Website Optimization Measures, Part V
Jens Meiert, November 3, 2008 / November 7, 2008.
This entry is filed under Web Development, Usability, Design.
Almost half a year since my last article in that regard it’s about time to present version 5 of some random website optimization measures hopefully being great for your site as well. Short and crispy, to use some equally random German saying.
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Migrating to HTML 5. Well, we can still use HTML 5 already, and what’s better than going ahead and doing so. So shortly after “launch” of example.ms I decided to revise UITest.com and the World’s Highest Website to use HTML 5, too, to then continuously use it for some other projects, including all new Code Responsibly. And while I understand from some comments I got as well as sites like W3C Sites that knowledge about the applicability of the new HTML is not too popular yet, it’s still good (or maybe even better then) to play with it. HTML 5 pages might want to be valid too though, sure.
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Refactoring and removing
abbrelements. It took me some time to go for that change, however considering relatively yet unnecessarily big maintenance issues, minor performance impacts as well as some plans to make@titlerequired in HTML 5 (which then, ironically, got dropped after people, including me, raised concerns) I decided to abandon the habit to useabbrfor every abbreviation, with thetitleattribute set on each abbreviation’s first occurrence. And without any further explanation, so I did for all my sites. -
Switching to Google Analytics. Having been a happy Mint user for two and a half years I finally reached the point where I wanted one, ideally free analytics solution for all projects that allowed for more insight into the data gained too, and, ignoring my work-related situation, decided to add Google Analytics (GA) code to all my projects. I miss some things I had with Mint, above all real-time data access, but I certainly didn’t regret the change. After all I used GA on some sites basically since Google acquired Urchin and so I knew what I would get.
It’s basically another thing, and one that I’ll write about in more detail soon, however try doing A/B or multivariate tests of your site or its elements to optimize it. I guess it’s fine to say that Website Optimizer allows exactly that, but there are certainly other good tools as well.
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Adding Google Analytics privacy notes. Some of you might have heard about that, but apparently there’s some kind of requirement in Germany to have a privacy note “in some way” saying that you’re using GA and what GA’s doing. Neither am I a lawyer nor am I living in Germany anymore, but I figured it might not hurt to add that note to my sites’ pages – even in the legal notice of this part of my website.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly,
the Dalai Lama is quoted, but I’m not too familiar with all the rules here so this just means playing it safe. -
Revising and improving headings use in posts. That’s a boring one: You know this semantics quiz where it’s about using headings and paragraphs or lists and either headings or stronger emphasis or whatever, which would perfectly apply to this post too? Well, I checked most or even all posts and articles for “semantics potential” and adjusted in some cases. Trivial thing, apparently I had too much time at hand.
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Proofreading and editing all posts and comments. History kind of repeats itself in this case, because I once again decided to review (or start reviewing, to be precise) all contents of this weblog. I know about some concerns, but that doesn’t mean that this measure is not good for quality, and in fact, I could improve some posts, deleted at least two rather stupid ones, and I touched comments when I felt they’ve been spammy or that I talked crap. So no worries, instead please see this measure as one that helps making better and more useful archives, well, websites.
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Testing font alternatives. That’s not boring but short: I tested additional fonts and found that sans serif fonts work better for this site’s headlines (resulting in
corbel, optima, arial, sans-serif, interestingly), while I tweaked the main font to reflect that change (cambria, palatino, georgia, serif).
This has been the fifth part of an open article series. Currently there are four additional articles on website optimization, part I, part II, part III, and part IV.
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Comments
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On November 3, 2008, 18:25 CET, Louis said:
That’s why I gave you the best score on Quality when answering your survey
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On November 3, 2008, 20:08 CET, Dave said:
Oh, that everyone did this. Your new headline font is hot.
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On November 5, 2008, 10:33 CET, Jens Meiert said:
Louis, Dave, thank you both!
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On November 6, 2008, 3:51 CET, Daniel James said:
will you help me promote my new website/blog? Come and read my daily blog and do some shopping at adventuresoutdoorz.com. If you help me promote my website/blog and put a link to it on your blog then I’ll do the same for you. Email me back at Danieljames4612@gmail.com. The “z” is supposed to be on the end of outdoorz, it’s not a typo. I am hoping to generate enough income from the website/blog to keep the bank from taking our house, so please help me.
