Web Standards

Standards compliant browsers (FF, Safari etc) and IE browsers require different CSS selector definitions to implement transparency. Here is what is necessary to set the following element to 50% transparency.

div#header
    {
        opacity: 0.5;
        filter: alpha(opacity = 50);
    }

Content

• Content is King, write good, unique, and valuable content that will generate reputable back-links, spur forum discussions linking back to you, and return visitors as opposed to writing or doign SEO just for SEO (narrow focussed and for the wrong ends)
• Think about the focus of each document before hand and consider keywords, related documents, and a call to actions.
• Make sure that all the META elements focus and are relevant to the subject fo the content and the keywords (reinforce the subject) i.e keyword focus should be consistent in the title, description, H tags/subtitles, links, controlled back-links, Meta keywords

Code

• Markup your content in a way that spiders and minimal browsers can identify the hierarchy, and important (H-headers, P, Acronyms, Strong, EM etc)
• Use accessibility attributes to provide pertinent information such as anchor titles, ALT, label values for form field labels. more importantly, do not stuff these attributes with senseless keywords compromising accessibility for SEO - SE intelligence will catch up with these in the near future
• Create clean frontend markup code and maintain accessibility for objects that spiders cannot read

CMS Design

• Along with each document, list relevant internal documents documents for further reading, and for intra-site cross-linking
• Use a tag-cloud to point to related subjects and keyword focused document taxonomies to create a strong link within related documents
• Proper management of 404 and 403 errors to point to relevant information
• Natural keyword search within the site MUST be available
• Friendly URLS are a must and should be customizable and contain keywords and easy to remember when used on print
• URLs must nevr change, When they happen to, 301 and 302 redirects should be used to redirect traffic and properly update search engines
• XML sitemap is an easy way to get Google and Yahoo to find all your site-pages

Metrics

• Measure and understand where the highest conversion rates come from and focus on enhancing traffic from those areas
• Recognise the low conversion traffic sources and see if they can be improved upon, or if the traffic is just not suited for the targets (Promos, feedback, etc)
• Periodically employ live tracking of traffic (click heatmaps) to see how random shoppers behave and click around - do this within each traffic source and audience segment to better understand how to position and write content-pieces (can also help decide link colour accessibility)

Conversion

• Have an effective CRM strategy in place that has virtually no leakages or neglected traffic/prospects
• Evaluate which, and why some traffic may convert slowly (some industries are not quick), and device cultivation techniques to keep prospects interested and feeling valued through the cultivation and post-purchase process with overwhelming them with messaging
• For lost prospects find ouwhy you lost them, if you can cross-sell better or listed to their feedback

SEM?

• Use SEM only as a short-term and supplement to organic SEO. It is expensive, and the more popular and lucrative the keywords/terms, the more expensive the practice will get and even eat into any profits you make

1. Designer
2. Front-End Developer (also representing backend development)
3. Content Writer
4. Web Marketer
5. SEO/SEM
6. Support/Metrics

1) Designer

• Creates visual concepts of brainstormed and agreed UI strategies with input from the other team members to properly integrate knowledge and stakes of others
• Integrates the stable branding priorities of the organization into the design choices for an individual piece while using the uniqueness and differences in the piece to evolve the overall brand of the organization of branded product

2) Front-end Developer

• Based on approved mocks, creates accessible standards compliant and valid XHTML/CSS markup and styling of the designs. These are used at CMS templates and other presentational materials (email, interactive campaigns)
• * Backend Developers - The front-end developer acts as the bridge between the front-end (UI/UX) team, and the backend application developers to harmonize the needs of the UI/UX team with the application programming priorities of the backend team. Ideally, the limitations and structures of backend applications should be transparent to the User Experience

3) Content Writer

• Is knowledgeable about the media of the Internet especially regarding to the short attention span, SEO (keyword density, titles and meta description importance and content structure), marketing (Introduction, talk-to-client needs, call to action) and come up with content that is complete, short and precise that fits in the agreed visual design and can achieve its objectives with and without visual aids (images, audio etc)
• Can look at the micro level focus of a given document (subject, keywords, call to action, etc) and write content, while paying attention to the macro-level role that a given document plays in tieing together the purpose and goals of an individual document to the purpose and brand of the entire website

4. Web Marketer

• Along with general marketing techniques, the web marketer understands the unique characteristics of the Internet marketing medium, and he/she adapts the organizations marketing strategies and campaigns for the web.
• Works with the content writer, and the visual designer to create marketing materials and messaging that fits the agreed visual design and branding, and that is effective in informing the audience and converting traffic.
• To gain search engine visibility and traffic, he/she may work with the SEO/SEM to target and convert traffic from various sources (SEM/SEO keywords, affiliate websites etc) into viable prospects and leads

5. Search Engine Optimizer

• Pays attention to the accessibility of content created for the web; not necessarily for all the reasons that justify global accessibility concerns, but specifically to ensure that all content created is accessible by search engines for indexing and ranking.[see more details in the below-listed document on SEO]

6. Support (Metrics and Web Analytics)

• The main function of this role is to turn the collected quantitative and qualitative Search Engine and user feedback information, and to convert it into hypotheses that can be the subject of case studies, or decisions on how to better create and target the go-to-web strategy for better returns
• This is not specifically one individual, but a role that can be performed, and may be best performed by more than one individual because it requires hypotheses, analysis, comparison, and brainstorming.
• Search Engines provide some free tools that supplement paid web metrics applications. in particular, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer provide valuable insight into how each of these major search engines crawl and classify the content on your website. Using this tools gives an analyst an idea of the keywords that the site is highly ranked for, and the ones that are driving traffic. In situations where pages might be ranked for the 'wrong' keywords and bringing in irrelevant traffic, the problem cab be easily identified and steps taken to adjust accordingly
• The above-identified tools also make it possible to see where there are technical errors on the site, and correct them

Many clean-code Web Developers like myself swear by the unintrusive, clean development suite that HTML-Kit is famed to be. This tool (Version 292) is not perfect as it is, and that has warranted the development of HTML-Kit Tools for Windows/Linux (Currently in the final stages of Alpha Development).

One of the main reasons (among very many) why I made HTML-Kit my Web Development tool of choice is the fact that I did not need to have a secondary tool to edit and proof CSS development, this was provided by the integration with TopStyle, an equally powerful editor in the area of CSS. The availability of FTP connection right within HTML-Kit 292 made is indispensable in quickly accessing and editing files on a web server. However, FTP uploads have so far been available for file-level uploads, and it has not been possible to upload a complete directory structure of files. This makes it difficult to quickly upload a collective of files in a pre-existing folder-structure without using a third-party FTP application (few people enjoy jumping from one window to another).

HTML-Kit Tools for Windows now features the ability to select and add a complete directory structure to a project's virtual folder and add (upload) that folder to the FTP server. This added feature makes it possible to manage virtually all FTP functions that are necessary to add, access, and edit web content without having to fire-up and maintain an extra/dedicated FTP application.