Best practices require that a website goes beyond just the pretty veneer and the flashy bells and whistles. Careful consideration of analytics, information architecture, wire-framing, task or functional diagramming, QA, and proper optimization are all required to develop a truly successful site. Beyond that, usability testing (UAT), clear documentation and accessibility concerns creep into the mix with larger portal and government sites. Did someone say Section 508?

Let's assume everything is done correctly the first time around and the site is up and running. Now what? The client calls and says, "My site is not listed on Google." or "I want to be on the first page of Google." Typically, it's time to hire an SEO or search engine optimization expert. It's a bit of a misnomer, SEO experts, don't just optimize websites, they scour the web for sites, discussion threads, directories, and search engines that allow back-linking to the client's website, creating more roads to Rome. Your web design company should be charged with creating a site that is as optimized as possible. Which includes your basics, such as:

• Descriptive page titles
• Alternative text-based navigation for graphical links
• Alt-text for images
• Meta Tag Description
• Meta Tag Keywords
• A site map page
• Dynamic Google maps
  

SEO work, as I explain to our clients is a "Voodoo Art". There's no guarantee of your site being listed as #1 on anything. If this were true, do a search for "SEO" on Google, and Wikipedia is number #1, ironic. An honest SEO person will be the first to admit there's no guarantee, and believe me, it's in the fine print. Honest SEO's use proven, and legal methods to get your site listed higher on search engines, and it costs a lot of time, persistence, patience, and money. There's no magic bullet, and there are many dubious techniques as well, but I can't say whether they're legal or not.

Here are Google's own rules on the matter:

Google Webmaster Tools


In part 2, I'll list out some tricks of the trade that I'm aware of. I'll discuss the use of online tools, social media sites, online marketing/adwords, and such. Stay tuned. If you're an SEO expert or company, please feel free to add to the discussion. We're all still learning here.

Labels: Best Practices, Google, SEO, web design

By now CSS, or more correctly, CSS2 is the gold standard behind all new websites. Web and interactive designers find themselves constantly trying to keep up with the rules and constraints placed upon them. As code standardizes, web designers have coalesced into group that prefer one method over the other. At Digital Canvas, we have begun designing web sites that utilize the 960.gs method of developing some sites based on 12 and 16 column frameworks.

This has allowed us to rapidly deploy sites based on proven site structure code. The evolution of CSS standards allowed content to be separated from structure and design. The grid takes it one more step and makes design independent of structural code.

Though designing within a structural grid can be extremely limiting, it lets us focus on the aesthetic and conveyance of content in a usable and accessible manner. Grid based web design is both a blessing and a curse, it allows code to standardized, but may also lead to standardized designs and a "thinking inside the div" mentality. But like with any tool, knowing how and when to use it, is more important that applying a blanket approach.

Learn more about CSS from the following helpful sites:

• A List Apart
• Veerle's Blog
• Smashing Magazine

There are tons more, but these are the ones we refer to. BTW, CSS3 is coming soon. Stay tuned and happy CSSing!

Labels: css, grid based design, interactive, structural code, tricks of the trade, web design