Semantic markup helps to make the web “machine understandable”, in other words, it puts the information on the web page in context. By using semantic markup, a search engine is able to differentiate a name from a body of text. It also helps to define the relationship between the various pieces of information, so the name is actually the author of the body of text, which is an article.
Below is a great video explaining the basic principals of the semantic web:
Tracking the changes to a clients site with git is an essential part of the development process. Git provide a safety net (and crash mats under that…and a ladder back to where you were before) it also saves time and effort in deploying similar functionality across other sites.
An error that I have encountered is the infuriating “fatal: CRLF would be replaced by LF in…”. Not only has this driven me partially mad reading the many, many explanations in Drupal.org and Stackoverflow.com, but it has also halted my progress on a project.
One particular solution is to deactivate it in the git core config using the following line:
git config core.autocrlf falseIt quickly solved the issue on a Drupal 7 site I was working on!
Producing content for a website can be an arduous task. Sometimes there is nothing more daunting than a blank sheet of paper waiting to be filled with lively and engaging content.
Before you begin there are a few points worth considering:
• What is the intent of the copy? Is it to provide information or to sell a product or service?
• What are the visitor’s interests and reasons for visiting your site?
The way people read content on a website differs from how people read printed material. Reading from a computer screen is harder, which is why most read 25% more slowly from a computer screen than from paper.
Content on the web should be more concise and up to 50% shorter than content for print. Visitors should be able to absorb the information easily, so avoid complex and promotional language.
Visitors to your site are not likely to read large bodies of text word for word. This is why we suggest breaking up the information into bite-size chunks. Make use of headings, bullet lists and hyperlinked text to aid scannability.
People who are reading content on the web want to get the information they want and move on. They do not want to scroll through a large body of text or find information within intricate text.
Every time some one searches for something using a search engine, calculations are made to decide which websites are relevant. Search engines then list the websites in order of relevancy. Therefore, ensuring search engines can access and understand your website is essential for increasing your websites visibility. This practice of increasing the visibility of a website to search engines such as Google or Bing is known as Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO.
Social media is a point in question all professional bodies need to address. Forming a sound social media policy is essential for protecting intellectual property and confidential information.
For some organisations, social media is an essential part of their marketing strategy. Social media can assist in networking and showcasing work. Some industries, however, are heavily regulated and communication is managed, audited and archived.
Surrey Hub is an online resource for businesses that cater for the Surrey area. Many parts of the site are still under development with the aim of eventually being a focal point for business and visitor activities.
The Surrey Hub site was Susumu’s first experience in using Drupal 7 to build an interactive website. Until now, our Drupal 7 portfolio was made up of brochure sites including Temple Property Services and Hotcakes Bakery. Surrey Hub allows for multiple user profile types with varying permissions and charges.
Drupal is an Open Source content management system (CMS). This means it is free to use even for corporate and commercial websites. The content management system allows our clients to update the website and content themselves with minimal technical knowledge.
Our previous two posts covered what Twitter was (What is Twitter?) and how to set up an account (Getting Started with Twitter). In this article, I am going to introduce TweetDeck, a powerful tool for managing your Twitter account. In fact, it is so essential that Twitter bought it for $40 million. It was built by a London based developer called Iain Dodsworth back in 2008.
Everybody seems to be talking about Twitter and almost every website seems to be asking you to follow them. If you are unsure about how to even use Twitter, you may be starting to feel left out. This article will follow on from my previous post, “What is Twitter?“, and is a practical guide to setting up an account and getting started.
In a nutshell, Twitter is a social network that allows you to post out short 140-character messages. This message (a.k.a. tweet) will be displayed to the people following you and those searching for keywords that appear in the tweet. This type of online communication is known as “micro blogging” and has grown in popularity partly because it is a relatively easy way of post messages and links out and participating in conversations.
