Computers in Libraries 2008: Fast & Easy Site Tune-Ups

Computers in Libraries 2008: Fast & Easy Site Tune-Ups

Jeff Wisniewski, the Web Services Librarian for the University of Pittsburgh, presented this session.  Jeff started by talking about the need to update your copyright statement.  There are ways for the copyright code to get refreshed automatically (either PHP or JavaScript) that allows it to update every year.  Awesome. 

Next, he talked about adding a script that shows the “last updated” date on every webpage on our entire site. 

He also recommends using one central script that each page calls upon instead of coding it in to each page individually. 

Jeff recommended adding photos to contact information - it goes a long way toward developing user trust and connection with the library. 

He also encourages that you turn contact info into hCards using MicroFormats.  Dreamweaver also offers a microformats extension.  You can add email, AIM and other screen names (e.g. for your virtual reference service), etc.  The hCard creator gives you a snippet of code that you just copy and paste into your site’s code. 

Jeff also recommends not to have hyperlinks that say “click here” - instead link the words that actually refer to the content that is being linked. 

Jeff recommends offering a quick three question survey.  The questions?  “What is the purpose of your visit to your site today?”  “Were you able to complete your task today?”  “If you were not able to complete your task today, why not?”   Use SurveyMonkey, ask for their email so you can follow up with people, and use code to embed the survey into your site.

Change any links that don’t have trailing slashes to have trailing slashes (this helps your server).

If you want to “Web 2.0-ify” your logo, there are many online generators that allow you to do so.  His favorite is the Web 2.0 STYLr.  The other one he likes automatically adds a little beta tag to your logo :)

Jeff noted how librarians are rather text-heavy in our communications, and recommends trying to use visual clues on our websites more.  There are some great free icons online that you can use to indicate contacts, the library home page, printer icons for print-friendly pages, etc. 

He talked about “the need for speed.”  Install Firebug + Yslow in Firefox to test your webpages and see what is happening with them on the server end.  Something else that will improve performance is to store as many elements of your library’s webpage in the user’s cache (stylesheets, navigation, images, etc.).  How do you do this? You can set certain file types to “not expire” which will store these files in the user’s cache on their end.  Focus on CSS, JS, PDF, and image file types.  Try creating a server file called .htaccess in your server root, and add code (that Jeff has on his slide). 

If you can combine small images into an image map, that will allow pages to load faster.  Yahoo! High Performance research shows that this works.  Yay!

Eliminate inline scripts: in most cases, calling scripts from external files will speed page download time, especially if these items are cached.  Don’t do this on your library’s homepage because you are most likely getting more new users on that page than on others.

Use the W3C validator to help you clean up your homepage.  You can allow the W3C to clean up your markup automatically so you not only see a list of errors, but you get fixed code too.  Whoopah!  Having done this myself, I can attest that it is easy and it makes a huge difference on your site’s efficiency, accessibility, and compatibility.  Jeff also recommended CleanCSS and HTMLtidy. 

Most of the information that is at the very top of your page is in the “blindness zone” - people don’t look there because they are used to seeing advertisements in the top banners. 

Jeff recommends tackling search engine optimization.  One of the best things you can do to help with this is to have good page titles to help search engines find and categorize your site correctly.  Google webmaster provides great tools.  He also recommends structuring your titles as such: document title, followed by section name, followed by the library or site name.  For example: “Chat with the library / Contact the Library / San Jose Public Library.”  Good advice!

Jeff also recommends adding labels to all of your fields - this not only makes the form accessibility-compliant but also the checkbox and the text itself becomes clickable (making it easier to use the mouse on the form).  Jeff also noted that there are a lot of rules for good forms.

Make your site social media relevant.  Add social bookmark buttons to your site with.  TopRankBlog.com.  You just select which buttons and links you want to create, and voila!

CIL2008