6 more ways to determine your web guy is a tool
There are so many things to be aware of when designing and structuring your website. Also, there is much that you need to know as a website owner to make sure your web presence is being handled properly by yourself or your web guy. Inasmuch, I wrote an article a while back about 7 things that are very important for any website here: http://www.ternstyle.us/blog/7-ways-to-determine-your-web-guy-is-a-tool. The list continues so here goes with 6 more ways.
1. No Index/No Follow (or lack of Index/Follow)
Search engines will eventually find your website (hopefully sooner than later and with frequency). Once a search engine has found your website it needs to be instructed what to do. Many web developers overlook this. In fact, in many of my old projects I did. It’s a common mistake to not properly set up your web pages’ meta tags. If you wish for your website to be indexed and you wish for every page of your website to be indexed make sure your web guy didn’t somehow leave a meta tag in the head of your web pages instructing search engines to not index and not follow your pages. If it’s there remove it. Replace it with an index and follow command.
How do I know if my web pages are set to be indexed or followed?
- Go to your homepage in the browser of your choice
- Right click on your page or go to your “View” menu at the top of your browser window or tool bar.
- Select the option “Source”, “View Source” or “View Page Source”
- Now you’re looking at a bunch of code you may not understand.
- We’re looking for the meta tags which will fall between the head tags that look like this:
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow" />
- If you don’t see this line in the head of your web pages your web guy is a tool. Furthermore, if you see this meta tag…
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow" />
… fire him.
That was a bit harsh. Maybe don’t fire him (we all make mistakes). Gently ask him to set the meta tag to index/follow.
2. No homepage content
Your homepage is your landing page and your most important page of your site. It’s a page that should be visually pleasing and intuitive for your viewers. This usually means keep the text to a minimum. However, in terms of the weight of your pages, your homepage is probably your most respected page. It should be rich with keyword heavy text. Add text to your homepage but break it up with images. Maybe throw in a slider to place in rotating content that search engines will see but won’t need to be digested all at once by your user base.
3. Inline Styling
Inline styling is the use of styling commands directly on an HTML element in your web pages. Inline styling as a method of styling a document produces unnecessarily bulky HTML and makes the editing of styles across your site difficult and time consuming. If you wish to change the color of your links across your site and you end up getting billed for 2 hours worth of work your web guy is probably using inline styling methods. C’mon people. Stick with stylesheets.
How do I know if my site is using inline styling?
- View the source of a page on your website again.
- Look for code like this:
style="width:100%;background:#000;padding:10px;font-size:12px;color:#fff;"
If you see this once or twice on your site breathe easy. If code like this exists on numerous pages and numerous times per page, your web guy is a tool.
4. Navigation Before Content
The natural flow of a website is to work top to bottom. Typically a header, horizontal navigation, the body of the page aside a sidebar and then the footer. It is temping to write the HTML for a website in this order as well. However if you place your navigation before your content it will be the first thing a search engine sees. This is a more esoteric point. We are all guilty of it in the web world but it is something that should be addressed. Your navigation should be placed in the footer and positioned (most likely absolutely) wherever you’d like it to reside on your pages. Notice the site your viewing now put the navigation first. However, this site (http://www.ternstyle.us/) does not.
Okay, for this one I won’t call your web guy a tool. For SEO purposes though, have him restructure your HTML.
5. Non-unique Page Titles
This one matters. Each page should have its own unique content. As well, it should have its own unique page titles. Every page on your site should not consist simply of your business or blog name. It should not carry just your tag line. Each page title should be tailored to the content presented on the page it is representing. You wouldn’t name your children George, George and George would you? Well maybe this guy would.
6. Wide Sites and Skinny Sites
The width of your site is very important. If it’s too skinny those of us with high resolution monitors will have to get real close to our desks to view it. If it’s too wide those of you who haven’t upgraded your browsers yet will have to scroll horizontally to view parts of the page. For instance, this site is too wide for monitors set to a resolution of 1024 x 768. Oops! I’m a tool. The optimum site width is 960px. It will suit most modern monitors (modern monitors,modern monitors,modern monitors…say that 10 times fast). 960 is divisible by 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, and 16. Use it!
How do I know the width of my website?
Well firstly can you see it all without scrolling horizontally? Horizontal scrolling is a big no-no. Vertical is okay because these days most people have mouse wheels. there is no need to move the mouse to get more page. Horizontal scrolling is tedious. If you have to scroll horizontally redesign your site.
Unless you’re using a browser like Firefox with Firebug enabled or Safari with the Develop menu enabled it’ll be hard for you to determine the width of your pages. Each site will be styled differently. You can search through the CSS files for width commands or simply ask your web guy. Maybe he knows. Get creative. Take a screenshot and drop it in photoshop or something. Set your screen resolution to 1024 x 768 and see what happens. I trust you. You’ll figure it out.
More ways to determine if your web guy is a tool to come. For now I have to redo all my old work that taught me what to teach in these silly blog posts.