Here is another great article by Kabir Bedi, our guest author.

Kabir Bedi is the senior Web Consultant at LeXolution IT Services, a premier web design company India that offers web design solutions, custom web development and Internet promotion services to its clients. He also advices clients to establish a strong online presence for their business.

How To Have Clean Markup In Website Development?

The trends and turn of events in the web world keep changing. And as the trends change, the website design also need to undergo transformation, like incorporation of new technologies, so as to keep up the pace of the website with the latest web trends.

Therefore, it is crucial to keep your site updated with those in-built changes so that your website can ride the current easily when a new wave approaches, instead of getting drowned in it. This article further discusses about the fundamentals of web standard and what importance does clean mark up has in website designing and development.

Clean Mark Up – A brief introduction

Clean markup is the one that should not be cluttered. It should be W3C standard compliant and using tags and structures as per each of the intended purposes. A search engine friendly site is the one that has more content and less code on the pages. This lets search engine crawl your website more often than it used to do earlier and the consequence is that your site comes on the top.

Clutter-free HTML or clean mark up is one that makes lesser use of tags, eliminates all the extraneous and accomplishes the tasks with as little markup as necessary. It avoids needless attributes, such as online CSS, and leaves each document structured and organized.

What is the need? It is working fine, Isn’t that enough?

Every project has to be completed within the deadline and to meet deadlines, web developers often end up doing sloppy codes and the desired clean and standard compliant mark up remains no where in the scene. They just say, it is working fine, and this is all that matters. It may work fine in the beginning but what happens after a year or two? After some time the ranking of your website will come down.

Therefore, to save both your money, time and grievances, do it right the first time. It is crucial for your website success that it should do well from usability factor and SEO perspective. The automatic coding done by using the tool is too horrible to do justice with the quality of coding. Coding done manually is always better, cleaner and valued in the eyes of search engines. Hence, making proper use of , , , tags help search engine crawlers to crawl your page more frequently and early.

Extent of accessibility, translation and future use

Today, Internet surfing is not only limited to desktops or laptops but Internet is accessed on other smaller gadgets like iphones, smart phones and palmtops. So the usability of web has reached to a new level and demands for an extended accessibility.

With the increasing trend of mobile browsing, there is an extended need of clean markup with XHTML that helps facilitate the ease of search on the smaller screen. Your site developed with W3C standard compliance and clean markup ensures you the success in the long run.

Let us take a look at some Do’s and Dont’s while achieving clean markup for your site.

Do’s:
1.Make proper use of the , , , tags to facilitate crawling by the crawlers.

2.Do Validate your HTML, XHTML, CSS with proper tools.

3.Name your CSS classes and IDs using meaningful terms.

4.Make use of alt tags as well as title tags in your Markup, as both have their own significance.

5.The first letter of each word in the title should be kept capital. Google prefers them more.

Dont’s:
1.Include inline styles or extraneous tags and attributes just because you have pressure to complete the project.

2.Use automated tool to generate codes. This will affect the proper functionality of the website and restrict the site from being SEO friendly.

A clean coding of the website is the key to SEO success. Therefore, coding manually is the right option for getting coding done and PSD to XHTML conversion. This may take a little longer time to get the project completed but the result you will achieve in the last would be more than satisfactory.

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Here is another great article by Kabir Bedi, our guest author.

Kabir Bedi is Web Consultant at LeXolution IT Services, a professional web development company that offers a full range of web design services along with SEO & internet promotion service. He has over 10 years of experience in the industry and leads a group of web developers to create effective web solutions for their clients.

Is Web Design Ruining Your SEO Efforts – 5 Things NOT To Do!

Search Engine Optimization is often thought of as a set of tips & techniques that, if done right, can shoot up your website ranking in search results and get it to the top! This is only half-truth though.

The process of optimizing a website starts right from the time you think about building a website. Yeah… contrary to popular belief, SEO is not something that follows website launch. Rather it is what you need to base your design process on. And just like there are best practices to optimize your website, there are also other stuff that can potentially have a negative influence on your SEO efforts.

So just as much you need to do the right things, you also need to make sure you don’t do the wrong things:

Here are some design elements that you absolutely must NOT apply:

Drop Down Navigation or Mouse-Over Menus

This was a rage till recent past! Drop down menus not only saves real estate on a page but is a great way to arrange the navigation elements cleanly… Not to mention the sleek drop-down boxes that add to the visual appeal! However, when it comes to search engine optimization, drop down navigation drops down the value. Search engine crawlers cant fill out forms even if there’s just one pull-down. So, they cant get to those pages… least of all index the contents.

So make sure you have an alternate means of navigating those pages so that search engine crawlers can get there. You can include text links in the footer of your web pages or use image links or an image map. Also, chuck JavaScript and use AJAX or divs to get the same drop down and ensure search engine appeal at the same time.

Flash or JavaScript for Primary Navigation

Even though search engine crawlers have come off age and become smarter at indexing Flash contents, I don’t think its worth the risk. If your primary navigation needs Flash, Java or JavaScript to function, that puts a big question mark on whether search engine crawlers will parse through or not. Remember, search engine crawlers have a limited ability to deal with Flash, Java and Javascript. So any links that you put there have a good enough chances of not being seen by the search spiders.

A more reliable option is to count on semantically marked up HTML. You get what you want on your navigation pathway and search engine crawlers get what they come for.

Fully Flash Website

Graphic artists and ardent designers would swear by Flash but when it comes search engine appeal, its better to mellow down your ‘flashy’ instincts. If you want to score well in Google SERPs, then you have to create what is called search-friendly design. And as mentioned earlier, inspite of the increasing Flash-consciousness of search engine spiders, they still have a preference for plain text.

Keep the main textual elements of the page out of Flash along with all the page titles and section headings. And if at all (despite all the red signals) you have to use Flash, make sure you have an alternate text version within div tags. Also, don’t forget to use SWFObject, a standards-friendly method to embed Flash content.

Frames for Design

For one, Google clearly dissuades the use of frames as they tend to cause problems with search engines, bookmarks, emailing links etc. In fact, it can be a nightmare to scroll through a website that has frames. Since part of the page moves while others stay stationary, it gets pretty difficult to follow where to read and where to scroll. Moreover, not all browsers support frames so you can lose a considerable amount of audience. Worse of all frames create additional maintenance and server load.

So… really.. You are better off without it!

Pop Up Boxes

Pop-ups rely on JavaScript! And this is a roadblock for search engine crawlers just hate. Not only does the content within pop-ups not get indexed but they are a nuisance for website visitors. No wonder most people have installed pop-up blockers. And in case you dint know, Google toolbar and Yahoo Companion toolbar have built-in pop-up blockers.

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Here is another great article by Kabir Bedi, our guest author.

Kabir Bedi is the senior web consultant at LeXolution IT Services, a premier website development company that provides its clients with a range of web designing services along with internet promotion services. He has over 10 years of experience in catering to international clients.

5 Design Delusions That Can Take Toll On Your Website!

Plug-Ins Make Life Easier

Sure they do! But when your website totally relies on a plug-in, there is too much at stake. When you create a website entirely dependent on closed third party plug-ins, it can actually lead to serious backfire. Often people don’t have these plug-ins installed on their browsers and when they try to view your website, they would be only be irritated by the windows’ constant plea for installation. And more often than not, they just choose to leave instead of succumbing.

So try to stick to cross-browser, standards-compliant code and tools for your website that don’t require any additional work or installations from your visitors.

Reduce the Image File Size As Much As Can Be

It is always advisable to limit the file sizes on your website so as to enhance its usability and make web pages load faster. However, web designers often stretch this a bit to far and reduce image sizes so much that they appear ugly and jagged on the front end. While this may definitely reduce the weight of the website, the crappy look of images only serve to paint an unprofessional picture on the other end.

The decreasing number of dial-up internet users has pushed up the acceptable image sizes. So you don’t have to make things as small as can be lest it takes toll on the design appearance and reduce the apparent quality of your website. After you are done, make sure you preview your processed images on multiple monitors and negate any scope of distortion.

More Content = More Goodies

Content definitely is the king on the web. But that doesn’t mean you overload your website with information. Often designers, in a bid to serve more info to their audiences, tend to include too much content on a web page that it ends up creating a feeling of clutter and ruining the visual readability of the page.

They key is not to fill in disparate information on a single area of your web page. Even though there may be times when you need lots of content, make sure you pay attention to the organization. Place your content in a consistent and attractive manner so that visitors get all that they need to know without seeing a mess.

Variety is Nice!

It sure doesn’t hurt to provide your users with a variety of options but when it comes to design, its better to maintain a little consistency. It shouldn’t be the case, when visitors hop from one page to another, they shouldn’t feel they have landed on completely different terrain.

Users are more comfortable when they become familiar with the look and functioning of a website within a few seconds. If you present them with something drastically different every few pages, they would only be confused and have a less efficient experience. So practice consistency!

Ads Make Great Business Sense

While ads are a great source of revenue, often times they serve to detract visitors from your message and erodes on your professionalism. Littering web pages with ads can seriously bring down its aesthetic feel. Moreover, web users have come to ignore ads altogether so there is a huge question mark on their real effectiveness.

So, make sure you consider carefully before you place ads on your website!

Domains | Domain Auctions | Premium Domains | Domain Newsletter | Domain Forum | Funny Games

Here is another great article by Kabir Bedi, our guest author.

Kabir Bedi works as the senior web consultant at LeXolution IT Services, a professional web development company based in India. It offers a full range of web design solutions and internet promotion services that cater to all the web based requirements of businesses.

3 SEO Mistakes That Can Spell Doom For Your E-Commerce Websites

As the world wide web becomes an increasingly intrinsic parts of our lives, more and more businesses are realizing the importance of making their products available online. And if you already have an e-commerce website, chances are you might be fighting a fiercely competitive battle with your rivals over the coveted search engines rankings.

While you might be doing all that you can, it is not uncommon to see businesses make terrible mistakes that can significantly damage their SEO efforts and result in lost sales. So, here are 3 of the most common SEO mistakes for e-commerce websites that you should definitely stay away from:

Cut-Copy-Paste

E-commerce website typically acquire product descriptions from the manufacturer and copy it word to word on their websites. While its a good thing to provide customers with detailed information, simply copying and pasting on your website can severely wreck your SEO efforts on account of duplicate content.

Write your Own Copy
You need to make sure that each and every page of your website is unique and consistent to the overall theme or products. So instead of uploading manufacture-supplied product descriptions, write unique descriptions for your products. In addition, make a list of your niche keywords and include them in the body copy, headers, sub headers, titles, meta descriptions and image tags.

Encourage Customer Reviews
A great way to promote unique content on your web pages is to encourage customer reviews. This will ensure a steady stream of unique content and also enhance the user-friendliness of your website.

A Complete Overhaul

Often site owners make site-wide changes overnight in a rush to conform to the latest SEO craze or adopt the hot new design trends of the season and so on. However, this often backfires and thrashes the overall search coverage of the website.

Identify your Requirements
Before you decide to rehaul your website, think about what exactly you want to achieve. After you have defined your objectives, introduce the new changes on a small group of pages and evaluate the outcome. Monitor the progress from here on and proceed as and how required.

Not Making it a Team Job

Often website owners lean heavily on one single aspect of the website and end up ignoring the other parameters. For example, a beautiful eye catching website may be visually appealing, but if its heavy on Flash or includes some rough bits of programming, then it would be at an overall disadvantage as far as the search rankings are concerned

Involve your Entire Team
Your website is the joint responsibility of your entire team – the designers as well as the developers. So make sure you discuss your ideas freely with the entire team before introducing any changes to the website. This will you can be sure that you get a balanced output.

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Here is another great article by Kabir Bedi, our guest author.

Kabir Bedi is the managing senior web consultant of LeXolution IT Services, a professional web development company based in India that specializes in delivering a full range of web design services and internet promotion services. His team of web developers craft powerful web solutions for their clients from across the world.

5 Hot Design Tips To Tweak Your E-Commerce Website!

Design is a critical component of anything on the web. Whether it is a personal blog, a corporate website or an online retail store, design is what determines how it will be perceived on the world wide web.

E-commerce websites are online stores whose success depends directly on the amount of revenue it generates. So, it design and layout should be such that it encourages sales and converts visitors into actual customers.

Here are 5 tips that’ll help you move your e-commerce website design in he right direction:

1. Do Some Spring Cleaning

If you get the same prices at both places, which one would you prefer – flea market or a shopping mall? I don’t blame you if you decide to go with the latter. After all, as customers, we desire a smooth and peaceful shopping experience.

Same is the case with e-commerce websites. If your website is loaded with unnecessary bells and whistles, it would only create a feeling of clutter. And this would hamper the shopping experience of your customers who would inevitably go elsewhere.

2. Speak with Colors

Different colors evoke different emotions and because of this, they take immense importance in website design, especially so e-commerce. Remember, since visitors are about to spend money or share their credit card details on your website, you need to make them feel more comfortable and paint a credible picture of yourself.

Use light non-threating colors that help to put visitors at ease and ensure them of a safe, risk free shopping experience. See how Amazon & HomeShop 18 has a clean layout with blue navigation and touches of orange to highlight certain areas. Even eBay makes great use of yellow highlight against a white background.

3. Cross Sell

Cross selling is an exemplary practice of advertising other products while customers are shopping. An ideal way to promote your products is by showing customers ‘Related Products’ or ‘Customers who purchased this also bought…’ link.

For example, if someone is shopping for mobile phones, you can show them memory cards or mobile phone accessories under the Related Products category. Since they have already bought the phone, chances are they will be interested in the accessories as well. Just make sure you don’t push them too much.

4. Speed Up the Purchase Process

In the fiercely competitive online marketplace, speed is what’ll give you the edge over your competitors. One of the reasons people enjoy online shopping is because of the ease and speed with which they can make purchases. Sluggish processes can make customers lose interest and abandon their shopping carts midway and go somewhere they can find faster service. Your loss and your competitors’ gain!

So, do all that you can to enhance the speed of your e-commerce so that you customers enjoy a smooth and seamless shopping experience.

5. Focus on your Niche

Bigger websites like Amazon and eBay can get away by selling anything and everything. However, this might not work for smaller websites and start-ups. If you have a smaller e-commerce website, try to focus on your niche. Not only can you showcase your expertise of the area but also many customers tend to go to a dedicated website than an one-stop-shop mall.

Don’t try to be the jack of all trades, you’ll only end up being master of none.

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