Why Web Accessibility Matters

I would like to take a moment to thank Aaron for asking me to write for Solo Signal about Web accessibility and usability topics. In this article I would like to focus on accessible web design as it relates to good business practices. My next article will focus on the usability aspects of site design, and how it relates to businesses and individuals alike.

So, what exactly is Web Accessibility?

If you Google search “Web Accessibility” you will receive 217 million results in the search. That is a lot of information to look through to try to find the true meaning of accessible web design. You can pick through the results and find technical sites that relate to the W3C web standards, sites that offer guidance to web developers and site creators and even more results that attempt to make sense of what the true meaning of accessible web design really is.

Let’s take a look at an excerpt of the Wikipedia definition of “Web accessibility“:

Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality.

In other words, a site has to be correctly designed (usable) and developed (coded) so that all users, irregardless of ability or viewing medium, can have access to the information you are conveying and the functionality of the site. The key words here are information and functionality for all users.

Why Information is Important…

As a business owner that either has, or is looking to create a web site, your main goal is to relay information about your products or services in order to create, maintain and grow your business. You want to provide information about who you are and what you do in order to reach the most people with the least amount of effort, and cost possible. As an individual that is surfing the internet, you want to be able to quickly and easily locate the information that is important to you. Why waste the time thinking you have finally found those instructions on how to get rid of that blue screen of death, only to find that you are on a site that sells caskets?

Imagine this

If you own a traditional business store front, imagine turning away every fifth person that comes to the door to do business with you. There is no particular reason for turning them away, you don’t know them and can’t tell anything about the individual. Or, picture turning off all of your lights and painting your windows black, and then expecting your customers to find exactly what they came to your business to buy. What if you were to cram your whole warehouse of items into a small storefront that didn’t allow room for anyone to shop or move around? These scenarios aren’t going to be a positive experience for your customers. This is the type of experience that disabled users face everyday while online.

A person with a disability doesn’t have to have a severe disability in order to have problems surfing online. It could be an individual that has a vision problem and needs to make their font size larger than the default size. Can this be easily accomplished on your site? What about a person that has a developmental delay? Can they easily understand the information and content on your site, or are they confused by the terminology and extensive content that is overwhelming them? Users of your site that have dexterity issues, such as arthritis, might have a tough time using a mouse or the keyboard extensively to navigate your site. Another consideration is that a lot of internet users still are on dial-up connections. And let’s not forget about the new internet users that have their PDA or mobile device. This is a rapidly growing area that requires accessible web design and careful thought into your sites design.

About your business site

I won’t bore you with the details about how to create an accessible site, with examples of coding valid XHTML and CSS, but the basics come down to being able to still read the content (information) of any site just like it was a book. If all of the pictures, styles, colors and decorations on any site were to be turned off, would the content of the site still make sense? Would you be able to follow along with the stories and articles, or easily find your products that you came to buy? Is the navigation easy to follow and once you are on the page you are looking for, do you still know where you are? There are a few more reasons to have an accessible site.

• Reduced Bandwidth cost due to using web standards to separate content from presentation
• Ease of maintenance and scalability
• Improved Search Engine rankings
• Support for multiple browsers and devices
• Reduced legal liability

There are many other reasons for web accessibility. These are but a few of them. It all boils down to the original definition that we covered in the beginning of this article.

You want to be able to make your information available to the most users possible.

In my next article, I will discuss some of the functionality and usability issues that are encountered and how to ensure your site is easily navigated by all users. If you would like to learn more about accessible web design, feel free to contact me via my sites contact form.

Here are a few good resources also for you to check out:

• Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for your Organization - W3C
• Web Content Accessible Guidelines
• W3C Site Validator - Validate your site here
• Introduction to Accessible Site Design - Sitepoint.com article
• Google.com

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Web Stack Series Part 5: HTML and Markup

How do web developers create the layouts of web pages? How do they tell the browser to arrange images around the copy in just the right fashion? How do web browsers know that one paragraph of text should be italic, while the other should be bold? The secret sauce behind all this magic is a markup language known as HTML.

HyperText Markup Language, or HTML, is probably the most ubiquitous and well known language in the world of web development. It is the language that programmers use to describe a web page’s content and structure so that web browsers can display it correctly to the end user. Marking up a web page means wrapping all of the content in descriptive tags. These tags describe the content’s purpose and how it relates structurally to the rest of the web page.

HTML is used to create headings, paragraphs, tables, block quotes, and a lot more types of content. It is also used to insert images into a web page. Here are some examples of HTML:

• Headings: <h1>H1 defines a level 1 heading</h1>, <h2>H2 defines a level 2 heading</h2>
• Paragraphs: <p>The P tag marks a block of text as a paragraph</p>

HTML is usually created after the web site mock-up has been created by the graphic designer. After the mock-up is sliced up into the appropriate images, HTML is used to arrange those images around the content of your site. If you have a dynamic web site, the business logic programming will wrap the dynamic content with HTML so that it is displayed correctly in the browser.

Good vs Bad HTML

In the early days of the Web, HTML was used to add style to a web page. It could be used to make things bold and italic, big or small, and even colorful. Once the Web started to mature and gain popularity, a bunch of smart people decided that HTML was being used incorrectly and that standards should be created. Instead of defining the style of a web site, HTML should have been defining the structure. This approach to marking up a web site according to its function rather than its form is called using semantic HTML, or marking up the content to reflect only the author’s intentional meaning. Styling the content is something that should be left up to style sheets, which we will talk about in more detail in the next installment of this series.

Good HTML is the single best ingredient for good SEO. By using semantic HTML to describe the structure of your web site’s content, you make it easier for search engine robots to parse through your site. For example, using the appropriate level of heading to segment content based on importance will help the bots know what information is most important and which information it can ignore.

Traditional HTML did not enforce much discipline on programmers. If the HTML was slightly wrong or incomplete, most web browsers would automatically correct the problem. XHTML is a more recent version of HTML that specifically adheres to the strict standards set forth by XML. This version forces programmers to be disciplined in their syntax. By requiring strict syntax, web pages are more consistent and better prepared to be consumed by applications other than web browsers. For example, if a web site’s content is marked up semantically with XHTML, it can be consumed by feed readers, mobile devices, desktop software, and many other software environments.

There are several different versions of HTML, I recommend that you require your site to be marked up with XHTML 1.0 Strict; your developer should know what this means - if they don’t, find a new developer. the W3C provides specifications for all versions and even makes available a handy validation tool to ensure that your site adheres to the rules of your chosen HTML version. When you are working with a developer, make it a requirement that all pages pass W3C validation.

Browser Wars

Unfortunately, the browser wars that continue to rage on have left many battle scars along the way. As a result, none of the current web browsers render and display HTML in exactly the same way, creating huge headaches for developers. For example, a level 2 heading in Microsoft Internet Explorer may be displayed in 14pt font while the same heading in Mozilla Firefox may be displayed using 12pt font. This is another area where style sheets come into play - they help normalize differences between browsers so that web sites look consistent regardless of the browser in which they are rendered.

Additionally, in an attempt to out do one another, some browsers have included support for proprietary HTML tags. If your web site uses a proprietary tag that is only available in one browser, the site may break or be displayed incorrectly in other browsers. It is best to just stick with plain vanilla HTML as defined by the W3C to ensure maximum cross-browser compatibility.

Educate Yourself!

HTML is a very easy language to learn and understand. I recommend picking up a basic HTML book (for example: Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to HTML, Graphics, and Beyond) or reading through some online tutorials so that you have a good understanding of how HTML works and what its capabilities are. This will further arm you when discussing your site with designers and programmers. Additionally, a good knowledge of HTML will give you a greater appreciation of the planning and work that goes into creating a good, quality web site.

In the next part of this series, we will be discussing Cascading Style Sheets. Style sheets are the icing on the HTML cake - they add style and glamour to your semantically marked-up web site. Check back soon!

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How Much Should Web Site Design, Development, and Hosting Cost?

What’s the easiest way to create awkwardness, spite, and frustration between clients and web site developers? Bring up the price of the project and you will instantly create a volatile situation. In most interactions between clients and web site designers/developers, expectations of project costs are drastically different. So how much should a web site really cost? The answer is more involved than most people assume.

This is a long article, so for those who want a quick answer, here you go: For an interactive web site with custom design and quality coding, I would expect to pay somewhere in the range of $2,000 to $15,000. If you are paying less, you are probably getting an off-the-shelf CMS with a generic design template. Chris Pearson sheds some more light on graphic design pricing: How Much Should a Design Cost?

For more complex sites or online applications, expect to pay $20,000+.

… And Knowing is Half the Battle

As a consumer of web site development services it is important that you take some steps to educate yourself about the process. An informed consumer is knowledgeable about what he or she wants to buy and does research on options, availability, and market prices. These are the basic elements of an average web site project:

• Hosting
• Database Design
• Business Logic Programming
• Markup, Styling, and Graphic Design
• Standards-compliance, Accessibility, and Testing
• Ongoing Maintenance

Make sure that you have at least a high level understanding of each before working with a developer. Reading the articles here at Solo Signal is a good place to start. In addition, I would recommend picking up a copy of Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow That Works by Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler. This book has an emphasis on redesigning existing sites, but the concepts discussed are the same for new web sites.

Placing Value on Time and Knowledge

Behind every web site is a programmer and a designer. The knowledge that these individuals possess and the time they put into every project is often overlooked and not considered when pricing a project. Sarah Lewis of Blogging Expertise explains this value nicely in A Frank Discussion About Pricing:

• Details. Professional designers and firms pay particular attention to the details that will make or break your site.
• Time. Most people who end up using a professional designer or firm understand that their time is worth something, and that spending your time on your core business is one of the best places you can invest your time. Working with web professionals allows you to tap into our experience and knowledge and save hundreds of hours.
• Experience. A professional designer or design firm isn’t just selling you hours on a project; we’re selling you years of experience in the sometimes-overwhelming world of the Internet.
• Knowledge. When you hire a professional designer or firm, you are also getting access to a wealth of information that we’ve gathered and are happy to share.

Keep in mind that you are not just paying for the developer’s time, you are paying for the knowledge and insight they have acquired over many years of experience. Here is a story to illustrate this point:

Once upon a time there was a steam generating plant that was not producing much steam. After a frustrating search for the cause, the plant manager, in desperation, called in an expert. After only two hours on site, the expert found the problem and placed “X’s” on two pipes that were causing the problem, saying that they had to be removed.

 

When presented with the bill, the plant manager asked the consultant how he could charge $5,000.00 for only two hours of work. When he asked for an itemized bill, this is what he got:

 

1. $400.00 - Placing “X’s” on two pipes

2. $4,600.00 - Knowing where to place the “X’s”

 

The plant manager got what he paid for and probably a lot more. He had already used up more than that amount on his own staff not to mention the loss in revenue while the plant was shut down. For him, securing the advisory services of a consultant was the right thing to do.

The same is true for a web site designer or developer. You may feel you are paying way too much for the actual time spent, but in reality you are paying for knowledge, not just time.

Paying for Quality

As with most things, it comes down to this: You get what you pay for. If you want a successful website that is attractive, standards-based, accessible, search engine optimized, stable, and fast, then take the time to find a good developer/designer and be prepared to pay them what they are worth. You will not regret the purchase.

Sure your computer geek nephew knows HTML and could build a web site for just $100. He also knows how to use a screwdriver. Does this mean he could build a safe, reliable, and fuel-efficient car for you? Probably not, so why take the same risk with your web site, a potentially large value-center for your company?

A good way to gauge what you can afford is to ask designers and developers for their prices and rates. Ask for examples of past projects and how much was charged for each. This will give you an idea of what you can expect to pay. If you can’t afford what you originally had in mind, consider scaling back the project and breaking it into smaller chunks that can be completed when you have the budget.

Find Someone You Truly WANT to Work With

Don’t try to wrangle a bunch of individuals and firms into a bidding war, for two reasons. First, you are basically saying that you don’t care who develops your site, as long as it is cheap. If this is the case, you might as well just call up your nephew. Second, this just makes the winning developer bitter because he or she had to bid beneath their real costs to land the project. Now you have an angry developer who is under-paid and trying to minimize the damage by finishing as quickly as possible. Does this sound like a good situation for you and your web site? I don’t think so either.

Let me illustrate my point: A few weeks ago I decided that a new look was in order for my personal site (Aaron Forgue). The first step I wanted to take was to have a logo created. I knew that I wanted to work with James Mathias, an excellent designer who has done some amazing work. I asked James for information regarding pricing and quickly discovered that I couldn’t afford him. Instead of trying to find a cheaper designer, I made the decision to wait until I could afford him. James is the person I want to work with, and I am not going to sacrifice the quality of my site just to save a buck or two.

Interestingly, James wrote an outstanding article related to this very topic: Respect.

A Quick Overview of Hosting and Other Costs

Hosting is a topic that I will write about in more detail later on, but for the purposes of this article, it is important that you factor in recurring fees. There are basically three recurring web site fees: domain Registration, site hosting, and on-going site maintenance.

• Domain Registration - Domain registration is simple, I recommend purchasing your domain for as many years as possible (e.g. 10 years.). I buy domains through GoDaddy, you can usually get a discount there by using the coupon code “diggnation“.
• Web Hosting - There are several different levels of hosting, but to give you a ball park estimation, I would expect to pay anywhere between $15 - $500/month for hosting. Obviously this is another example of getting what you pay for. At $15/month you will be sharing server space with a bunch of other websites. At $500/month you will most likely have your own dedicated machine that is managed by an experienced server administrator.
• On-going Site Maintenance - Site maintenance is typically billed at an hourly rate. For freelance developers this is usually between $40-$100/hour. For emergency, 24/7 maintenance, be prepared to pay $200+/hour.

The bottom line: educate yourself. Not nearly enough businesses understand the value of a well-designed website and suffer because of this ignorance. More and more people are using the Internet to research and purchase goods and services. If your online presence is lacking, you will miss out on a lot of potential business.

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72 Essential Acronyms Related to Web Site Development

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Acronyms are a tradition in the tech world. To the untrained eye, they can be confusing and intimidating. To help clear some of the letter-fog, we’ve listed 72 common web site development acronyms with their definitions. Bookmark this page if you are getting ready to start a web site project - you are sure to have some of these letters flung your way.

Markup and Styling

1. CSS: Cascading Style Sheets — CSS is a stylesheet language used to define how a web page written HTML or XHTML should be presented and displayed in a web browser.
2. DHTML: Dynamic HyperText Markup Language — DHTML is the term used when HTML, JavaScript and CSS are used to create animated or interactive web sites.
3. HTML: HyperText Markup Language — HTML is a tag-based markup language used to create web pages. Every site on the internet uses HTML in some form.
4. WML: Wireless Markup Language — WML is an XML-based markup language for content accessed through a wireless mobile device. Similar to HTML.
5. XHTML: Extensible HyperText Markup Language — XHTML is a special type of HTML that conforms to the strict rules of XML. This allows for cleaner code and code that can be understood by a wider array of software.
6. XML: Extensible Markup Language — XML is a general purpose markup language for describing data in a structured manner.

Business Logic Programming

1. ASP (Microsoft): Active Server Pages — ASP is a server-side scripting language used to add business logic and database interactivity to dynamic websites.
2. CGI: Common Gateway Interface — CGI is a protocol that allows server applications to interact with client web browsers.
3. JSP: JavaServer Pages — JSP is a server-side scripting language used to add business logic and database interactivity to dynamic websites.
4. PHP: PHP Hypertext Preprocessor/Personal Home Page — PHP is a server-side scripting language used to add business logic and database interactivity to dynamic websites.
5. RoR: Ruby on Rails — RoR is a web application framework based on the Ruby scripting language. It has been used by several popular Web 2.0 web sites.
6. SSI: Server Side Includes — SSI is a server-side scripting language used primarily to include the contents of one file in another.

Web Services

1. ASP: Application Service Provider — An ASP is any business that provides online, Internet-delivered applications to customers.
2. AWS: Amazon Web Services — AWS are a collection of remote application services offered by Amazon.com.
3. RSS: Really Simple Syndication — RSS is an XML specification for publishing frequently updated web content to subscribers. RSS is the secret sauce behind blogging.
4. S3: Amazon Simple Storage Service — Amazon S3 is a storage solution that offers unlimited data stored for a small fee through a simple web service interface.
5. YUI: Yahoo! User Interface — The YUI library is an open-source JavaScript library for building rich interactive web applications.

Databases

1. CRUD: Create, Read, Update and Delete — CRUD are the four basic functions of any persistent storage system, most commonly a database system.
2. DBMS: Database Management System — A DB is a structured collection of data organized to allow for easy retrieval by computer programs using SQL.
3. SQL: Structured Query Language — SQL is a special programming language used to retrieve data from and modify relational database systems.

Servers and Hosting

1. CRON: Command Run ON — CRON is a scheduling program on most Unix system. It is used to schedule time-sensitive activities for software programs to perform.
2. IIS: Internet Information Services — IIS is a set of internet-based services for servers running Microsoft Windows.
3. VPS: Virtual Private Server — A VPS is a partition of a physical server that has the ability to run a separate operating system and reboot itself independently of other VPSs on the same physical server.

Protocols

1. FTP: File Transfer Protocol — FTP is a commonly used protocol for transferring files from one computer to another over a network.
2. HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol — HTTP is a communications protocol used for transferring data available on the Web.
3. HTTPS: Secure HypterText Transfer Protocol — HTTPS is a variation of HTTP used to specify that the data being transferred is/should be encrypted and secure.
4. SSH: Secure Shell — SSH is a network protocol that allows data to be exchanged over a secure channel between two computers.
5. SSL: Secure Sockets Layer — SSL is a cryptographic protocol used for encrypting sensitive data while being sent through the Internet.
6. WAP: Wireless Application Protocol — WAP is an international standard for accessing Internet content on a wireless mobile device.

Standards and Accessibility

1. 508: Section 508 — Section 508 is an amendment to the Rehabilitation act of 1973 that requires federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. It is commonly used as a standard for accessible web sites.
2. W3C: World Wide Web Consortium — The W3C is the international standards organization for the Web.
3. WAI: Web Accessibility Initiative — The WAI is an initiative enacted by the W3C for improving the accessibility of web pages for people using software other than web browsers (e.g. screen readers).
4. WCAG: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines — WCAG is a series of web accessibility guidelines published by the WAI.

Client-Side Scripting

1. AJAX: Asynchronous JavaScript And XML — AJAX is a web programming technique that uses JavaScript to transparently interact with a web server, eliminating the need to reload a web page to see changes.
2. DOM: Document Object Model — DOM is a standard object model for representing HTML and XML formats as objects.
3. JS/ECMAScript: JavaScript — JavaScript is a scripting language used for client-side (web browser) web development.

Development

1. CRAP: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity — CRAP is a design methodology applied to the design and layout of web pages.
2. CVS: Concurrent Versions System — CVS is a version control system that allows several developers to collaboratively work on a single set of code.
3. GUI: Graphical User Interface — A GUI is a computer interface that allows users to interact with the computer through graphical icons and windows, typically with the aid of a mouse.
4. SVN: Subversion — SVN is a version control system that allows several developers to collaboratively work on a single set of code.
5. WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get — WYSIWYG is used to describe web development applications in which the authoring environment closely resembles the final output of the program.

Graphics and Images

1. CMYK: Cyan Magenta Yellow Key — RGB is a subtractive color model used by computers to display various colors by subtracting different levels of cyan, magenta, and yellow.
2. FLA: Flash Authoring File — FLA files are the primary authoring output files of Adobe Flash
3. GIF: Graphics Interchange Format — GIF is a popular graphics format most commonly used for graphics in web sites.
4. JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group — JPEG is an image compression codec commonly used to encode pictures for the Web.
5. PNG: Portable Network Graphics — PNG is an image format that was developed to replace the aging GIF image format for web sites.
6. PSD: PhotoShop Document — PSD files are the primary authoring output files of Adobe Photoshop.
7. RGB: Red Green Blue — RGB is an additive color model used by computers to display various colors by combining different levels of red, green, or blue.
8. SVG: Scalable Vector Graphics — SVG is an XML markup language used to describe two dimensional vector graphics.
9. SWF: Small Web Format/ShockWave Flash — SWF is a proprietary vector graphics format used to create animations on web sites.

E-commerce

1. AVS: Address Verification System — AVS is a method of verifying the identity of a person using a credit card to make a purchase online.
2. CSC/CVV: Card Security Code/Card Verification Value — CSC is a security feature available on most major credit cards that is used to prevent credit card fraud.
3. MID: Merchant ID — A MID is a unique identifier assigned to companies selling goods and used for billing purposes.
4. FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions — FAQ lists are a common support mechanism on many web sites that provides answers to questions that are commonly asked of the company.

Search Engine Optimization

1. CPC: Cost Per Click — CPC is the amount an advertiser pays every time a user clicks on one of their advertisements in a PPC campaign.
2. CPM: Cost Per 1000 Impressions — CPM is the amount an advertiser pays for every 1000 (or, roman numeral “M”) users who view their advertisement on a web page.
3. CTR: Click Through Rate/Ratio — CTR is a measure of the amount of users who click an advertisement as compared to the number of users who see the advertisement.
4. PPC: Pay Per Click — PPC is an advertising model used on the Web in which advertisers only pay when a user actually click their advertisement.
5. PR: PageRank — PageRank is an algorithm used to measure the value of a particular document relative to other documents in the same set. Commonly used by search engines to rank web site popularity.
6. SEO: Search Engine Optimization — SEO is the process of tweaking web sites so that they are more likely to be indexed higher in search engine results.
7. SERP: Search Engine Results Page — SERP is the listing of web pages returned by a search engine in response to a user search

Security

1. XSS: Cross-Site Scripting — XSS is a common web page security vulnerability where an attacker rigs a site they do not own to run malicious code.
2. CSRF: Cross-Site Request Forgery — CSRF is a common web page security vulnerability where an attacker poses as an authenticated user to execute actions.

Addressing

1. CNAME: Canonical Name — A CNAME is an alias of one hostname to another.
2. DNS: Domain Name System — DNS servers as the phone book of the Internet. It translates human-readable hostnames such as solosignal.com into numeric IP addresses used by networking equipment.
3. DTD: Document Type Definition — DTD is a document used to describe and specify the structure and organization of an XML document.
4. ICANN: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — ICANN is a non-profit organization formed to oversee the management of domain names and IP addresses.
5. IP: Internet Protocol — IP is a protocol for transferring data across a packet-switched network.
6. SLD: Second-Level Domain — SLD is a domain directly below the TLD. For example. In “solosignal.com”, “solosignal” is the SLD and “.com” is the TLD.
7. TLD: Top-Level Domain — TLD is the last part of any Internet domain name. For example: .com, .net, and .org are all TLDs.
8. URL: Uniform Resource Locator — URLs are the addresses used to request files through the Web.
9. WWW: World Wide Web — The WWW is the network of interlinked hypertext documents available through the Internet.

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Effective Web Sites: 5 Things That Should Be On Every Web Site

As the Web has matured, web site design patterns and best practices have emerged. Consequently, there are five essential elements of any successful web site. Implementing them on your website may mean the difference between success and failure.

1. There’s No Place Like Home — The Home Link

Not since The Wizard of Oz and the ruby slippers has teleporting back home been such a useful talent. The ability to jump back to the front page of a website is something that every web surfer appreciates. The Home link is something that has been around since the early days of the Web and it is still just as useful today. It is an unwritten rule that the main logo on your website should always be linked back to the main page of your site. Additionally, placing a home link on every page of your website is essential; here’s why:

• The Hansel and Gretel effect
  Visitors like having a way to backtrack their surfing. Breadcrumb navigation is the best way to provide this, but the Home link is the easiest and most effective alternative.
• Search Engine Optimization
  Here is an SEO tip: Use the title of your site as the anchor text for your home link (instead of the word “Home”). This will help search engine crawlers associate the title of your site with the URL.
• Coming in the Side Door
  With the widespread use of search engines , it is likely that visitors are entering your site on pages other than the front page. A well placed Home link provides these visitors with a way to the front of your site.

2. Let Me Show You What It’s All About! — The About Page

Jackson 5 knew what it was all about, and so should your visitors. There is nothing worse than leaving a visitor on their own to figure out what a company does. Don’t be shy, take pride in your website and what you provide. Create a page and title it “About” or “About Us”. Use this page to explain what you do, what this website is for, and who you are. Be upfront about it and your visitors will appreciate your respect for their time. Here are some tips for a good “About” page:

• Explain Every Aspect
  Tell your visitors about your company, your people, your philosophies and your website. Don’t use this area to try to sell your products or services, save that for other areas of the site. The About page is about the company and people behind the products.
• Get Personal
  Use the About page to give a brief biography of all the key players in the company. To add credibility and a personal touch, include pictures of all the key people so that visitors can associate faces with names.
• Branch Out to the Front Page
  It is also a good idea to include a very short (about one or two sentences) description of your company on the front page. This can usually be accomplished in the form of a tagline or a unique selling proposition. One of the best examples I’ve seen is on Amy Bass’s blog, My Debt Free Goal. Right under the title she tells everyone what the site is about:

  My goal to pay off $72,900 of debt in two years through a lot of hard work and sacrifice. I want to show others that it is possible, you can be debt free if you set your mind to it.

3. 3-2-1 Contact — The Contact Page

My wife used to watch 3-2-1 Contact as a kid. Why you would care, I have no idea. The Contact page on a website is a no-brainer. Unless you don’t want to talk to potential clients, there needs to be a page dedicated to communicating with you and your company. Most sites have a Contact page, but rarely do I find a site that puts enough information on it, especially business websites. Here are the essentials for a company’s Contact page:

• Email Address
  Put the email address of a specific person on your contact page. This gives visitors the comfort of knowing that they can contact a human being directly. Be careful, though, when posting an email address online; make sure you run it through an encoder so that it is not harvested by spambots.
• Contact Form
  A contact form is nice because it lets people submit a more formal request for information. Bonus if you provide visitors with a selection of departments to which to route their request.
• Physical Address
  A lot of Contact pages neglect this. Make sure you list your physical mailing address and all applicable telephone numbers. You never know who might want to send you something via snail mail. Additionally, this helps current customers find out where to send cash and checks — and nobody wants to miss out on that!

4. You Gotta Get Yourself Connected — The Subscribe Page

Stereo MCs knew what they were talking about. Web surfers want to connect to the sites they like and be instantly updated when new content is available. Sites that do not provide an RSS feed or a means of subscribing via email are in danger of being viewed as stale and out-dated. Giving visitors the ability to subscribe to your site guarantees return visits. Create a page that lists all of the ways that a visitor can subscribe to your site:

• Blog
  You’re not blogging yet? Better get to it, this probably deserves an article in itself.
• Newsletter
  A newsletter is a great way to keep visitors up to date on new products, services and promotions. This also plays into the theory of Permission Marketing, suggested by Seth Godin. When users subscribe to your newsletter or blog they are giving you permission to send more information. This is as quality of a lead as you can find.
• Calendar of Events
  If your company holds public events, give your visitors a way to be updated when these events are near. Not only will this get people to come back to your website, but it will also increase the attendance at your events.

5. Tree Fiddy — The Pricing Page

At least the Lochness Monster gave his prices right up front. Nothing upsets me more than a web site that makes me do work to find out prices and rates. “Fill out this three page form to get a quote.” This is like a giant sign that says, “We don’t want your business, go away.” I understand that some companies will have pricing models that vary based on the customer and the type of work to be done, but that shouldn’t discourage you from at least giving your visitors a rough estimation. This can also serve as a filtering mechanism in the event that someone is looking to spend way less than you are charging. Here are some strategies for listing your prices:

• Tangible Products
  List the prices straight up. This is easy and smart to do.
• Time-based Services
  List your rates and possibly give some examples of the average time it takes to finish common projects.
• Custom Pricing
  Provide case studies of some projects you have completed in the past and list how much the client was charged (make sure to get permission from the client first). This will give potential clients samples of what they can expect to pay for a similar project.

Adding these five elements to your web site will ensure that visitors have everything they need to make an informed decision about your company. This means more visits to your site and increased sales — so get to work!

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SEO Tip: Please Don’t Click Here

As the waitress mindlessly points in the general direction of the restrooms, the tension on the walls of your bladder increases. You bob and weave through the tables and make an awkward lunge towards a corner of the building with two doors. You think you are home free except that both doors sport the same sign: “Enter here.” Which is the men’s? Which is the women’s? You’ll never know, and neither will any of your site visitors when presented with similarly useless text, “click here“. Go ahead and click it, I dare you…

Just as bad as your visitors being left in the dark, search engines will also have a difficult time with ambiguous links such as these. Anchor text is the text used in a hyperlink and is used by search engines to associate keywords with the link. Take this link for example: “The Web Stack Explained“. In this link the anchor text is “The Web Stack Explained”.

Using non-descriptive anchor text in links on your web pages is bad for several reasons:

1. Visitors will have a difficult time determining the purpose of the link. They will not know whether or not the link is of value to them or not. In these situations users don’t bother clicking, and that’s bad news for you.
2. Search engines will associate these non-descriptive, irrelevant words as keywords for the link. This means that when people search for keywords you are hoping to capture, they will not see your link.
3. There is no cross-site SEO benefit. If you are linking to a friend’s website, or if they are linking to you, there will be no SEO benefit, again because the keywords associated with the link/site are irrelevant.

Let’s use an example to illustrate this point. Imagine you own a health club and that you have a unique group fitness class that integrates racquetball into the workout. After creating a page on your website that describes the class and highlights its features, you add a link to your blog that looks something like this:

“Click here to get more information on our newest group fitness class“

When search engine bots crawl your blog page, they will examine all of the links and add them to the search engine index. The bot assumes that the anchor text should be used as the keywords for those links. In our example, the bot will use the words “Click” and “here” as the keywords for your racquetball fitness class page. Whoops, that’s not good…

For better search engine optimization and usability, let’s rearrange our example:

“Looking for a fun way to get fit and learn a new sport? Check out our new Racquetball Fitness Class!“

What we’ve done here is linked to our Racquetball Fitness Class twice: once with the anchor text “get fit and learn a new sport” and once with the anchor text “Racquetball Fitness Class”. Our friendly search engine bots will now associate these important keywords with the page: “fit”, “learn”, “sport”, “Racquetball”, “Fitness”, and “Class”. When a person searches for any combination of these terms, you will drastically increase the probability of your page showing high in the results! In addition, this helps our users to understand exactly where they are going when they click the link.

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Solo Signal Series: The Web Stack Explained

Websites, at their core, are very simple things: a single file of plain text and markup that tells the user’s browser what to display. Sometimes there are hyperlinks, images and forms included on those pages, but that is typically as complex as the majority of websites ever get. So why does it cost so much to have a quality website developed? What takes place behind the curtains of a website?

As a visitor to a web page, you only see the final output of a series of tasks that must be completed to generate that page. I refer to the components that are responsible for executing these tasks as the Web Stack. The web stack contains approximately 8 levels, each essential for storing, generating and delivering any standard web page to the end user. Over the next two weeks we will go into detail on each of these pieces of the stack and explain how they relate to the overall web development process.

At the end of this series you will have an understanding of all the back-end processes involved in delivering web content to your users. I will also provide a graphic that visually represents the stack and shows exactly how all the pieces link to each other. This knowledge will be invaluable for you as you take on the task of architecting your own website (whether your build it yourself or outsource the work).

The Web Stack

1. Physical Server and Infrastructure
2. Webserver Software
3. Database Management System
4. Business Logic Programming
5. HTML and Markup
6. Cascading Style Sheets
7. Graphic Design
8. Client-side Scripting

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Demystifying the Web Development Process for Business-Minded People

Welcome to Solo Signal! This website is for anyone looking to gain a better understanding of the website development process and the Web in general.

The web offers countless opportunities for anyone who is willing to learn how to use it properly. Too often, however, many non-technical people are easily overwhelmed by the amount of information involved in this task. Solo Signal helps people overcome these issues by breaking down the web development process into easily consumed articles. We hope to provide business-minded individuals with the information, tools and understanding needed to successfully leverage the Web for their benefit.

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