Search engines are pretty much effective in fetching relevant traffic to the websites and since for most of the websites, more than 50% of traffic is originated through search engines. Therefore, the prevalent challenge these days is to fully index the flash websites that are made on the RIA (Rich Internet Applications) platforms. Several clients prefer to make their websites on various technologies and platforms that make use of RIA such as Ajax, Curl, JavaFX, Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Flash, and Flex. Adobe partnered with Google and Yahoo regarding this concern of making the Rich Internet Applications accessible to the search engines just as the other web applications.

A successful solution to this problem is Search Optimized Flash Architecture popularly known as SOFA. This solution has multiple benefits such as:
•    It makes the flash website searchable.
•    It provides accessible alternative web site.
•    It provides links to content deep within the flash website.
•    It also allows the user to use browser buttons to move forward and backward within the flash website.

The two key features for improvement of the Search Engine Optimization efforts are indexing and relevance. Over here, the indexing refers to directing the crawlers to what content and where it is located for crawling. Relevance refers to the deep linkable content that is interesting and catering to the user’s need so that they link to it. SOFA is a unique technique that can serve for both these SEO efforts within a flash website.

How Does The SOFA Technique Work:

It is a revolutionary technique for the Flash Rich Internet Application development platform and focuses on making the content of the flash website accessible and at the same time making it capable of indexing it too. The technique has now made it possible for the flash file (SWF) to be indexed by the search engine.

Commonly, the flash file is placed on an HTML page which in the recent times is converted into well developed into the XHTML as it is the well-formed XML file. This kind of file enables the developers to use the externalized content. What SOFA does is that it uses this XHTML as a flash content source and to locate the flash placement as well. Since the search engines can easily crawl through the XHTML, it can easily index the content of the flash website too. Hence, the first SEO effort of indexing the flash website is solved by the SOFA technique.

Second SEO effort is of linking. Generally, whenever a viewer of the website finds content in a search engine and links it, a check is prompted automatically to check if that particular user/viewer has flash or not. If the user does not have flash then the XHTML content is stylized with the usage of CSS so that he non-flash version of the page is accessible to the user. However, this is true only for a single RIA page. Therefore, when there are multiple deep pages and large quantities of content the above method just sounds too impractical. For this, the developer makes multiple XHTML pages with an index page following a navigation list which is inclusive on anchor links too. So the search engine crawlers follow the linked content and hence, the second major SEO effort is also actualized.

This the way a flash website can be turned into SEO friendly. Thus, this technique ensures the accessibility of your flash website by both the users and the search engines.

Graphic designing is one of the most significant parts of web design and this has become true all the more in today’s world. The use of graphics can enhance the look of the website and can hold the attention of the viewers. However, a graphic designer needs to be careful regarding choosing the graphic while making graphic design for any website as not all formats of the graphic files is supported by browser. Hence, it is essential to use a graphic file supported by most of the browsers.

So, which are the formats that are accepted by all browsers? It is important to focus on all browsers as your viewers can be using any of the popular browsers like Firefox, Safari, IE, or etc. for surfing the internet. Out of several hundreds of existing graphic files, only a handful of formats are compatible with all browsers. GIF (Graphic Interchange Format), JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), PNG (Portable Network Graphics), and Vector graphics are among the ones that are widely popular graphic file formats. Let’s look at why these formats are so popular in the present times. Most of these graphic file formats share the same properties such as:

• The images have transparency property which means that the image can vary from solid opaqueness to translucent to complete transparency state.
• Secondly, the images in these formats can be compressed and stored in a small file by reducing its pixels.
• These graphic formats also have the quality of interlacing which permits the image to load by initially drawing the odd rows and then drawing the even rows. This will make the viewer view the image snappily.
• These images can be animated as well. The above given file formats have the property to support animation wherein the image can be rendered with some movement inside it with the usage of series of still pictures.

However, each of the above mention graphic file format has its own advantage. Let’s have a look at the major advantages of GIF, JPEG, PNG and Victor file formats as these files are commonly used for graphic design of websites.

Benefits Of GIF File Format-
•    It is a graphic format that is widely supported by most of the browsers
•    The image and the diagrams look much better in this format.
•    This format supports transparency.

Benefits Of Using JPEG File Format-
•    This is again widely used format because it enables large compression ration. Due to this the image is downloaded quickly.
•    It can display the photographs and complex drawings with great picture quality.
•    This format supports 24-bit color.
•    The compression of the image can be controlled by the web designer.

Benefits of Using PNG-
•    The striking advantage of PNG is that it allows text along with the image hence, it is SEO friendly.
•    It can display images with better quality than JPEG.
•    It is better than GIF as it is not bound by 8-bit color limitation of GIF.
•    This format also supports transparency.

Benefits of Vector Graphics-
Vector graphics are basically images that are created by the graphic artist with the help of drawing programs such as Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand. Therefore, it is essential to convert these drawings into any of the above mentioned graphic file format before using it on the website.

However, the choice of graphic file format always depends on the graphic designer and also on the kind of website that you have. Generally, JPEG, GIF are popularly used in the websites.

There are numerous websites floating on the WWW and therefore, it is a must to come up with a website design that is unique and attractive. One of the best ways to attract viewers to your website is certainly good graphics and accessibility, but think twice, is that all that you need! Well, what if the graphics put up on the website is attractive but the content written on it cannot be even read! This really becomes one of the major points that piss off your viewers and also client. So how do you fix this problem? Here’s the best way to improve the legibility of your website by using the correct fonts and font size.

Choosing the right kind of fonts and their size is one of the vital parts of website designing. A website designer needs to select the font that is not only legible but also goes with the image of the business. Following these five handy tips on fonts will help you immensely to enhance the look and the feel of your website.

Tip 1-
Make use of CSS for formatting your text. Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) is the most helpful system for controlling the way text looks like on the website. A change made to the style sheet will have an impact on the whole site. Hence, a single update can fix up the matter for you easily.

Tip-2
Secondly, have a font size that is readable. However, that doesn’t mean that you use a very big font size as that too will piss of your viewers. The font size should be such that it does not stress the eyes in reading and at the same time, it is not so flashy that it mars the look of the website design. An ideal font and font size would be Verdana- 11 pt or 12pt. this will look decent and easy to read.

Tip-3
Thirdly, choose the appropriate background for the text. Too much of a bright color in the background may over lap the content. Use of flashy color like red, bright blue must be strictly avoided. Ideally, Black and White creates the best contrast that has easy readability. However, if you wish to have colors in the background or have colored text then make sure you choose good contrasting colors so that the text is not vanished in the background color.

Tip 4-
Enough spacing will also enhance the readability of the website. give some breathing space to the lines as well present on the website. if the lines of the content are too close, it will appear as though they are stacked up together. Again for this, you can make use of CSS line spacing directive.

Tip 5-
For easy readability of website a good web designer would generally break the text into small portions. Too many lines clubbed together would look like a huge chunk and the reader might not really wish to read such long essay regarding your products. Give the exact details to the viewer about your services, products, or website easily and quickly.

Hence, a good website design should follow all these qualities as far as a readable text is concerned.

It’s a merry-making time for everyone and all wish to be there with their family and friends for spending good time during festive vacation. Here comes the season when everyone’s busy but it’s not really with work but with the social visits and spending some great time with the friends and family. Therefore, a little drop is common till the New Year’s Day.

In this holiday season, most of the websites witness a slowdown in the number of customers and visitors. In fact, the slack the business starts right from the day of thanksgiving, but that is hardly for a week whereas, in December the trend continues to dip even further. It is a known fact that holiday is counted in one of the major reasons for the dip in the numbers of visitors and it can at times become half of the total website visitors in the month of December.

Most of the people surf during their free hours in office but since they are busy with enjoying their vacation. It is much obvious that the frequency of their search would decline during holidays. However, the only websites getting hit too much would be the one that are into selling or offering seasonal or holiday related items.

So if you posses an online presence which is not related to holiday related / seasonal items then the dip is sure to follow.

On that happy note,

“A little smile, a word of cheer, A bit of love from someone near, A little gift from one held dear, Best wishes for the coming year… This makes a Merry Christmas!”

Wish You All Happy Christmas! Have Fun To Your Heart’s Delight!

No matter how much ever the companies resisted the social media previously, but now they have come to realize that to resist social media can be damaging to the business. It’s like all your customers are already there and by now even your competitors are there. So the only one missing all is, you, if you are not there. However, before plunging into the ocean of social media, it is necessary to be clear regarding certain social media myths.

Myth no.1- Social Media Is Cheap

Yes, certainly most of the social media websites are free to use for social media marketing including Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter and so on. There is also a long list of free blogging tools such as WordPress, Blogger.com, and many more. But as the saying goes, nothing’s free in this world. The integration of these social media marketing tools with your corporate marketing program involves a fair amount of skills, time, and surely money. There is a vast sea of blogs and profiles out there on the social media so if you have a common or an average website or presence on any of these social websites then it is almost equivalent to not having one. For this, you certainly need to invest some amount in getting some additional widgets in your blogs or some attractive interactive features in your website or spend on Google Adwords. This will make you stand out from the rest and creating this uniqueness is certainly not that cheap.

Myth no.2- Any Tom, Dick, and Harry Can Do It

Social media work is not as simple as it appears to be when it is integrated with corporate marketing campaign. There are lot of concerns there of marketing such as advertising, digital and PR. You surely need someone well experienced person as no theory or opinion can match it. A successful social media marketer has acquired rich experience in blogging, handling and managing forums, comment postings, participating in contests, and much more.

Myth no.3- It’s a Short-cut to Success

Well this can be true, but not always! As mentioned earlier it is not a child’s play and integrating a social media marketing work with any business requires efficiency and strategic skills to hit the bull’s eye. This is not discourage you and say that you can’t achieve quick success with it but it’s just that it will require lot of work, experience, strategy and money on it to achieve that quick success through it. 

Myth no.4- The Results Of Social Media Marketing Cannot Be Measured

There are several tools and methods that can enable you to get hold of your social media marketing efforts. The click-through your company website, the comments on the blog posts, real-time blog advertising are just to name a few. You can also avail yourself with the statistics of Google Trends, Twitter search, Google Analytics, BackType and various others.

Myth no.5- It Can Be Done in-house

As discussed earlier, there is plenty of efforts and experience needed for successfully handling a social media marketing campaign. Since there are proper strategies to employed, relevant contacts and tools and much more, it is difficult to do it all in-house. It also needs search engine optimization, advertising, and much more. There is definitely a need for a well experienced professional social media company for it.