Semantic HTML

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!

Popularity: 36% [?]

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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photo credit: Kofoed

Flash can be used as effective eye-candy for your designs. I know that there are many issues regarding the use of flash components and semantic, web standards based, designs - but I also know of the great many ways to use flash effectively.

From CSS FiR techniques (using CSS as the means of “Flash/Image Replacements”), to using flash movies strictly as eye-candy - flash components, used properly, can be done without any issues.

I especially like the video loops (raster based animation) from FlashLoaded.com, which are great in creating special effects or for sophisticated logo area movies on your web site.

Again, using flash responsibly (taking accessibility into account) can be done.

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photo credit: LiveU4
Again, I must say that your sites will benefit from using standards compliant coding. Anyone who says different is most likely an internet marketer who loves to make money off of spam

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I have been dealing with designers who just don’t care about web standards. Their clients don’t care either…do you?

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photo credit: roney

And you thought you enjoyed your privacy, read what they have to say about your ISP and your browsing habits:

Last July, a research team from the University of Washington released an online tool to analyze whether web pages were being altered during the transit from web server to user. On Wednesday, the team released a paper at the Usenix conference analyzing the data collected from the tool. The found, unsurprisingly, that ISPs were indeed injecting ads into web pages viewed by a small number of users. The paper is available at the Usenix site. From PCWorld: “To get their data, the team wrote software that would test whether or not someone visiting a test page on the University of Washington’s Web site was viewing HTML that had been altered in transit. In 16 instances ads were injected into the Web page by the visitor’s Internet Service provider. The service providers named by the researchers are generally small ISPs such as RedMoon, Mesa Networks and MetroFi, but the paper also named one of the largest ISPs in the U.S., XO Communications, as an ad injector.”

So you see, you are being watched…

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Email Marketing can either be one of those marketing blessings or marketing nightmares. I remember when I began to contemplate starting a campaign to reach opt-in members to one of my websites, I searched the internet for the right Email marketing services to use.

photo credit: Mzelle Biscotte
And let me tell you, finding a company on the internet that offers these types of services to your clients and perspective opt-in members is not as easy as it first seems to be. Yes, you can find any old company that will send mass emails to a list, but how many of those fly-by-nights are flagged as spammers? Many of them, let me tell you.

And so while there very many website companies that offer email marketing, I have found a great service that offers both online marketing software and services that are affordable and reliable. And with two different plans to select from, they offer you a great way to ease into your campaign, or jump in head first.

Their first plan, the Campaigner, offers these services:

• Ability to create and send daily emails, weekly emails, or even monthly emails to your subscriber opt-ins.
• Personalize email templates that utilize customized tags for: “message greeting, the header, the body, the subject and from fields.
• CAN-SPAM compliant service.

The second of their services, the CampaignerPro, has these great services offered:

• True personalization and integration of email marketing - and that automatically run.
• Highly targeted and personal content utilizing these features: gender and geographic areas, and more attribute-based information.
• Automated scheduling of sending out the email messages based on certain contact information, dates, previous campaigns, and/or automated imported information from database systems.

You can check out their site for specific pricing, but as a whole, their online marketing software & tracking solutions for your email marketing is one of the best services you can receive.

Popularity: 24% [?]

If you are like me, you want to consolidate all of your web services into just one company.  I mean, just finding a great web design company you like is one thing, but to find one that offers professional quality web development and design services can be a daunting task.

Well, since you - my technologically advanced audience - is interested in finding great sources for your online marketing, let me tell you that I’ve found the Seattle website design team from VisualScope.com to fit that bill.

Check out their site and services, and I know you’ll be a client of theirs soon. Please comment on this post once you are a client of theirs, to let us all know your experience with them.

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A short rant…

I really love accessible, semantically correct markup. It is a beautiful language. But then you have the camp of web designers who code using the Ebonics of the web markup languages - those who are unappreciative of semantically correct (X)HTML.

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If you are like me, you are always searching for avenues of marketing your websites and businesses. There is a great way to both offer relevant content to your readers, and promote your niche market blogs and websites - that you are targeting towards your traffic. It’s called a wiki. And while social networking sites are one of the key ways to offer yourself to others - there seems to be a key ingredient missing… and that key is authority. What social networks cannot do is give you authority - but a wiki can do just that.

As you may have known, wiki’s are being offered for a vast field of niches - and wiki’s have the reputation of being an authority site for a topic. So it goes to tell you that for your internet marketing plans, you should seriously consider starting your own wiki to offer your target audience. Just think of your new wiki as an “about us” page on steroids! Not only can you describe your website or business on it, but you can also leverage the power of authority one brings you by means of offering great examples of your product, service, or promotion.

So where does a web master or a web site owner go to get the wiki software to being this marketing optimization? You can find very few online services that offer wiki creation, and most of them will be at a substantial cost to you. And I’ve found a great one that does exactly what we would expect from a wiki creation service. And even better than that is the fact that Wetpaint offers a totally free wiki service online that will allow you to upload your new unique wiki. And compared to most software setups that are very confusing, the setup Wetpaint offers is so very simply, you can do it in just 3 very simple procedures. Their wiki service contains most of the same features you can find on today’s social networking sites, but with the added bonus of bringing your niche product or website the authority that a wiki provides.

And with the combined use of Qwika, which is an online wiki search engine, your new wiki can be found by your target audience in a very short amount of time. So by promoting your own wiki and Qwika as well, you get the best of both worlds. Qwika has been created to search specifically in wikis exclusively, which means your traffic from them will be very relevant.

Popularity: 24% [?]