I believe that most web developers don’t think too much about the visually impaired. We focus more on the design and functionality and what we see.

There are things though that we can do to make our sites better for screen readers and those with disabilities, however I don’t know them all and can say that I’ve never surfed the web without my sight.

If you’ve ever wondered about web accessibility or how screen readers work then you should come to The Nerdery’s Front-End Developer Talk on January 10th. Aaron Cannon, a blind PHP developer at The Nerdery, will be talking about web accessibility and showing you how he interacts with the web.

Aaron Cannon is an accessibility consultant and software engineer at The Nerdery. He is blind from birth and uses the screen reader JAWS on a daily basis. Aaron will be talking about accessibility concerns to consider when developing your website, which will be followed by a JAWS demonstration and Q&A period.

For more information, and to RSVP, visit http://nerdery.com/events.

This is open to the public so feel free to come and learn.

Also check out the The League of Front-End Developers website for more talks and meet-ups.

Image Source: Creative Star Art

How does one see the internet when they can’t see it? originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Being in both industries I can tell you that web developers don’t think about SEO and SEO’s don’t understand why developers can’t be better SEOs. Truth is, they’re two different industries and two different ways of looking at the web.

Web development is all about taking a design and turning into a website. The clients/agencies are looking for pixel perfect adaptations of their designs. They are looking for specific functionally, have a specific timeframe and budget as well. We are developing what the client wants exactly as they want it.

That could include jQuery animations, dynamic content loaded via Ajax, Flash and many other web technologies. Client’s don’t often want just text and content. They want something interactive and creative. Something that makes their brand stand out.

SEO usually comes in after the web development is done. Most clients think of it after the site is developed and launched. SEO’s then talk about how search engines can’t get past some of those interactive features. How the amount of content on the page is lacking and all sorts of things that should have been thought about way back during the design process.

Unfortunately clients go one step at a time. Design, develop, launch, SEO/marketing. When the SEO company comes into the picture they look at the site and find lots of things that should be done different for search engines. They then want to make changes and ask developers to put in additional time to fix what they feel could be done better.

What really needs to happen is everyone should be involved with each step of the process. It’s really on the client here. The client should not design a website without the developers and SEO’s insight. The developers shouldn’t build it without the SEO’s help. Everyone should be working together so the finished product can be perfect. Sadly, that hardly ever happens.

Web developers don’t do SEO because that’s not their job. SEO’s don’t do web development because that’s not what they do. Everyone has a job to do and they do it well. However, they all happen at different steps in the process and there isn’t much that can be done about that unless the client brings everyone onto the project at the same time.

Next time you think negatively about web developers or SEO, realize that it’s not their fault that no one thought to involve them sooner. They’re just doing what the client wants and they both play an important part of creating a successful website.

SEO vs Web Design originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

The number shown on a Like button is the sum of:

• The number of likes for the URL
• The number of shares for the URL – This includes copy/pasting a link back to Facebook.
• The number of likes and comments on stories on Facebook about the URL
• The number of inbox messages containing the URL as an attachment

So lets say you have a blog post that had a Like button on it. The Like number showing would include:

• The number of times someone clicks the Like button.
• The number of times someone shares the blog post URL on Facebook.
• The number of comments that shared blog post gets on Facebook; across all shares.
• The number of comments on the blog post if the user is using the Facebook comment system.
• The number of times someone has sent the blog post URL to a friend via Facebook’s messaging system.

Basically, anytime that blog post URL is active on Facebook, a Like is added to the count.

This means that the number can be really inflated.

Some sites have chosen to use the Facebook comment system instead of their blog’s default comment system. So anytime someone leaves a comment, the Like number goes up.

This also means that, with so many factors influencing the Like number, one little change by Facebook could make the share number plummet.

Just yesterday I had a site drop from 250+ Likes to 3. Turns out Facebook temporarily stopped counting shares and comments and were only counting actual clicks. Few hours later it went back up. Facebook’s system is fragile; just ask any Facebook developer.

Ohh and then think of the ways you could increase the number of Likes by being creative with your content. The system is easy to game.

In the end this is all just a big marketing scheme to get people to use Facebook more. They know we are already addicted to the Like button, or actually the number on the Like button, and now they want us to use their comment system and share our URLs on Facebook as much as possible so they are using those to increase the Like number.

It really makes you wonder if the number of Likes is a sign of quality content, or just another number.

Facebook’s Like number is more than just people clicking Like. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I’ve recently been setting up goals for a client and one day they didn’t work and the next day they would.

It was frustrating but I eventually came to the conclusion that new Google Analytics goals must have some sort of big delay before they start collecting data. Something like they don’t kick in until tomorrow arrives.

This is increasingly frustrating when Google Analytics data comes in every 10 or 20 minutes. So I could see pages in the top content reports, and yet goals would stay at 0.

I checked, modified and retested my code for hours with no luck. When I came in the next day and goal data would start coming in from the new days tests. There was still zeros for yesterday, but the goals were now collecting data from today’s activity.

I’d be nice if Google Analytics would set expectations. A nice little note that said something like “your goal is set up, and we’ll start tracking data at 12:00 am” would be very handy. Or better yet, have the goals start tracking as soon as new data comes in. Heck, working with the already collected data would be even better!

If you have issues with Google Analytics goals not working, go home and see what happens tomorrow. Yes it sucks to wait, but that may be all you need to do.

New Google Analytics goals appear to be delayed by more than a few hours. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I received emails from Mozilla yesterday that stated GA? – Is Google Analytics Installed and yExplore are compatible with Firefox 5. So I’ve updated the version numbers in the extensions and they are ready to go.

As a bonus, GA? also works in Firefox 4 now too.

Enjoy!

GA? and yExplore are now Firefox 5 ready. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I’m not sure why, but the plugin decided to block Google bot. By the time I noticed, the damage had been done and my visitor stats are falling at a rapid rate. I’m getting 1/3rd of the traffic I was last week and it continues to go down.

I’ve removed the plugin and am now eagerly awaiting Google bot to come back and index my content. I don’t know how long it’ll take to recover, but I’m hoping not to long.

This is just a good reminder to always be checking your stats. Even if you’re just looking at the overview, if things begin to tank, find out why!

It’s also good to note that I’m not seeing this issue on other blogs that I’m running. Not sure why this one is different, but I’m keeping a close eye on them all.

Bad Behavior WordPress Plugin Killed My Google Traffic originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Earlier this year I switched all my WordPress URLs (aka permalinks) from date based to ID and post names. Since then I haven’t seen any negative effects from search engines when it comes to the amount of referral traffic.

The Background

Now, when a blog is set up, the URL structure is defined. If you don’t really know what you’re doing, then you probably don’t think twice about the URL structure. I sure didn’t when I setup my blog in 2004. However, years later, I realized that I hated having the month and day in the URL and I wanted to change it to be shorter and cleaner.

The hardest thing I had to do was convince myself that it was OK. All I could think about is how search engines would take the change. I do SEO for a living and I’m pre-programmed to never change a URL unless absolutely necessary. It’s just not a good idea. But, if it’s going to change, then 301 redirects need to be setup on a page by page basis. Now, with thousands of posts, creating thousands of redirects wasn’t my idea of a good time. However I really wanted to change the URL structure.

Then one day, my host setup code to block Google from one of the site on the shared server. Unfortunately, they did it wrong and blocked all sites on the server. Oops. When that happened my traffic tanked.

The bright side to the issue is that it was what I needed to convince myself to change the URLs. Why not? Google had already stopped sending traffic to my site. How much worse could it get?

Another big determining factor is the fact that WordPress creates all the 301 redirects for me. It’s smart enough to take an invalid URL, find the valid one and redirect in a way that is search engine friendly. Perfect! Ok, so it wasn’t perfect. There were some conflicts with pages and posts when they had similar names, but I think I created 10 manual redirects overall which wasn’t bad.

So what happened?

It turns out that it didn’t matter what my URL structure was. As long as I had the redirects setup, search engines didn’t care. They interpreted the redirects, and kept sending me traffic just as they had done before. I had done all that worrying for nothing.

What about rankings?

To be honest, I don’t track rankings on my site. I’m more concerned with how much traffic I’m getting not where my site is ranking. However, I’d assume that if my rankings dropped off, so would my traffic; and that didn’t happen. I can’t say for sure, but my instinct says everything is ok.

Just do it.

The most important thing to do on your blog is make yourself, and your visitors, happy. If that means re-configuring the URLs, do it. Just make sure the redirects get setup. We shouldn’t bow down to the all mighty Google, even though you know we all do.

In my experience, changing the URL structure had no negative effect. I’m happier, search engines are just the same as ever, and I spent a lot of time worrying about nothing.

Original photo credit: jmorgan.

What happens when you change WordPress’ URL structure? Will it kill SEO? originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I think we need to do everyone a favor and share the source.

Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of big sites out there that collect and re-post great information. Sites like TechCrunch, CrunchGear, TUAW, LifeHacker, Gizmodo and so many more do a good job of giving the smaller sites added exposure, but they are also stealing it away.

Next time you’re at one of these sites, and decide to share a story, click-through to the source website and re-tweet or like that URL; not the TechCrunch one.

Not only will you be giving the content publishers additional exposure, you’ll also be giving your users a direct link to the content you’re promoting.

I think that’s called win win.

Do Everyone A Favor And Share The Source originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

I’ve done some major re-working of things on the back-end and I’m hoping I didn’t break anything. If I did, please tell me!

The bulk of my changes are to help with my site speed addiction. Ever since Google announced tools to help webmasters find ways of speeding up their sites, I’ve been hooked. I check the graph in Google Webmaster Central all the time in hopes of seeing sharp declines.

Google's Site Performance Analysis

So far, my homepage seems to be extremely slow, where as the main blog page is not to bad. Not sure how that is possible as the homepage has less on it than the blog page.

I’m beginning to think that either Google’s lying to me about my site speed, or it takes weeks for Google to update their reports. All this work couldn’t have got me nothing.

As for YSlow, I’m pretty sure that’s just not working right. YSlow will give me an F(0) for GZip and Google Page Speed will give me an D(62). A D(62) isn’t great, but it’s way better than that F(0).

Either way, my site should be faster than it was and it’ll only get better. However, chances are I’ll break something a long the way. When I do, please let me know so I can fix it.

Me & WordPress vs Google Page Speed & YSlow originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Just a quick note to say that the Is Google Analytics Installed? Firefox extension recently has been updated to work with Google’s new asynchronous tracking code.

It should now work for all versions of Google’s code.

And, if Google doesn’t drastically change the analytics tracking in the future, it should continue to work well for future updates.

(fingers crossed)

Google Analytics Extension Upgraded originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Click To Enlarge

yExplore for Google Chrome is now available!

It adds quick access to search engine, and social media, information about the page, or domain, you are viewing.

yExplore is helpful for finding out information on your own site or doing competitive research on someone else’s.

yExplore includes shortcuts to:

• Google
  • Backlinks
  • InIndex
  • Cache
• Yahoo
  • Backlinks
  • InIndex
• Bing
  • InIndex
• Delicious Saves
• StumbleUpon Stumbles
• Compete Information
• BackType Social Information
• PostRank Social Information
• Archive.org Flashbacks
• Robots.txt Quick Access
• Text Only View
• Whois Info

If you liked it on Firefox, you’ll love it on Chrome.

Also, the Firefox version of yExplore has been updated with new services too.

Download yExplore for Google Chrome

Please report any issues, or services you’d like added, in the comments below.

yExplore Comes To Google Chrome originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Here is what WordPress plugins developers can do to help us all out:

1. Set the Height and Width of Images
I know this is an easy one not to do, and it’s one of the most common issues that Google reported, but it’s so easy. Please set the height and width of all images in your plugin.

2. Minify CSS and JS
Minifying just means condensing. This can be done by removing any blank lines and even line breaks when you publish your plugin code.

3. Put Code in Footer, Not Header
If at all possible, please put JavaScript into the footer of our sites. I know some things need to be in the header, but not everything has to be. Lets let the page load and then worry about all the additional JavaScript.

4. Use CSS Sprites
This one is for those plugins that show multiple images in my content; like social icons. Instead of having many images, only have one. Then use CSS code to determine what image shows where. It’s pretty slick actually. You can learn more about CSS Sprites here: http://css-tricks.com/css-sprites/

5. Allow Me To Host The Assets
You’ve got me to install a plugin, which required me to upload files to my site, so why does the plugin now link out to a different site to get the images, CSS or JavaScript? Why can’t it all live locally?

6. Setup Caching on Your Site
If you’re going to load images from your site, make sure to set up your server to specify how long the images are cached. This one is a bit more technical, but if you can build a plugin, you can set up cache control. Here’s how to do it on Apache.

7. Serve Content From a Cookieless Domain
Again, if you’re going to load images and files from your site, how about you serve it up from a cookieless domain? Why? Because cookies and requests get complicated and it slows down loading time. Learn more about it here.

8. Compress Images
Sometimes a JPG at 80% can look really nice. Compare that file size to a PNG, or JPG at 90%, and the difference can be 3x smaller. Compression isn’t a bad thing, it’s just about getting the settings right. And when you do, images can download much faster.

9. Simplify
Whether it’s JavaScript, PHP or HTML code, chances are it can be reduced to do the same amount of work with less code. The less code your extension executes, the better it should run.

10. Share Assets
I’m not sure if it’s possible or not, but WordPress comes with jQuery, feed parsing and lots of other scripting built-in. So why not use their code instead of re-bundling it with your extension? Can we share scripts to cut down on the amount of redundant code?

Now I’m no expert on WordPress plugins as I haven’t created more than a few basic ones, but I think that plugins are key to speeding up thousands of WordPress powered blogs around the internet. Faster blogs makes for happier site owners, better blog usability, and possibly better search performance.

Speeding Up WordPress Starts With Plugin Developers originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Then, late last week, my host somehow blocked Google bot from accessing the server I’m on and my traffic tanked; badly. Once I got that figured out, I realized that now was as good of time as ever to re-do all the URLs. Since my site was already screwed up in Google, why not?

Blog Traffic

The other major factor in my decision to change URL structure was that WordPress rocks. By default WordPress automatically 301 redirects all the old URLs to the new URLs. This saves hours of redirect mapping and makes it a bit less painful.

So now here we are. URLs are much simpler as I not only took out the month, day and year but also blog.  I like them a whole lot better, but now I have to wait and see what Google does.

Old URL: http://www.twistermc.com/blog/2010/04/21/bacon-twitter/
New URL: http://www.twistermc.com/2708/bacon-twitter/

More importantly, I need to find out what’s broken! Something tells me that this quick and easy transition will have side effects, I’m just not sure what.

So if you see an issue, do let me know. Otherwise I’ll just be freaking out over the loss of traffic due to the hosting issue and keeping an eye on Google Analytics and webmaster tools to see how things play out.

I’ve got other plans in mind for the site, nothing major, but re-thinking some of the layout. Change is hard, but change is good.

New URLs & Lots of Patients originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Case in point, the latest Google update. All they did was add a few icons, make the colors pop, soften up the buttons a little and the new look is very nice.

Google Search Icons

Google Search Update

Small changes, but a big effect. Way to go Google!

Minor Design Changes Can Make A Big Effect originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

yExplore 2.0 Screenshot

yExplore still offers quick and easy access to Yahoo Site Explorer, but now also offers:

• Google Backlinks, Inindex, Cache
• Archive.org
  - So you can see how the site has progressed over the years.
• Bing Inindex
• Delicious saves for a domain.
  - How many bookmarks appear in Delicious for the domain you are on.
  - How many times the current page you are on has been bookmarked
• Highlighting of NoFollow links.
  - In bright red so you can’t miss them.
• Check to see if the page you are on is in StumbleUpon.
  - If yes, then it’ll show you all the reviews, who stumbled it first and who liked it.
• Compete.com site profile information.
• BackType domain or page social engagement.
• PostRank social engagement.
• View the Robots.txt file.
• Spell check the current page.
  - Yep, it’ll use Firefox’s built in spell checker to highlight any on page mistakes; on any page.
• Edit the current page.
  - Bundled in with spell check is the ability to edit pages by removing copy, images, links and more.  To get out of edit mode, refresh your browser.
• Text only view.
  - No images, no links, no CSS, no HTML. Just text. Just like the search engines see it.
• Whois Info
  - Details on who owns the domain.

yExplore also has an updated logo as it’s not just Yahoo specific anymore!

The Firefox extension is available at Mozilla’s Addon site and should auto update any previous installs as soon as it’s approved. However, you don’t have to wait, you can install the addon while it’s in experimental stage today!

Install yExplore 2.1

If you have any any suggestions for features, put them in the comments below.

yExplore 2.1 Now With More SEO and Web Developer Love originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Bluebird
Simple and pretty, this app has the ability to be one of the nicest looking Twitter apps.  It also comes with three built in themes which are very nice and supports multiple accounts.  This one is one I haven’t played with much, but am loving it the more I use it.  Only downside so far is no way to distinguish between read and un-read tweets.

Canary
Still in beta, Canary is said to be the sexiest Twitter client out there.  It’s a nice start and will be one to watch.  No support for multiple accounts but has all the other features you’d need.

EventBox
Not only for Twitter, EventBox also integrates Facebook, Flickr, RSS and Google Reader.  More services on the way too they say.  It’s a bit big for me, but yet I really like it.  Would love to see it get multiple Twitter account support.

Lounge
Lounge made quite an entrance recently.  It looks good, has nice features and supports multiple accounts.  It’ll be a good one to watch as it grows.  Also available for the iPhone.

Nambu
Nambu is my favorite Twitter client right now.  It’s visually appealing, has the ability to clear out read tweets, a menu bar icon for easy access, and makes managing multiple accounts extremely easy.  Even comes with three different ways to view your timeline.  Nambu also plans to add Facebook support.  Highly recommended.  Also available for the iPhone.

NatsuLion
Nice Twitter client with the necessary features.  Makes keeping track of read and unread tweets easy by just mousing over the tweets.  I don’t see a way to re-tweet though.  Humm… Also available for the iPhone.

Pwitter
Pwitter has a nice simple interface.  It reminds me of Twitterrific only with a lot more features.  Has a nice menu bar icon for hiding and showing the main window which is always nice.  Missing the ability for multiple accounts though. If you use Twitterrific, this would be a great step up.

Syrnix
Nice Twitter client but lacks re-tweet capabilities.  You can bookmark your last read message so when you come back, you know what you’ve read and what you haven’t.

Tototl
Don’t know a lot about this one.  Tototl looks like a simplistic Twitter client but is not one I’ve tried.

Twitterrific
Probably the most popular Mac Twitter client.  Works under 10.4 and 10.5 and comes in a very small footprint with a menu bar icon for easy access.  Downsides are that it doesn’t segment out direct messages and replies into their own area and doesn’t have a re-tweet option. It doesn’t work with multiple accounts either. Also available for the iPhone.

TwitterPod
TwitterPod seems to have had a great start, but development has stalled.  Missing are quite a few options, but it’s still a nice basic client.  Would love to see it advance a bit more.

Twucket
I think Twucket is a different take on Twitter clients. It doesn’t seem to have a lot of options, just the basics.  Not having used it, I don’t know a lot about it.

Bonus Round! Twitter apps that are coming soon.

Beak
This one is not out yet, but I signed up for the beta and hope to try it out soon.

Adium
Again, not out yet but eagerly anticipating.  Adium rocks at IM, can it do the same for Twitter?

Those are the 14 Mac Twitter applications that I’ve looked into.  There are probably more out there as I discover new ones all the time.

There are also additional Adobe Air based Twitter apps, Firefox extensions and Dashboard widgets that work on the Mac too.

Which one is your favorite?  What did I miss?

14 Mac Only Twitter Applications originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Black Hat vs White Hat SEO – I had an fun talk with a kid who goes to the UofM and does Black Hat SEO.  He said he didn’t have the patients for doing things the right way, he just like making things happen now.  A lady at our table asked us the difference between what we do, as it sounded pretty much the same, and I said, “He does it fast, I last longer.”  Tell that to a lady who’s had a few glass’ of wine and her mind will connect something else and we all had a good laugh.

Where your name tag goes - Did you know your name tag goes on the right side of your shirt?  That was news to me and I was made aware buy a lady who said she secretly laughs at all those that put it on the left.  She even threatened to walk around and inform all those who were improperly wearing their name tags.  I think the wine as making her a bit happy too, but she denied that.  Fun conversations though.

Cough when you sleep? Prop yourself up. I got into a conversation about how everyone was getting sick.  I mentioned that my wife had a bad cough when she talked on the phone or slept but other than that wasn’t really sick.  Someone mentioned that they recently had that bug and offered up the advice that if you prop yourself up a bit with an extra pillow at night, you’ll cough less and sleep better.  We tried it out and it seemed to work.  Great advice!

The question of the night came from another lady that asked me if social networking was really valuable.  Does making a lot of connections with people you’ll never really meet make a difference?  Wouldn’t it be better to have 5 face to face contacts instead of 50 virtual contacts that you don’t really know?  It was a very good conversation and there is no real clear answer.  Yea I have a lot of Twitter contacts, but I only really know a small handful.  Then there are those who’s opinion I value, even though I’ll probably never meet them.  Then there are the rest.  Is all this virtual networking really doing anyone any good?  It’s really all in how you look at it I guess.

There were no MIMA gifts, not that I expected any, other than a free drink and food which is good enough for me. Actually my biggest gift I got for myself. I parked underground and the parking garage was probably in the 50s.  By the time the MIMA event was over, my car was snow and ice free!!!!  That made my night right there.

As always, the MIMA events are a fun way to get out and connect with others.  Some of them are in your industry, some of them are you competition and others are just there to have fun and make interesting conversation.

Things Learned at the 2008 MIMA Holiday Party originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

On a recent search for “implus iphone application” I came across the iTunes store page ranked at #8 in Google.

Yes, the iTunes Store may be built on WebKit, or some sort of web application on the back end, but how exactly does Google get there?  Does the Googlebot run iTunes?  Ohh there is a possibility.

I checked the cache version of the page and it’s just text on a basic white background.  Looking at the source of the cache it appears that’s it’s an XML document.  Apple is feeding Google XML documents for iTunes products!

Now that’s pretty smart.  Not sure if it’s really fair as you can’t get to the page without iTunes, but it not only helps Apple but all the products in the iTunes store as well.

How does Google crawl the iTunes Store? originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

• I’m now running Firefox 3 betas thanks to MultiFireFox.
• MidnightFox was updated the other day with incorrect buttons.  Oops.  That has been re-uploaded and should be made public soon.
• yExplore and GA? have been updated for Firefox 3. Actually, for the beats not the official release.  That’ll happen when the final release comes out.
• Now that I am running Firefox 3, I can start theming it.
• Just started to watch Entourage.  It seems like a pretty cool show.
• Watching the second season of Monk too which is an awesome TV show.
• I’m totally lost on Lost but I love it.
• I’m going to be speaking on SEO and web design next week at the Art Institutes MN.  That’ll be fun since I use to go to school there and I’m not big on public speaking.
• I just bought Delicious Library.  It’s such a great program to keep track of music, movies and games.
• I’m now using MoodBlast to update my Facebook, Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku status’.  I’d love to see this as a web based app much like TwitterFeed so it can automatically post my blog posts too.

That’s what I got at the moment.

Weekend Update: Firefox 3, TV, Software and More originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com

Granted, I think that even being dead, he’s got better link love. He’s a Harvard grad that has written eighty scientific papers, two scientific books, had six inventions patented, and published three novels. Yea, well I’ve created like eight Firefox themes.

If you’d like to help me beat out Thomas McMahon (Harvard guy) in Google searches, link back to this post (or www.twistermc.com) with ‘Thomas McMahon’ as your link text. If you want to vote for the other guy, well that’s just rude.

Yes, it’s true, I could probably go and re-optimize my website for ‘Thomas McMahon’ but I don’t really want to go that far. I’m hoping just a few links help. If not, oh well.

What do I get if I become #1? Nothing. Except the satisfaction that if someone searches for my name, it doesn’t immediately pop up and tell them I’m dead.

Help Thomas McMahon (me) beat a dead guy. originally posted at http://www.twistermc.com