My 2¢ Worth

here are two rules you need to know if you are operating a business, either online or in the brick and mortar world.

hese two rules are —
Rule #1: The customer is always right
Rule #2: If the customer is wrong, see rule #1.

hat being said, however, there are times when the customer is wrong and rule #1 doesn't apply.

 case in point — I once had a client that wanted me to use all kinds of animated graphics and garish colors on her Web site. I explained to her that while I would do it her way if she insisted, that was not the way to build trust in her potential customers on a business Web site.

 explained how all those animated graphics were distracting and how they made the page slower to load in the user's browser. I also explained in simple terms a little bit of color theory and how certain colors invoke certain reactions in people.

o make a long story short, she finally understood what I was talking about and I built her a very nice business Web site that attracts the users and entices them to further browse her offerings.

y point is that sometimes you have to reminds your customer when they are wrong if you truly care about them. I cared enough about this woman , that I wanted her business to succeed.

Feature Article

Using External Coding to Improve Search Engine Placement

by: George Peirson How To Gurus

Do you have lots of JavaScript coding in the header section of your web pages? Do you re-list your CSS styles at the top of every page? Do you have JavaScript coding spread throughout your web pages?

If you answered yes to any of these questions your site may be driving away search engine spiders and losing search engine position ranking.

As you can imagine search engine spiders have a lot of pages to get through on the web when they are indexing sites. To improve their speed and efficiency search engines program their spiders to give up easily if they have problems with a page or if they have to wade through too much code to find the relevant content.

This is one of the reasons why it is so important to put your keywords as close to the top of the page as possible. This way the search bot will see the keywords before giving up and moving on to the next page.

But what do you do if you have lots of JavaScript code or CSS styles pushing your keywords down the page in your coding? You need to find a way to cut down on all that code that gets in the way of the search engines properly indexing your page.

We do this by moving the JavaScript and CSS styles off the page and into external files. This is a fairly easy and straight forward process and can have the added benefit of making your pages load faster as well, which the search engines also like.

In many ways CSS styles and JavaScript work in a similar fashion. You set up functions in a script or formatting in a style sheet section, and then refer to that section in your html code. For instance if you have a JavaScript that displays a clock on your page you would have the JavaScript functions for the clock listed in your head section, then you would simply call that function from the place on the page where the clock would be displayed.

Similarly with CSS you set up your styles ahead of time in a Styles section of the page head, then you simply refer to the styles as needed in your html coding. One benefit of this is that it cuts down dramatically on the amount of formatting code needed when compared to using Font tags.

If you want to use the same JavaScript or CSS styles on a different page you could copy all that code onto the new page. But this would cause two distinct problems, first you would be adding a lot of code to each page and second if you wanted to make a change to the JavaScript or CSS styles you would need to do so on every page that the code had been copied onto.

Both of these problems can be solved simply by using external files. You create one external file for your CSS and another file for your JavaScript. These could be named mysite.css for the CSS and mysite.js for the JavaScript. These files can be created in any plain text editor or html code editor, they are nothing more than files that contain most of the CSS or JavaScript code from the web pages.

With JavaScript you have an opening JavaScript tag, then a comment tag, then assorted functions and what not, followed by a closing comment tag and a closing JavaScript tag. Your external file would start with the opening comment tag, contain all the functions and such, and end with the closing comment tag. You would leave both the opening and closing JavaScript tags in the html page. If you have more than one JavaScript on the page you can move all the code into one external js file. Simply copy it into the file in the same order as it exists in the JavaScript tags on the html page. You will only need the one pair of opening and closing comment tags.

Once your JavaScript is moved off the page you will need to tell the web page where to find it. This is done in the JavaScript tag that was left on the page in the head section. Right now this will be an opening JavaScript tag placed right up against the closing JavaScript tag, with no additional code in between. You will place the reference to the external JavaScript code inside the opening JavaScript tag like this:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript" src="mysite.js">

Placing CSS styles in an external file is handled in exactly the same manner. Move the styles into the external file, and then refer to that external file with your style tag in the head section of the web page like this:

<link href="mysite.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

An added benefit of moving the code into external files is that you can then change the styles of your whole site simply by changing the code in the one external file.

Once you have moved the code into external files you will have greatly simplified the code on each page. This will take you a long way towards making your pages lean and mean, and very search engine friendly.

You can find sample external files for this article on my web site at: www.howtogurus.com/free-articles.html

**************

George Peirson is President of How To Gurus. He is the author of over 30 multimedia based tutorial training titles. To see training and other articles by George Peirson visit www.howtogurus.com

Horizontal Line Tips

Horizontal lines are nice to use on your Web page as a way to divide it into different sections because they take almost no time to load. This is pretty easy to do, and you can make them any size you want.

Play around with the tag variables to see how you can customize these lines. You can size them by relative screen percentage, or directly with pixels. You can also change the appearance of the line itself with width and alignment.

Review the following examples:

<hr width="80%">

<hr size="5" width="300">

<hr align="right" width="100" color="darkblue"> (color IE only)

* Get these syndicated tip feeds for yourweb site, free. *

Second Article

Our Checklists

by: Michael Angier Success Networks International

I'm a big believer in systems. Systems help make our work and our life easier, less prone to error and they free our minds for better things. And no system is simpler or more useful than a checklist.

When I walk on board an airplane, I take some comfort in knowing the flight deck crew is going through their checklists. Even though they may have gone through their routines thousands of times, they still use checklists to minimize the chance for error. Lives, equipment and reputation are on the line, and they wouldn't think of risking these things without using checklists.

We all use them. Most of the time, they're mental checklists. Before we go to bed, we lock the front door, turn out the lights and brush our teeth. It's a routine that doesn't require a written checklist.

But anything longer or more critical than this mental list would be best served with a written one. Anything we do infrequently or that affects safety should utilize this simple system.

Just a few things for which I have written checklists:

• travel, camping
• article, newsletter writing and publishing
• book authoring and publishing
• new product evaluation
• boat winterization, commissioning

You've heard it said that "A long pencil beats a short memory." It's true—our minds are better designed for thinking than remembering.

Checklists also help us to delegate tasks and projects to others. If we have a system, we're more confident the job will be done better, and we're more inclined to delegate it.

Action Point
What processes do you or your team members conduct that could be improved by using a checklist? What project are you involved with that you could document and develop a checklist for the next similar project?

**************

Copyright Michael Angier. SuccessNet.org and WorldClassBusiness.com help you and your business grow. Get their free report, 10 Pillars of a World Class Business, by sending an email to wcb@SuccessNet.org No-cost subscriptions, memberships, eCourses, eBooks and more are available at SuccessNet.org and InfoPlease@SuccessNet.org

Comments?

If you'd like to comment on any aspect of this publication, send an E-mail to
comments@ paradigmwebdesign.net

---

If you enjoyed The Web Sm@rts Newsletter, forward it to your friends, family and associates. They'll thank you for it!

---

Do you know someone who might be interested in receiving
Web Sm@rts?
Recommend us!

---

NOTE: You have received this message because you or one of your friends added your name to our list of those who may wish to receive this newsletter.

If you do not wish to receive this newsletter, please point your browser to http://paradigmwebdesign.net/unsubscribe.html

FYI: Web Sm@rts will never share your E-mail address or personal information with any other party for any reason what-so-ever.

---

This newsletter is never sent unsolicited.
To unsubscribe, point your browser to http://paradigmwebdesign.net/unsubscribe.html

Tell them Web Sm@rts referred you!

Recommended Reading

I highly recommend the following E-zines.

ThePortalToSuccessE-Zine

Interactive Marketing Ezine

Looking for free newsletters? Just visit the EzineXchange, Select the ones of interest and subscribe. It's free!
ezinexchange.com

Find other great e-mail newsletters and Ezines at the Cumuli Ezine Finder: www.cumuli.com/ezines/

Web Site and E-zine Promotion for Idiots
Get your copy from PWD and get lots of traffic to your Web Site or E- zine instantly.

Use Link Crafter to drive more traffic to your site. Free download from PWD.
lc.exe

Text Tally from
Harmony Hollow software
is a handy text counting utility. Download it free from PWD
Download now

E-Zine Advertising WORKS!
Place your ad in 100s of e-zines like this one. The E-Zine AdSource Directory is the place to find discount e-zine ad space. Come see!
ezineadsource.com

Tutorials

Elated Webdesign Tips
Javagoodies JavaScript Repository
Website Abstraction Westciv: CSS Resources