what you would say if you were on the phone, reading the web page aloud to someone else
and you came to the image. Would you describe the image?
Add alt tag to horizontal rules - example, 'end of chapter' or 'end of section'.
When adding alt tags to navigation icons, consider using punctuation.The navigation structure might appear in a screen reader as "HomeOur ProductsServicesOrder form". So consider using punctuation and spaces. For example, alt="| get order form | " or "[ get order form ]".
How to generate credibility
- Perfect navigation. If it is not easy to navigate the site, people will leave.
- Plenty of worthwhile content. Show that you are experienced, intelligent, powerful and knowledgeable.
- A well-known brand
- Appropriate, user-friendly design
- Identity on every page
- A real sense of the people and premise. List staff member's titles, accomplishments, and qualifications. Does your business belong to any professional organizations? Quote facts about the company or organization.
- Testimonials
- Secure order form
- Strong, money-back guarantee
- Privacy policy
- Terms of trade. Check the relevant legislation of your own country and international bodies like the United Nations.Declare the laws the site complies with, obligations of all parties, promises made about the goods or services, refund policy, dispute procedures, liabilities of all parties, privacy policy, and security measures.
- Good writing and perfect proofreading
- Friendly persuasion. People are persuaded by two things: clear benefits to themselves, and the facts.
- "last updated" date
- Links to other web sites
How Search Engines rank pages
- Relevance. Search engines consider the relevance of a page to the query words.They count the number of query words that occur in the text.Other search engines look at percentages. What percentage of the total number of words are the query words?
- Prominence. Search engines add points for the prominence of the query word on a web page.
- Link Popularity. Are the links from popular sites? Are there many links? Do the links contain relevant keywords?Request reciprocal links from other sites that have lots of traffic.
- Signs of Life. Search engines date your pages when they first index them and then they not subsequent changes. Draw attention to changes - this page was last updated on …
Title Tags
- Title tag should be unique for every page.
- Write the title like a newspaper headline or summary or description of the page.
- Use a high percentage of keywords in your title.
- Vary the length of titles from page to page.
- Avoid fancy characters ($ ? + & %).
Why do we use page themes?
Tailoring individual pages of the site to specific purposes allows you to achieve a higher ranking in the search engines because:
- You multiply your chances of being found.
- Many pages become entry points – each page is an open door inviting visitors into the site
- You can target people with specific interests
- You can customize specific pages for specific search engines
- It is easier to select exactly the right keywords
Page Descriptions
- The page description will appear in two places - meta description tag and the first bit of body text.
- Most search engines grab the first few lines of the site as the description for their search results.
- Write descriptions that can be safely truncated.Start with a ten word description.Add another ten to fifteen words of optimal information.Start with your lead keyword.
Optimization Procedures
- Review the site's concept, architecture, and marketing strategy.
- Select four important, static pages to optimize. If there are no suitable pages, write some new ones, keeping the design simple. For each of the four pages
- Decide on the purpose, target audience, content and desired result
- Research the source code of similar pages ranked high by search engines
- Write a meta keyword list, starting with three lead keyword phrases
- Write the title, starting with the number one lead key phrases and including the other two
- Write a 10 to 25 word description or summary of the page, using the three lead key phrase
- Put the description both in the meta description tag and at the start of the body copy
- Write or edit the text including the key phrases in a natural way
- Write subheadings if the page is a long one. Include key phrases
- Write links: use self-explanatory phrases and key phrases
- Write alt-text, if required. Use key phrase si you can do so legitimately
- Proofread.
Bibliographical Information
Web Word Wizardy
by Rachel McAlpine, ISBN 1580082238
2001, Ten Speed Press, Toronto
These are notes I made after reading this book. See more book notes
Just to let you know, this page was last updated Monday, Dec 02 24