Just Roger IT! » Usability

The Web 2.0 Renaissance, SEO and Intellectual Freedom

Manchester SEO Blogger — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:58:21 +0000

Okay, so the purchase of a brand new Apple iPhone this weekend reminded me just how accessible and easy to use the Internet has become. I find myself excitingly closer to the wishy washy aspirations of Web 2.0

Had you asked only a year ago what the word ‘Web 2.0′ meant to me, I would probably have drawn a bit of a blank. I might have pointed out that labels give us a vocabulary with which we might classify and discuss the world around us. Arbitrarily labelling something ‘Web 2.0′, simply because it appears to demonstrate a subjective set of ideals that matched our future expectations of the Internet seemed a little disappointingly unscientific. In many ways the ballet of technology that provides the Internet remains based on the same foundations it always has since it was a twinkle in Tim Berners Lee’s eye.

Perhaps it is not so much Web 2.0 itself that has changed, but the backdrop of worldly events it’s growth is set against. We have seen journalists use Twitter to network from locations where journalists would not have been able to take cameras. We have seen the British military use SEO to combat terrorism. Ordinary citizens can reach anyone in the world and sharing ideas in blogs in a way that gives the average person a voice that is taken just as seriously as those in Westminster. There are entire TV shows emerging that are driven entirely by user generated content such as Rude Tube, allowing us to see funny animal behaviour and peoples’ gaffs that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. Google News has now opened it’s doors to other news sources and peoples’ blogs, and with the launch of Google Social Search and comments within these news articles, we will see this trend continue.

In the new world that is emerging on the other side of this Web 2.0 renaissance, it will prove much more easy for ideas to be free, and increasingly difficult for any world leaders to hold their people intellectual hostage. Countries that would otherwise be isolated will find they are unable to prevent their citizens learning what it means to be free. It will become virtually impossible for any large scale conspiracies or any wars based on false pretenses, simply because citizens themselves will have access to far too much information. In fact, I would go as far as to say that Web 2.0 represents the freedom and the casting aside of mind shackles in a way we have not seen since the beheading of King Charles I. To me, Web 2.0 represents freedom itself.

And yet, nothing changes the fact that the Internet works on the same principles it always has. There are some new and emerging languages such as jQuery and AJAX which help to enhance existing technologies but for the most part, it is the way we use the Internet that is evolving.

Being able to carry it all around with me in my pocket, might just be the best thing I have experienced for quite some time.

Javascript To Protect Your eMail from Spambots, Keep it Visible to Humans

Manchester SEO Blogger — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:05:50 +0000

One of the more irritating downsides of maintaining a popular website, is having to wade through twenty spam emails to get to a single genuine one! Somehow it makes common sense to place as few barriers between yourself and potential customers as possible – the more complex you make a contact form, the less likely people will actually be to complete it correctly. As an experienced writer of web crawlers and various digital critters, The Manchester SEO Blog author will tonight be dishing out some neat little Javascript tricks that will outfox nine out of ten spambots.

Thinking Like One of Them

First off, you have to think like a machine! Picture this: a bot has just fetched your web page, and is now carefully carving the tags away from your juicey plain text content. Within this text it will search for some indication of an email address.

Using Javascript To Protect Your Email

Because Javascript is a client-side application, most crawlers will completely ignore it. It is computationally costly, and aside from Google’s neat indexing of ticker tape text, we cannot expect a great deal of text content to come from Javascript. This enables you to ‘hide’ your email in a document.write statement, using the character code for @ to avoid it even looking like an email to those that do process Javascript!

If you wish, you could take this one step further and replace the mailto: part of the link with the ASCII character codes which will make it even harder to detect.

Here is the code running from this page:

How To Cope When Human Visitor Does Not Have Javascript Enabled

The one obvious weakness in this tactic is the dependence upon your visitors having Javascript enabled. While in practice this will mean the code works for the vast majority, it always helps to be prepared for those which might not be so lucky. What I find most helpful without compremising all this trickery is to simply use the

So there you have it. The ayes have it … the spambots (hopefully!) don’t. Using this method you should be able to minimize the number of mailing lists your email is added to, and not risk any of your points of contact with potential customers!

SEO, Usability and How Layout of Content Can Affect Rankings

Manchester SEO Blogger — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:57:37 +0000

In this first ever issue of the Manchester SEO Blog, I will be taking you on a voyage through the layout of your content and how this has an impact on your visitors, and your website’s Google ranking.

‘Content is king’ is an addage you will probably have heard more than a few times if you have been trying to get into the murky world of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). While this is not untrue, I feel it loses sight of the single most important part of your site…your visitors!

I like to think of it this way – it doesn’t matter if you have 1 competitor, or 100 billion, if your website is the most informative, helpful and useful site for the subject matter, then it would be in Google’s own interest to place you first! The content itself is vital, but is itself only a means to an end. By making this content easily readable and making the site accessible the content itself will do more for you.

Usability may not seem like an SEO issue or connected with rankings, but if you’re visitors are not able to find what they want they will leave sooner, Google will see your average time on site decrease, and you will be given poorer listings. By having the most eye-catching links and icons placed correctly with the most appropriate text, your visitors will click deeper, stay longer and read more from your site, all of which will have a positive long-term impact on your visibility.

Getting Inside the Mindset of Your Visitors & Target Audience

Google Analytics

Getting inside the mindset of your visitor is the tricky part of SEO. Because you work closely with your site regularly, it gets difficult to see the wood for the trees! The true acid test for usability is how a complete stranger behaves, and by watching your visitors closely with great tools like Google Analytics, you will be able to identify which pages are popular and why. Looking over the keywords people find you for can give clues as to what your visitors want, and will help you better tailor your message to your audience.

I like to think of traffic flow like water – you can passively influence the stream, but ultimately even a substance as hard as rock will be carved by the water over time. Google Analytics has one feature that few other tools do – by clicking content » overlay from the left menu in the dashboard, Analytics will display your site, and include it’s own annotations, indicating what percentage of traffic clicked each link from this page, helping you visibly see the path of your traffic flow and visitors. This will help highlight any usability issue, or patterns that you might see emerging.