Well now they have gone a step further and made it even easier.  Now they have added the Google Font Previewer, what this adds is the be able to see the effect of letter, word and line spacing changes and similar changes, live in your browser.  Additionally the preview tool will create the CSS necessary for you to add to your stylesheet to get the effect you have tried out.  (It’s also easy to tweak it further after Google gets you started).  But the most important part is that you can copy and paste a line of code from the Font Previewer which will retrieve the font from Google’s servers.

To back up for a minute and explain to the non or new designers:  When designing a web page you need to be careful about what fonts you use, as just because you have some fancy font that came with Photoshop that doesn’t mean your users will.  The result will be that the font will be replace with another more standard font like Arial and your design will not look the same for your users.  In the past we got around this by using things like Cufon, but it is tricky to implement.

What happens with Google’s Font API is that the fonts are always pulled from their servers – and are thus available across the web, to everyone.  Pretty cool.

What is all this about:  In the old days websites would pack their meta tags with keywords that should have described their respective websites.  Search bots would then crawl the site and pick up on those meta-tags and would use that to define what the site was about. The problem was this got abused – and websites that had no relevant content at all would pack their meta-tags with the most popular keywords just to get searched.  The result was that Google stopped searching this information because of the abuse.  Some search engines still use this information, but Google does not use it for determining search ranking.

Two of the meta-tags in a site which are the most critical and searched and indexed by Google are the Description meta-tag and the page Title tag.

The Description meta-tag should be just that – a short description of the contents of the page, don’t make it long than 150 to 200 characters long because it will be the text that will be shown on the Google search page.  And here is a key thing:  In your description use the keywords that describe your site – because that will be what Google actually searches for relevant content.

The Title tag is also important, and is in fact one of the most important places to put your keywords and phrases.  But don’t overload it, that will just annoy people, it should be kept to less than 12 words, and often much less.   The title tag will be the main heading on the search results page, and it is what we humans will look for in deciding whether or not to click on that link.  A good practice for Title tags is that they take the form:

<title>page title | organization or site name | short keyword rich phrase</title>

This gets the important information to the front the title – where we humans will read it.  Then the keywords are at the back of the title – where the bots will read it.

For more information go to this LINK at the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog.

One can detect this problem by using the Google Page Rank tool in the Google toolbar and go to each site and note the page ranking; if the page ranking is different the Canonical Problem is probably the issue.

You can use a redirect to remedy this problem, but that too can negatively effect your page ranking, as Google sees redirects as a possibility that the site is not legitimate.

Another way to solve this problem is to use mod_rewrite (in Apache, and ISAPI filter in IIS).  Mod-rewrite is an Apache module which can rewrite URLs when specific patterns are detected.  What we want to do is that when a request comes in for the URL without the WWW that we force the web server to send the browser to the URL with the WWW.  We do this by writing the following code to the .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

All of that cryptic stuff is regular expressions, and all you have to worry about is that it is for pattern matching, the Apache module is looking for a particular pattern of URL request, which it will then re-write.  Apache reads the .htaccess file each time it sends out a response to a request.  (This also means that it is a very critical file to your web server, so be careful to not screw it up).

Once you have edited the file restart Apache, then whenever you go to the site without the WWW on the front of the URL Apache will re-write your request to add the WWW.

Dr. David Ciriani website

Blink Designs is currently designing and implementing a website for Dr. David Ciriani, an established dentist in Kamloops, BC.  The site will feature a CMS backend and fully customizable front end, with features such as Google maps integration and scheduling information for clients.

Headwater Management

The Client: Headwater Management

Project Description: Headwater Management is a North Vancouver based excavating and drainage contracting company.  Blink Designs created and implemented the website for Headwater Management.  Attention was paid to the simplicity but attractiveness of the website, and the degree of information available.

The site was implemented with a CMS backend, built in blog and news section, price estimation and contact forms.

Client Testimonial: “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Proin sed odio et ante adipiscing lobortis. Quisque eleifend!”

Hands Up For Africa

The Client: Hands Up For Africa

Project Description: Hands Up For Africa is a Vancouver based charity whose goal it is to help children in Kenya through building of schools and infrastructure in their community.  Blink Designs created and implemented the website for HUFA and is currently hosting their website at no cost in order to give back to this worthy cause.

The site features a CMS backend, built in blog and news section, gallery section, and customizable front end.

Client Testimonial: “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Proin sed odio et ante adipiscing lobortis. Quisque eleifend!”

Re-Elect Don Bell

The Client: Don Bell Campaign for Member of Parliament

Project Description: Blink Designs worked for the Don Bell campaign for MP, organization designing and building websites and blogs for the organization over the past three years.  In 2008 Blink Designs designed and created the website for Federal Liberal candidate Don Bell.  Unfortunately Mr. Bell lost to his opponent, but I am confident that had more to do with politics than with the design of the website.

Client Testimonial: “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Proin sed odio et ante adipiscing lobortis. Quisque eleifend!”

Tanager Strata Corporation

The Client: Tanager Strata Corporation

Project Description: Blink Designs designed and implemented a website for the Tanager Strata Corporation, a 55 unit townhouse complex in North Vancouver, BC.

Client Testimonial: “Scott delivered a first class website for our community. He went above
and beyond the original scope to deliver something that we are all very proud of.” – Jon Feldman, Strata President

QTrades

The Client: QED Software Solutions

Project Description: QTrades is a web application created by QED Software Solutions which allows unions to keep track of member information and creates a method of information sharing with it’s membership.  Blink Designs is doing web development work for QTrades, adding enhancements to the web application and new features.

Client Testimonial: “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Proin sed odio et ante adipiscing lobortis. Quisque eleifend!”