6. Other Essential Information

There is a number of features of web publishing which are well worth knowing about even though they are not directly related to text, if for no other reason than they could save you from embarrassment when discussing internet sites with clients or business partners.

Images

Unlike text, images use up a lot of memory in a computer and, because of that, typically take longer to download when viewed on an internet site. This can increase the time it takes for a web page to appear on screen and, theoretically, put people off visiting a site.

The critical memory size that a web page can go up to used to be around 32 kilobytes; this used to be the amount of information that would take a second or so to download using an average modem. Nowadays, modem speeds have increased (dramatically so in the case of broadband), but it is still good practice to keep the total size of each web page as low as possible. Reducing the size of images is a good way of doing this.

‘Reducing the size’, however, does not necessarily refer to the physical dimensions of an image on the screen. A more effective way of cutting down on the amount of memory space a picture uses up is to decrease its resolution. Resolution equates to the sharpness of an image and is measured in dots-per-inch, or dpi. Images in glossy magazines usually need to have a resolution of at least 300dpi, but the resolution of a computer screen is much less than this – typically 72dpi. Consequently, any image that has a resolution of more than 72dpi and is being used on a website is simply using up memory space for no good reason.

Another way to reduce the size of an image file is to store it in a format that does a good job of packing lots of information into very little space. Two formats are commonly used for this purpose on the web. The first, usually called a jpeg or jpg (the file suffix for the format, which was developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group), is good at storing photos. The second, called gif (for Graphics Interchange Format), is good for storing other image types such as diagrams. Animated gifs can be used to store animation sequences, and have become the standard for online banner ads.

Meta-tags

Besides the copy and images that you see on screen, HTML allows for each web page to have texts that are invisible to the viewer but can be read by the web browser and other internet applications. These texts, known as meta-tags, have various purposes. One type provides the text that appears in the title bar at the top of the browser window. Another provides a description of the page that can be used by search engines in providing results of a keyword search. Yet another provides the keywords themselves that will allow a search engine to match the page to a search.

Finally, there is a form of tag – the image tag – which is seen by website visitors whenever a cursor passes over a tagged image. This kind of tag can be likened to a photo caption, albeit one that has to be activated by an action on the part of the viewer.

These meta-tags need to be created by someone (although there are programs that can create them automatically) and therefore can be seen as an extension of the copywriting you are doing elsewhere on a site. If you want or are asked to include meta-tags in your web copy, bear in mind the following:

• Title tags need to be descriptive: ‘Bloggs Co specialist widget engineering’ rather than simply an unhelpful ‘Bloggs Co’ or ‘Bloggs Co website’.
• Search engines use description tags as the précis of a page, so they need to give a brief account of the contents and sell them to potential visitors. I usually write them almost in the style of small ads.
• Keyword tags provide information which search engines use to match pages against search requests. This is not the only information they use; they also match against words in the headline and text. However, since most of the words on any given web page can be found on hundreds, if not thousands, of other pages, keyword tags provide a way of ensuring a unique match to a search phrase. (Or, at least, one that is unique enough to appear fairly high up on a list of search results.) So, when drafting keyword tags, think of words and phrases that are relevant to your web page and could be entered by someone looking for the site, but are not shared by thousands of other sites. On a technology site, for example, the keyword ‘software’ will do no more than ensure your page ends up somewhere near the end of a list of about two million. Instead, try something specific, such as ‘software for customer relationship management.’ To find out whether a particular phrase is already used by a large number of other sites, simply key it into a search engine and see how many results it returns.
• Image tags are not only displayed if a cursor moves over the picture, but also if the picture cannot be displayed. Therefore they need to be more descriptive than standard picture captions: ‘A photo of Company X chief executive Fred Bloggs’, for example.

Flash

Adobe Flash is a program that allows web designers to incorporate sophisticated animation sequences into websites. It is loved by designers because it allows them to show off three-dimensional and animation design skills, and generally makes websites look much more, er, flashy than HTML. However, flash pages cannot be read by search engines and have historically not been able to carry meta tags either, so the points above that are to do with helping search engines find a particular page are to a certain extent void if you are dealing with a Flash site. In fact, if your client is building a Flash site they would be well advised to create a mirror site in HTML.