Use the web, social media and SEO to make your voice heard

Jun 25
2009
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Two years ago, a sketchy sales guy came to my door when we lived in Calgary and  conned my wife into signing up for an energy contract that would have cost us a bunch of extra money per year. When we read into the contract we immedietly called and cancelled the contract. I was steaming, and wrote a blog article about Alberta Energy Savings. A year and a half later and the blog article is in the top 10 search results when you search for the companies name.  I’m sure when people are doing research about this company they see my blog post (and the many others as well).   A tech/brand savvy company would join this conversation, try to change our minds, do some kind of damage control. Almost two years, I’ve heard nothing. But you can be sure people looking into this company hear from me through my blog.

There are over 40 comments on that article many are stories larger than the blog post it’s self. The page has become a place for people that are dissatisfied with this company (and some that think people who have been duped are somehow getting what they deserve) to share their feelings and stories. The good news is some of the comments are from people like me that realized what this company was about and had the contract voided before they were unwittingly stuck with insane energy prices. The power of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and social media (blogs) has helped many people (over 500 a month to that article alone) make informed decisions. (though somewhat one sided, my side)

It doesn’t take a web developer to do any of the stuff I describe above, it’s really quite simple. Note: it doesn’t have to be a complaint, happy news in my opinion is better reading…but hey, we have to write what we know right? Just happens when I complain it’s on subjects people are interested in…odd…

How can you make your voice heard?

1. A really easy place to start is with a free wordpress blog, write your articles use all the tags and categories they provide you with. This site uses wordpress though it’s not the free hosted version linked above.

2. Make sure your article (especially the title) contains the words you think people will use to search for your topic, repeat key words (in context, make it readable or people won’t read it).

3. Spread the word, post your blog post to Twitter, Facebook, email it to your friends with a little blurb about what the article says (if they are interested they will read it, if not they can delete it).

4. Wait, it takes time for content to show up in the rankings.

Increasingly the internet is being used by people to voice their opinions about subjects that are of interest to them, if there are people with the same interests, and your content is relevant  your voice can be heard. These instructions are pretty basic, there is a lot more you can do to get your message out there. If you have questions on how you can get your voice heard I’d be happy to help.

Written by froosh in: Internet, Web Optimization | Tags: , ,

Making your web pages faster – Part 1 (JavaScript at the Bottom)

Mar 12
2009
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From the dawn of web development we have been told javascript calls to external files (and page level too) should be placed in the head of your
document along with CSS, title, meta etc. Although this is not wrong a perceived page load to the user may seem longer with js at the top, let me explain:

First off some facts:
- XHTML strict doctypes (and others) allows for the <script /> tag anywhere in the DOM
- Web browsers stop page rendering operations to process javascript
- If your javascript is written properly JavaScript functionality won’t start it’s interactions until after page load

Web browsers download assets simultaniously until javascript is encountered, it then stops everything, gets the javascript, processes the script contents. You can probably see where this is going, if the svrips are in the <head> of the document all your javascript has to process before a single image, form element, <p> has rendered. The user waits, it processes, and once the js is processed we see the page come in.

Why is this a problem you ask when on a high speed connection you can barely notice?
Two reasons:
1. not everyone has a high speed connection. Through Critical Mass I have done work for some very large companies that have large user bases outside North America where often their “high speed” isn’t so speedy
2. Web 2.0 ( I hate that term, but I will use it ) is very javascript heavy, it seems that every project there is more and more interactions that are somehow touched by javascript. Keep the experience as snappy for the user as possible regardless of what we perceive their actual download experience to be.

Best practice would dictate that regardless of the size of the javascript download, having the page render so the user can see something happening then add your javascript events on page load at the bottom of the page.

Do your users a favour, don’t make them wait for javascript, let them see all your content and pretty pictures sooner! They will thank you*.

*Users may not actually thank you, but you can feel happy that you made your site better for them


If you are interested in this and more techniques, I didn’t think this up and you can see a list of them at: Yahoo! Exceptioal Web Site Performance Rules

Also you can check the efficiency of yours (and others) pages using: YSlow for Firebug

Disclaimer: this WordPress theme is not something I have built and I have not built in these techniques for froosh.ca, my personal site is always the last thing that gets attention.

Written by admin in: Web Development, Web Optimization | Tags: , , , ,

Optimize Your Web Site For Weight (Where to start. Client Code)

Mar 24
2008
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Many developers forget in this age of high bandwidth cable modems and RIAs that not everyone has the benefit of a fast connection. In fact, many of us forget that in some countries *cough* Canada *cough* one has to pay through the teeth for every bite we download on our mobile phones. What about lower bandwith users overseas, even behind the great firewall of China I’m told the high bandwidth users have a much slower experience that we have here in North America.

So, where does one start? How can you reduce page weight and keep the same beautiful design and web 2.0 functionality you worked so hard to implement? The following are some ways you can reduce initial, and post page load sizes, there are literally hundreds of ways to optimize your page download size, this covers a very small few.
Read the rest of this entry »

Written by admin in: Bandwidth, Mobile, Web Development, Web Optimization |