Week 21 - It’s a girl!
Baby is the length of a banana! All her working parts are looking good - looks like we have a healthy baby girl on the way!
Baby gulps down several ounces of amniotic fluid every day, both for hydration and nutrition and to practice swallowing and digesting. And, these days, those taste buds actually work! Studies show that after birth, babies are most interested in tastes they’ve already experienced through amniotic fluid. Meaning, think about what you want your future child to eat as you prepare your own lunch. (thebump.com)
Video archive and documents from SoW09
Check out the UF Web Admin’s SoW09 page to see the archived video of the conference and other helpful files from the presenters.
Follow-up questions from SoW09
First question is about the use of header tags in the menu section of the page. Is it OK or does it mess with the hierarchy of the content?
For example, I was given a template which uses <h4> for the quick menu, but there is no other <h4> in my content, therefore everything below that level, is potentially irrelevant content to the <h4> level… Do you agree? Or is it OK if the content is relevant to another higher level header ? From Barbara, Department of Neurosurgery
Using the <h4> tag in your menu could potentially create problems with your site later on as you add more content and find a need to use the <h4> tag. A better practice for menu items is to use an unordered item list to create an SEO friendly menu. You can use your CSS to create a style specific to the menu so that it still “looks” like the inherent <h4> style.
Second question, what is your opinion about <dl>, definition list? I have read mixed reviews about whether search engines index these constructs and whether or not they are a useful construct from SEO point of view. From Barbara, Department of Neurosurgery
I do know that Google will give you a nice trust rank boost for using definition lists, but as to how it plays in with the overall ranking, I’m not entirely sure. It is certainly an under-used tag and as far as I’m concerned, if used properly, could give you an extra boost that other sites most likely will not have. You can use the <dl> tag not only to list terms and definitions, but can also use it with images and captions. Using it with images and captions will require working with the CSS to get the image and caption to display properly, but is a really cool way to use this tag.
Does it really matter whether hyphens are used instead of underscores as dividers when naming web pages with respect to SOE? Furthermore, do you agree with the answer here: http://www.prweaver.com/blog/2004/08/26/2-hyphen-and-underscore? From Micah, IFAS Agronomy / Agricultural Education and Communication
The article you included below agrees with most of what I have seen and read as well. Like I said in the SEO presentation, underscores are considered ‘old skool’ . In the programming word, underscores are seen as joining words, while hyphens as word separators. Google specifically treats hyphens as word separators.
Vanessa Fox, SEO guru and Webmaster Central creator for Google, recently addressed this in a podcast in March. One thing she says is that having hyphens is important for the user experience because they do a good job of visually separating words, which underscores are not often seen. It leaves user to wonder if there’s a space or an underscore because links get underscored. She talks about this in a podcast on March 6, 2009 which you can find on itunes – her channel is Office hours and the session is called Cannonical Tag Adoption. Her talk (and unofficial transcript) was referenced here as well: http://pixelposition.com/hyphens-underscores/.
Tweets from SoW09
If you were attending the Spring of Web 2009 conference on campus or virtually, you can follow the conversations via the #SoW09 tag on twitter.
I’ve received a couple follow-up questions about my presentation that I will be sharing here and with the UF web admin folks, so check back here soon!
Be a Buddhist – with SEO
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
–Buddhist quote
SEO Web Resources
Here are some helpful tools from my presentation at the SoW09.
SEO Jargon:
Web-based Card sort tools:
Know your search engines:
- Google: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291
- SEO for the big three: http://www.isedb.com/db/articles/1400/1/SEO-For-MSN/Page1.html
Manual submission sites for the big three
- Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/
- Yahoo: http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
- MSN: http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
Free keyword suggestion tool:
Keyword density analyzer
Week 20 - Halfway Mark!
Baby’s digestive system is busy creating meconium (a tarry black substance made of swallowed amniotic fluid, digestive secretion and dead cells), which will fill the first diaper after birth. And, speaking of the diaper situation… baby’s genitals are now fully formed!(thebump.com)
SoW topics!
See what our Spring of Web speakers will be discussing this Friday: http://tinyurl.com/cupvfx
Prentiss Ladkani from the College of Education
“Take a good, hard look at your site and let’s be brutally honest with each other. Are you using HTML tags correctly? Have you really sat down and gotten to know your content on a personal level? Have you even THOUGHT about the key words your users may be trying use to find your site? If you’re having trouble with people searching for your site, chances are, it’s not them, it’s you! Learn easy (and FREE) tips to getting better search rankings for your website.”
Carl Smith from The nGenWorks Company
“While much has been written on usability and user experience, very few address the problem from this perspective: What has been proven in conclusive testing and research to stop users in their tracks?
Smith reviews usability tips that hurt a user’s online experience based on two criteria: strength of evidence and relative importance to the user.
Afterall, if it’s important but you can’t prove it, or if you can prove it but it’s not important, who really cares?”
Joe Spooner from UF Web Administration
“The goal of my presentation is to help other webmasters to become fully aware of the bigger picture of web analytics. Lately, there’s been a lot of interest in Google Analytics as a tool to better inform webmasters of their web site usage. My presentation will focus on critically thinking about the usage of a site through quantitative and qualitative testing and analysis.”
Dave Stanton from the College of Journalism and Communications
“Usability is a term so simple in its definition but utterly complex in terms of application and measurement. We can and should leverage design to make interfaces both usable and enjoyable.
The human brain is great at assembling seemingly disparate pieces of visual information into a cohesive whole. Information structures are detected based on prior experiences and repetition. Knowledge is associated and stored. These processes happen quickly and recursively, but the brain has finite resources to multitask.
This talk will give you a primer on how the eyes serve as the gateway to the brain. The jargon will be kept at a minimum. Instead, the focus will be toward common examples to help you make better structural and design choices.”