HTML5
Getting started with HTML5 is very easy.
HTML 5 is compatible with the XHTML syntax of self-closing tags, so, if you already use HTML5 then making the switch will be easy. Other XHTML features inherited by HTML5 include lowercase tags and double quoted attributes (eg, title=”the title”)
The Doctype declaration in HTML5 is so much easier to remember when compared to XHTML:
<!DOCTYPE html>
There’s a lot more to HTML5 and I will update this entry as I get more info.
Instead of, or maybe as well as, an email link, most websites now contain some sort of contact or enquiry form. However, there is always a question of whether this form should be short and concise or long and detailed.
The short form will contain few fields, requesting basic information. The most common I have seen asks the user for her name, contact email address and telephone number, and then has a <textarea> where the user puts their questions or comments. It can take any thing from a few seconds, to a couple of minutes to complete. Quick and to the point. Useful if one needs to make a generic enquiry, such as ‘What time are you open on Friday?’
Example short form
A large form asks for a lot more details – well over ten fields – and will normally take many minutes to complete in its entirety. As well as asking for more information about the user, it will often require detailed information about the product or service you are enquiring about. For example, asking for size, colour, style, amount, weight, etc. (example here)
Most of us would assume that the shorter enquiry form is going to get the responses we want, which can then be converted into sales. Afterall, it is shorter and takes less of the users time to complete. The table below shows the results of research carried out by PRWD.
| Form type | Preference | Conversion rate |
| Short | 14% | 17% |
| Detailed | 86% | 55% |
It appears that, not only do the vast majority of those who complete enquiry forms prefer the detailed comprehensive form, but the conversion to sales rate of the detailed form is over three times that of the short form. This flys in the face on conventional thinking and if anyone knows the reasons for this, I would love to hear them.
These figures are justification for those of us developing e-commerce or lead generating websites, to give serious consideration to including a detailed enquiry form.
More information available from http://www.prwd.co.uk/
This video from the University of Arkansas shows why descriptive text rather than ‘click here’ should be used for links and how skip navigation can improve user experience.
So you have your new website, which has cost you a lot of money, and it has recently gone live. Yet the hundreds of enquiries you expected to pour in from the website have not materialised and the 100 visits your site is getting each day are all from your office. What has gone wrong?
The short answer is nothing has gone wrong.
Many people, when they get a company website, have unrealistic expectations and think that having a website will suddenly bring in thousands of new customers from all around the globe. The first challenge is making it easy for people to find your website. Of course we all know about registering with search engines but, when there are approx 600 million websites on the Internet and they cannot all be top of Google, one should not rely totally on search engines for delivering visitors to your website.
There are other ways, apart from search engine submission, to get visitors to your website.
Online
Web referrals are an effective way of driving visitors to your website. There are a number of ways you can generate these.
Offline
The website complements rather than replaces existing marketing activities and, therefore, should form an intergral part of your entire marketing strategy.
Ensure your web address is included on:
I analysed the stats for my website (www.jez-d.co.uk) and only 1.5% of visits are referred from search engines. The vast majority are direct requests, that is, not from a link on the Internet. This shows that other methods as mentioned about actually do work.
Ok. So I have been in the job for about ten weeks now and I have managed to bring something to the company.
What have I brought?
A few weeks back, I was asked to do a presentation for account managers and senior staff about meta data. As a result of the success of that, I was given the added responsibility of quality checking new builds before they go live. This gave me the opportunity to turn around such things as developers using images instead of text for the entire main content of the site, and, failing to use title tags properly, or even body tags at all!
I was surprised about the way some developers were building websites. When I brought this up with a colleague, he explained that the main driving force was quantity not quality, thus, developers were forced to get a website completed as quickly as possible. That’s something I have learnt.
Next, I have to get them using semantic markup. Difficult task as I’m still new to the company and I am in fact, the most junior person there!
A couple of weeks ago I took a PHP exam as part of my university course. Results came out last week and I was pleased to be awarded 82% – top of the class!
This is all very good and something to be happy with, but, would it be recognized by industry?
I guess the best thing to do would be to ensure I have the qualifications that employers would recognize. So, I think I am going to get official industry recognized PHP certification – as soon as I can afford it though. I remember from when I got Lotus Domino certification that it normally costs several hundred €uros. I’m poor. I can’t afford that!
If you need to use message-digest algorithm 5 (md5) to encrypt words or phrases, please feel free to use this tool I created for my own use:
Excellent rap vid by a guy called m0serious. Telling us all how to code clean and the importance of doing so.
Morning,
It is one thing that I put hints and tips on this blog for all to see. But, if I do not actually follow my own advice, it makes me look like a hypocrit.
So, a few weeks ago, I took a good look at my own personal website and found it wanting in the areas of cross-browser compatibility, usability and acesssibility!
For the passed week I have spent my free time totally revamping the site, with focus on the above areas and W3C standards. I got rid of redundant elements and used PHP for delivery of content.
Anyway, you are welcome to take a look and make your own judgement – www.jez-d.co.uk
Several years ago I worked in The Netherlands (aka Holland) as a Lotus Domino Junior Developer. During that time I contributed to a few developer blogs and forums for Lotus Domino developers. Feeling in a nostalgic mood, I decided to search the web for them. Unfortunately, it appears that most of the blogs and forums no longer exsist – or my contributions have since been deleted!
Anyway, here’s what’s left:
If you happen to come across anymore, please let me know.
