Don posed the question on What Makes a Good Web Font and mentioned that there are alternatives like sIFR 2.0 which allow developers to replace text headings with customized fonts, via Flash, irregardless of whether or not the font is on the users system. I just stumbled upon PHP + CSS Dynamic Text Replacement which builds upon previous iterations of dynamic text replacement which will replace a page heading with an image. Now you can customize the styling with CSS and have page headings within a small or large scale project be whatever font, color and size you want. No more time consuming editing of each heading on multiple pages with Photoshop, this is all done on the fly!
Archive for December, 2005 Page 2 of 3
It looks like the Eolas/Microsoft patent problem has escalated to the point where Microsoft is changing the way that Internet Explorer handles plugins using these tags: applet, object and embed. This change will force users to click on any elements on a page that use those tags before they start to work or play, so no Flash movies will play unless they are clicked.
This will make our lives as developers a little complicated, since we’ll have to go back and make changes to ensure that our projects work as intended. The good thing is that deconcept has a write up on how we can use the FlashObject method to get around the changes to Internet Explorer. We’ve started using this on some of our projects recently and I think it works great!
Since this whole mess only affects Internet Explorer on a Windows machine, can I once again recommend using a better browser, like Firefox if you’re on a PC or Mac and Safari if you’re on a Mac.
I’ve seen a few different online color picking utilities, some allow you to find similar hues and pick a color scheme that matches your choice, but I think that ColorBlender takes the process a step further by allowing save your selections to a Photoshop or Illustrator accessible file and even suggest a Pantone match to your color which can make life a little easier when your trying to ensure a consistent look between your screen and PMS colors for a print project.
Found this interesting and debatable article on Sitepoint: “We’ve published an article on the way in which fonts are used on the Web. We found that a large “x-height” (the height of a lowercase ‘x’ in relation to the total height of the font) makes fonts more readable on a computer screen, as does a wide “punch width” (the width of the hole inside letters such as ‘o’ and ‘b’). Helvetica is a good font to use online. The designer’s choice of fonts is usually limited by the user’s OS, but techniques such as SIFr (example) are allowing Web designers to provide their own fonts.”
If you’re advertising with Google AdWords, this new factor might influence the position of your ads and the minimum price you have to pay for your bids.
What is Google’s Quality Score?
Google’s Quality Score is Google’s method to evaluate the position and the minimum bid of a text ad in Google AdWords. Google hasn’t revealed all details about the Quality Score. All we know is that the text of an ad and the clickthrough rate are important factors that influence the position of your ad and the minimum price you have to pay per click.
Last week, Google announced that it would also include the landing page in the calculation of the Quality Score. That means that the web page that is linked to an AdWords ad will also be analyzed to determine the position and the price for the ad.
What does this mean to your AdWords ads?
If you bid for many different keywords, it might be that the prices for keywords that are only loosely related to your web site go up for you. The less a web page is related to the keyword, the more you have to pay to get an AdWords listing for that keyword.
What can you do to lower your per click prices?
To pay as little as possible for a click, you have to follow Google’s quality guidelines. The better your ad, the less you have to pay per click:
- Make sure that your AdWords ads have compelling titles that inform web surfers about what they can expect on your site.
- Use interesting descriptions that are related to the keyword. If possible, include a call to action or a reason to click in your descriptions.
- Create more PPC landing pages that are directly related to your keywords.
- Make sure that your landing pages are relevant to what web surfers are looking for.
Google’s latest change in the Quality Score won’t hurt you if your ads are compliant to these points.
