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95 SEO Tips and Tricks

Search engine optimization is important if you want to get customers from search engines. But there are lots of things to think about. This long checklist shows the things you should do, from most important to least important.

How to Optimize for Search

Jennifer's Web Design / HTML Blog

Reader Question: How to add special fonts?

Friday July 4, 2008

Question?
aniketh asks:

How do i embed the style of my text on my web page. How do i change the font of my webpage... Even though i write in in my html code. what should be the procedure of uploading the font to the server.. is it possible?

My Thoughts
It sounds like aniketh wants to set up special fonts that aren't commonly found on computers. There are a couple of ways to do this.

The easiest is to use dynamic fonts. Dynamic fonts are a way to embed exactly the font family you want to use in the Web page. The problem is that dynamic fonts can increase download times for pages to make them nearly unusable. And what's worse, dynamic fonts aren't well supported in Web browsers.

The other way to do this is to create images of the text you want in specific fonts. This will guarantee that your Web page text will look exactly as you want them to look, no matter what browser or operating system your customers are using. The problem with using graphics is that your text is not accessible, it can't be resized for people with vision problems, and if you use a lot of text graphics, it can make your pages slow to download.

The best way to put special fonts on your Web pages is with CSS. You can specify a series of font families in your order of preference. Then, customers who have your favorite font will see the site exactly as you would like, and you can indicate alternatives if they don't have it. This helps your pages load quickly, lets people resize the fonts with their browsers, and ensures the pages are accessible. Plus, CSS doesn't require special technology or browser support.

Help with Fonts

Do you use special fonts?
Fonts and typography are a vital part of good Web design, but it can be very frustrating. So, some Web developers just use very basic fonts like Arial and don't worry about it too much. How do you handle fonts and typography? Do you use graphics, CSS, or dynamic fonts? Let us know by posting in the comments or answering aniketh's's post.

Poll: Which Web editor do you use?

Thursday July 3, 2008

I was asked today what editors people use and while I have an old poll asking the question, it's over 2 years old and doesn't include such popular editors as FrontPage. So I decided to ask again. There are hundreds if not thousands of Web editors available. So it's quite possible that I didn't include your favorite on the list. If so, you can reply in the comments with the editor your prefer.

Personally, I prefer Homesite, but I've recently switched to a Mac for most of my work, and Homesite isn't available for Mac. So now I use several different editors, depending upon the site I'm working on and the content. I use Dreamweaver, Komodo IDE, and TextWrangler. The majority of my work I do in Dreamweaver.

I didn't include Flash because while it's possible to use it to build a complete website, I don't think that's a really good idea. If that is the only Web editor that you use, please mark the "other" option and post a comment.

One thing to keep in mind is that just because one editor is more popular than another doesn't necessarily make it the best. I have reviewed hundreds of different editors, and I've only found one that I couldn't recommend in any circumstances. If you're looking for a new editor, I have a a questionnaire that can help.

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