There are a huge amount of add-ons and toolbars available to enhance your Internet experience or, in our case, make our jobs easier. This is a list of the most popular ones being used at SEO Inc.
1) Web developer toolbar: We use this toolbar ALL THE TIME; to check server headers, take a look at the document outline, quickly see what a layout will look like at 800×600 (although no one seems to care anymore), measure something on the screen using the very convenient ruler feature. And once in a while I use the speed report feature to turn my complaints about a slow server into some actual numbers that I can base my recommendation to switch servers on. (FireFox only)
A simple yet effective way of making Flash websites SEO friendly
The Problem
Conventional wisdom has always been that using Flash to make a website is a huge SEO No-No, and here’s why: When a search engine crawler comes to a web page, its mission is to read the text and follow the links to the other pages on the site. If the only thing on the page is an embedded flash object; then there is nothing for the crawler to read and no where for it to go. Ouch!
I recently attended the Josephine L. Taylor Leadership Institute conference, put on by the American Foundation for the Blind, in San Francisco. At the opening session a panel of speakers lead by Jim Fruchterman (whose company originally developed the technology behind Freedom Scientifics’ Jaws screen reader) discussed the next generation of technology, and what that means for the vision loss field. The panel featured representatives from AT&T, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and IBM discussing where technology will be taking us in the coming years and how (or if) access for users who are blind is even being considered in the process.
I recently attended the California State University Northridge (CSUN) conference on technology for persons with disabilities, at the airport Marriott in Los Angeles. I did not register, so I didn’t get to sit in on any of the sessions, but I had a great time in the exhibitor’s hall checking out all of the latest and greatest technology designed to help people with disabilities, as well as schmoozing with all the wonderful people behind the products. Although my main interest was in the area of web accessibility, I was overall very impressed with all of the technology being offered, from a phone that would read whatever text you took a picture of, to a range of overhead projector looking devices that scan what you place on them and read it back to you like this one (made by Larity):
Making sure a website has search engine friendly navigation is a top priority for savvy optimizers. Developers usually consider three things when creating a drop down navigation menu: Does it look good? Does it work correctly? And is it SEO friendly? Well, here is a fourth thing to consider before deciding to implement a particular menu solution: Is it accessible to the visually impaired?
Posted by steve | Discussion: No Comments »
