Semantic HTML

photo credit: miss_rogue

I have been thinking of monetizing this website (other than the current forms of NON-Google ad marketing) with YPN! (Yahoo Publisher Network) ads, or Bitvertizer, or dare I say it…Google Adsense.

But with that, comes the next though in the process – where to place the ads. Now, I know as an internet marketer, that the best places are above the fold and within (or just before) content. But that, to me, takes away of the look/feel of this site. So what to do? Make more money, or simply give readers a “better” experience? I’ll try a middle ground, and see how it goes.

Popularity: 38% [?]

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photo credit: supersy

I remember when I first “viewed the source” in my Netscape browser for a website. I totally fell in love with the blink tag! But then, I realized that MicroSoft had its own proprietary markup, and specifically, the “marquee” tag – and that was it! I became the 90′s version of a code monkey gone wild. Well, web design has come along way since the 1990′s, and so has my coding abilities. I am now all about semantically correct, (X)HTML valid markup. And in fact, many designers now are listening to our Standards-based community as we evangelize web standards in a world filled with web site markup ridden with table-based layouts, and font tag usage. I have even seen that blink tag used earlier this week during my internet travels. I didn’t have the stomach to view the source on a site that (oh no!) was using what seemed to be that old marquee tag!

photo credit: psd
Fast forwarding back to the present, I wanted to open up a discussion here on one of the hottest topics today – designing a blog. One that will be very eye-candy appealing as well as structurally semantic and valid. As we know, WordPress has so many themes available from its community of coders. I personally use theme templates that I find for many of my WordPress blogs that are available – but only those who’s (X)HTML markup will validate and is semantically correct. And that only from trusted (read: authoritative) web sites. And with the great WordPress theme authors working today, I have actually found that the majority of (X)HTML markup used is very semantic and valid per the W3C specs. The only issue I have found (and can live with) is certain plugins are not valid, and will cause an entire page to fail automatic testing.

So if you are interested in blog and design semantics, please get your comment groove on, and begin to comment here. Let’s get this discussion going!

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One of the many things I do throughout my day is I read the trades. I especially look for sites that offer a web design blog that will provide tips and tricks, as well as relevant industry news that I can learn from, and comment on. This way, I can participate in the web design community as well as share knowledge.

One cool web site that I have found offers a design blog as well as custom web design services. And that’s really cool, as you can read their blogging about design ideas that have been their success stories, as well as read the blog entries about the design flops that do happen on occasion (Believe me, I know about flops!).

The site is Stylish Blog – Blogging about web design, money and life. What I like about their own web site’s design is the fact that they are “real designers”, who are not coding semantically correct, w3c valid markup for the sake of the markup, but are using standards compliant code as it pertains to the real world. And that in itself makes them “real” to me. I have come across many sites that are nice to look at, but there is no substance behind them…

• There is substance behind the Stylish Blog

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