If you are all caught up in your readings on the newest digital technologies you’ve probably heard about HTML5.  But even so, I’ve been asked the question many times: what is it?

Simply, HTML5 is an updated form of the primary language used on the internet.  In fact, almost every website on the planet uses HTML.  So why the upgrade to version 5?

The big goal behind HTML5 is to bring some standardization into the industry so that your website will look the same on any computer & mobile device.  HTML5 integrates some neat tools like the “canvas” object, which replaces much of what Adobe Flash does.  To see an example of it in action take a look at this Asteroids game.

But as a person browsing the web, will you notice a difference? Probably not, at least not at first, even experienced programmers won’t notice a difference until they look at the actual structure of a website.  What you may notice is quicker loading videos on YouTube, which now has much of its coding HTML5 compliant.  Buying something from iTunes?  Apple.com is in HTML5.  Have you personalized your background image on Google? that’s all built in HTML5 as well.

HTML5 is quickly becoming the standard language for website development, the old languages version of HTML won’t be thrown out any time soon…but when you are looking for device compliance and the latest technology make sure you ask your web developer about HTML5.

BTW..the image up top is not HTML5 compliant.

The biggest influence for website development has been and always will be how good your website looks.  But you can’t forget all of the stuff that goes into a website.  Here are four key questions that you really…REALLY… need to be asking your web designer before committing to any changes:

1. Will my customers be able to find my site?

The latest stats show there are over 20 billion web sites in the world with well over 1 trillion web pages.  A pretty website won’t make you first on the search engines so make sure that you have an excellent SEO plan.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is just how it sounds, making your website optimized to perform the best on ALL major search engines.  This involves a lot of standard practices which aren’t that hard to implement but do take some time to get right.

Along with SEO here are a few more acronyms you need to know:

SEM – Search Engine Marketing
SMO – Social Media Optimization
SMM – Social Media Marketing

The difference between optimization and marketing is pretty simple, optimization involves configuring your website (or Facebook page, or twitter account, etc.) to return results that match what your customers will be searching for.  Marketing takes it one step further by paying for advertising space on search engines and social media sites.

2. Can my information be stolen?

The quick answer is, you cannot 100% prevent theft in the real world, the same goes for the virtual world.  The Internet is based on transparency and making information easy to find, but there will always be company confidential information that you need to hide.

If you have a “secure” section of your site, ensure that section only has the absolute necessary information and nothing more.  At the same time ask questions about the security procedures that will be implemented within the website coding.

3. Will everyone be able to read my website?

Strange question?  not really.  How many varieties of computers exist in the world? will your customers be looking you up on a Blackberry or an iPad?  Your website needs to be compatible on all types of online mediums.  Different web browsers interpret your website in different ways, make sure your website gets tested on as many platforms as possible…even after you get a report from your web developer go ahead and check it out for yourself.

4. Is my website confusing?

Cool designs don’t always mean easy to navigate.  How easy is it for your customers to find your phone number? To identify what you are trying to sell?  If visitors to your site get confused they will be turned off quickly, give up and move on to the next company.  Make sure your website is easy to navigate.  Put yourself in your customers shoes for a two minutes and see if you can get enough information from your site to make a sale.  Two minutes will be enough as most web visitors never spend more than that on a site.

5. Can I get a coffee while this page loads?

Just like the last question…two minutes may be all the time you have, so make sure those pages will load fast enough to get that information out there before the visitor moves on.

I could spend all day adding question after question to this…but these ones everyone should know and always ask when building, upgrading or maintaining a website.

This article caught my attention earlier today and I thought it would be interesting to share. Edmund Lee posted on adage.com this week the stats on online advertising compared to social media network advertising spots. Stating that advertising on primary social networks such as Facebook and mySpace are only costing an average of 56¢ CPM compared to an Internet average of $2.43.

CPM or Cost per mille is the cost associated with having 1000 impressions of an online advertisement.

Along with this low price Facebook offers some fantastic advertising opportunities as their software can target specific demographics including: age, location (down to the city), gender, relationship status, education… the list goes on, you can even select to show an advertisement only on the viewers birthday.

Just a few reasons why advertising on social media sites works.

View the Ad Age article

Read more about Facebook Advertising

Earlier this week we (Link Advertising) officially launched TecVana.com version 2.0.  As TecVana continues to evolve and continue to develop the resources needed to revolutionize rural and outdoor tourism industry so must their online presence evolve.

TecVana focuses on engaging the Gen Y and Gen X’ers in geo-tourism focusing on rural areas and near-urban travel.  TecVana plans on using social media interactions to interact with these generations and so must their corporate online presence reflect on that ideology.  With the latest updates to the website the interaction with social nodes is becoming more and more integrated.  The site features live twitter and facebook feeds on the right hand panel with the main panel comprising of a blog and content pages populated through a wordpress backend.

If you have the time please checkout TecVana and join their Facebook group.  It may pay to do so, sometime in the near future you may see contests for cool swap happening on TecVana.com and facebook.com/tecvana

You can catch all my tweets at @tweakitguy.  One of these days, hopefully soon. I will actually build some content and a real theme to place on this website.  Currently working on the new and improved version of TecVana.com, and yes, it is also a WordPress back end.

In a past life I was an auctioneer.  Well not really a past life, but last year before moving full time into the advertising industry.  But every once and a while I get the opportunity to take part in some interesting events such as what has been happening this week at Gardner Galleries here in London Ontario.

This 4 day specialty auction features some interesting items including the estate of Elizabeth Ingolfsrud whom was considered one of the best experts in early Canadian furniture.  Ingolfsrud published a series of illustrated reference guides exampling early Ontario furniture.  I’ve owned many of these books in the past myself, and if you are avid antique hound I’m sure you’ve come across them at some point.

The second and third sessions of this auction comprise entirely of her collection and include many items that have been illustrated in these books as well as other reference publications.  Some highlights include this linen press which was described in “All About Ontario Cupboards”, in the same book this pine pail cupboard, one of the highlights of the sale was lot 464 a walnut blanket chest fell under the hammer at $19,000.  Highlights were scattered throughout the auction from other guides including “All About Ontario Tables”, “All About Ontario Chests”, and “All About Ontario Chairs”.

The sale continues on tonight with the content of Ingolfsrud’s barn and a variety of furniture, jewellery, china, crystal and paintings on Wednesday night.

Friday was the first day for Doctorretro.com, an experiment from a “brother” (wink-wink) of mine.  Let’s see what he makes of it.

After attending Pod Camp London last weekend I’ve been steadily trying to build my twitter following.  I’m trying to start and stick with a standard twitter routing, through the use of programs such as hootsuite I am able to plan my day or weekend’s worth of tweets and schedule them to go out at different intervals.

Ultimately I’m trying to challenge myself to build a twitter following of 500 people by september.  Will it happen? I have no idea, but it’s not going to stop me from trying.  If you want to help out, spread the word and start following me.  Every little effort is appreciated.

Thanks,

Brent Patroch
a.k.a @tweakitguy

www.twitter.com/tweakitguy