Author Tim Prosch recently approached us for a website design and development project for The other Talk.

Because the homepage required teasers for the 6 catalyst stories, we implemented a text slide show which can be navigated by the users clicking on the arrow buttons. We also designed a nice bold hover affect when users place their mouse over certain Call to Action boxes such as the "Sign Up Get the 1st Chapter Free!" button on the homepage. Tim wanted the book title "The other Talk" to always stand out in the text area so we added a special class to a feature in the CMS text editor. This way as pages are added to the website, our client has the ability to make the title stand out without having to contact us for this special request.

The website design has a simplistic modern feel to it that we just love. We invite you to visit their website, take a look around and tell us what you think!

When we talk about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) we're literally talking about hundreds of different little things that when looked at individually can seem insignificant. But as a whole they combine to hopefully increase your website's search ranking which should help with increased relevant traffic.

One post regarding everything having to do with SEO would be too much to read. Many websites, businesses and so called "SEO Experts" have created an entire industry around getting websites to rank higher. We'll focus on a few elements that every website have. Since all websites have these elements available to them this post should help a lot of people jump in without getting in over their head.

Meta Keywords

Let's get one thing out of the way right away. First, Meta Keywords are comma separated words that describe the context of a web page in short one or two word phrases.

Code Sample

Secondly, they do nothing for SEO. Absolutely. Nothing. A couple of years ago Google came right out and announced that they do not use keywords when considering your website's ranking in search results. We wrote a blog post about this back in September 2009 entitled Better META: When Google speaks it's important to listen Just know that it's safe to ignore and move past Meta Keywords.

Meta Description

The Meta Description is similar to Meta Keywords in many ways. For one, it's an element that is added to the head tag. Second, the content should describe the information that is on an individual web page. And third, it does nothing for SEO.

Code Sample

But, unlike Meta Keywords, you do not want to ignore this element. According to SEOmoz, the Meta Description is a great place to write compelling ad copy.

The meta description tag serves the function of advertising copy, drawing readers to a website from the results and thus, is an extremely important part of search marketing. Crafting a readable, compelling description using important keywords can draw a much higher click-through rate of searchers to the given web page. To maximize click-through rates on search engine result pages, it's important to note that Google and other search engines bold keywords in the description when they match search queries.

Source: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/meta-description

The Meta Description appears in search results when someone does a direct search on your business' name. For example, a search for "Tasty CMS" has a Google result of:

The context is the Meta Description for the home page.

Actual Meta Description

So, while the Meta Description in and of itself will not have a direct influence on your page's search engine ranking, if searchers find the content compelling enough it could increase click through rates. While it's a topic for another day, click through rates do have an impact on SEO.

Title Tag

By now you might be wondering if anything in your control impacts SEO. Unlike the Meta Keywords and Meta Description the Title Tag plays a very important role in SEO.

Code Sample

According to SEOmoz, aside from the actual content on a webpage, the Title Tag is the single most important element on a page.

Creating a descriptive, keyword-laden title tag is important for increasing rankings in search engines. The screen shot below comes from SEOmoz's survey of 37 influential thought leaders in the SEO industry on the search engine ranking factors. In that survey, 35 of the 37 participants said that keyword usage in the title tag was the most important place to use keywords to achieve high rankings.

Source: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/title-tag

Naturally, title tags show up in search results. When a user does a search for specific keywords that are in your title tag they will be bolded. This helps garner a greater visibility and a higher click-through rate.

Best Practices

At Tasty CMS, we developed a solution where the title tag is constructed from 3 separate pieces that our clients can control:

Page Title - Company Name - Meta Description

Generally speaking, a Page Title should contain relevant keywords since it accurately describes the content on a page. Additionally, we append the Meta Description at the end to provide even more context. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to fill the Meta Description with SEO keywords and phrases. We recommend writing the Meta Description for the home page in more of a sentence-like format since it appears in results when someone does a search for your business; on other pages we recommend writing the Meta Description almost like you would write Meta Keywords by peppering in highly targeted keywords.

Actual Title Tag For This Page

This is just the tip of the SEO iceberg but it should provide a simple explanation to some often asked questions that keep you in control.

Today, Microsoft revealed an early prototype of Windows 8 which is staged to run desktops, laptops and tablets - "One OS to rule them all (expect for phone)". It's a very early beta that won't run on today's tablets whose chips aren't powerful enough. But Paul Thurrott, an attendee at the event believes that this is an iPad killer (oh boy)

It can't even run on a tablet and won't for another year and somehow Apple and the iPad should just give up and go home. How can Microsoft and Windows 8 declare victory?

I knew Gruber over at Daring Fireball would be all over this and he gets it so perfectly right:

To me, what these Windows writers are doing is like a baseball writer who today has started writing about what might happen in next season’s playoffs, because the team he follows is doing so poorly this season. We’ve got “is good today” against “might be good in a year”. The actually good versus the potentially good.

Brutal honesty like always.

We are very excited to officially announce the redesign and relaunch of Maxine Salon's website.

Maxine Salon describes itself as "one of the leading salons of the world and a top-rated Chicago salon just steps away from Michigan Avenue. They're progressive and chic, with a first-rate reputation and a friendly, nurturing staff."

Tasty CMS previously worked with Maxine Salon and helped them transition onto our content management system to help streamline making updates to their website.

We invite you to visit their website, take a look around and tell us what you think!

If you use Gmail and set up your email signature under the general settings, then you'll notice that your signature will appear at the very bottom of every email. Of course this is alright for the first email you compose. However, when you want to reply to a message, your email signature will appear at the very bottom of all the emails in the email string.

The best way around this is to create your email signature as a Canned Response. Although you have to add the email signature manually to each email, this will allow you to add your signature in the correct spot. You can also create multiple email signatures if you like by creating multiple Canned responses. If you have already set up your signature under the general settings, be sure to update this setting to reflect "No Signature".

Creating & Saving Canned Responses for Gmail Email Signatures

First off, be sure to enable Canned Responses in the Gmail Settings.

1. In the upper right hand corner of your Gmail account, click on the cog icon and select "Settings"
   
   
2. Click on "Labs"
3. Under "Enabled Labs", find Canned Responses and make sure "Enable" is selected.
   
   
4. Scroll down to the bottom and click "Save Changes"

You can set up a new Canned Response by:

1. Compose a new email message by clicking on the "Compose mail" button
2. In the body of a blank email, type in how you would like your email signature to appear
3. Click on "Canned responses" and then select "New canned response..."
4. Enter a name for the Canned response
5. Click "Ok"

Now, every time you compose a new email and/or respond to an email message this Canned response will be available to select under "Canned responses":

1. Compose a new email or reply to an email in your Inbox
2. Place your cursor where you would like your signature to appear
3. Click on "Canned responses"
4. Under "Insert", select the name of the signature you want to use

Editing Canned Responses for Gmail Email Signatures

If you want to edit the Canned Response:

1. Compose a new email
2. Click on "Canned responses"
3. Under "Insert", select the name of the signature you want to edit
4. Make the necessary updates
5. Click on "Canned responses"
6. Select "Save - The name of your signature"
7. A pop-up window appears
   
   
8. Click "OK"

Deleting Canned Responses for Gmail Email Signatures 

If you want to delete a Canned Response from any open email:

1. Click on "Canned responses"
2. Under "Delete", select the name of the signature you want to delete
3. A pop-up window appears
   
   
    
4. Click "OK" 

John Gruber of Daring Fireball was at the iPad 2 event on March 2. First, the guy eats, breathes, and sleeps Apple. His analysis of all things Apple is as close as most people will get to being inside Steve Jobs' head. And once again John completely understands where Apple has positioned themself:

Jobs seemed particularly ebullient throughout, but never more so than when discussing the iPad’s competition. There’s a palpable sense among everyone from Apple I spoke to yesterday that this is the biggest and most important thing in the history of the industry. The this isn’t just the iPad. It’s the whole iOS ecosystem — iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, the App Store, the 200 million iTunes Store account holders, the Apple retail store empire where customers get to touch these things that must be touched to be understood. But the iPad best exemplifies the advantages Apple draws from these things.

Last year, Apple’s take on the iPad seemed to be that they believed they had something good. This year, they seem to know they have something enormous. Presumably, there’s an A5-based dual core iPhone 5 coming in June and a corresponding new iPod Touch and who knows what else coming in September, but Apple is already, a mere two months into it, calling 2011 “The Year of the iPad 2”. Apple sells every new product hard, but they’re not prone to that sort of hyperbole.

In his conclusion, Jobs said, “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology is not enough.” That’s what separates Apple from everyone else, and the iPad epitomizes it. It’s better designed, has more developer support, and it’s cheaper. There are aspects of this that Apple’s competitors seemingly can’t copy — lower prices from economies of scale, amazing battery life, UI responsiveness, build quality.

Go read the whole thing.