Pages

Thursday 30 January 2014

Comic Sans Use in Web Design

Comic Sans is in the heart of a “hate campaign” aimed at erasing this font type from existence. Even the underlying hate was turned into a joke by image macros. The objection to Comic Sans largely stems from its inappropriateness in websites and other publications that are intended to convey professionalism.

Hate or no hate, the font is still available with font packages for Microsoft and MacOS operating systems, and sees widespread use in signs and video productions, particularly those made using Windows’ built-in Movie Maker. Unfortunately, you won’t see this font type much in web designs as not too many designers have a love for it.

Hate campaigns notwithstanding, Comic Sans is still categorized as a web-safe font. However, the font only works for Microsoft and MacOS platforms and not so much on Unix platforms. More suitable fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier are known to work on all platforms. This, perhaps, contributes further to the unpopularity of Comic Sans.

The “web-safety” of a font is affected by its compatibility with various platforms. A font used in one system that isn’t compatible with another can create web design issues since the latter will automatically switch to a working font in its database. As Comic Sans is a bit larger than other fonts, the arrangement of the text can get messed up. For this reason, designers prefer fonts with universal compatibility.

Wednesday 29 January 2014

SEO-fying your Blogger page

Blogger is one of the many popular blogging sites around the Internet today. A number of popular blogs today are Blogger-powered pages, and despite intense competition from Wordpress, Blogger still holds its own as a Google product. However, making your Blogger blog more visible requires a lot of work and no matter how well-written your latest post is, it will fall flat if no one’s visiting, let alone reading, your page.

First, the title should reflect what the topic is all about. At the same time, you can edit the permalink as well as the title template such that the blog post title becomes more searchable. SEO service companies can help you with pointers on how to do this.

Keywords are also essential in helping a blog post climb up the results rankings. However, too many keywords in a blog post can increase your bounce rate, which may then result to a drop in the post’s search rankings. As such, the keyword percentage should be no more than 5% of the total word count.

A blog with good SEO work performed on it has a better chance of rising to the top of search engine pages. Quality content can be the icing on the cake.