From the Editor

I hope that the first part of your 2010 has been off to a successful start! I know that I’ve found myself busier than usual, all with good stuff, so I wish the same for you.

I thought I’d talk about more ways to make sure your website is as enticing and captivating as possible, so I have an article on good and bad advice about “the fold” as well as a reminder about ensuring that your web images are accessible.

Feel free to forward this newsletter to a friend if you’d like to share what you’ve read. Also, follow Dream Seed on Twitter and Facebook for more tips, tools, and special offers!

All the best,

Adam J. Barkafski

Website MarketingWhere does your website fold?

First impressions are key to any relationship. They are perhaps even more crucial in cyberspace than they are in real life. Think about how many times you’ve gone to a website, only to click on to the next one in a mere few seconds. The harsh truth is that people are doing that to your website if they feel that it doesn’t offer what they need. So how does your website stack up?

Read more about the website fold…

Insightful TipAccessible images are essential

In the article above, I made a brief reference to using accessible images. If you use images on your website (and who doesn’t?), make sure that they are accessible. But what is an accessible image?

Responsible website owners, designers, and developers realize that not everyone who visits their websites has updated technology, perfect vision, perfect hearing, or perfect motor skills. Simply put, how your website works for you is not how it will work for everyone else…period. When we talk about images, realize that not all of your website visitors will be able to see them, whether because of vision challenges or older technology. So without the images on your website, does it still make sense?

Two simple things you can do for your images are to optimize them for faster download (to assist users with older internet connections) and to use what’s called “alt text” for images. This is text that shows up in place of images if the images don’t appear. It’s also read aloud to users with screen reader technology, usually those with vision challenges. So take a few extra steps to ensure that your website welcomes as many people as possible.