Her new website is a Wordpress install configured as a CMS rather than a blog. The theme is Mastersuite, an off the shelf Wordpress theme with a few modifications. The site took one day to set up, including content authoring and various issues with the server with a further day of SEO and tinkering to follow.

The site is available at victoriapage.net. Check it out to read some wonderful stories from her travels and to get in touch.

In this campaign I’ll be predominantly doing off-page optimisation and link building. I’ll also be making some changes to the Apache configuration to standardise around the www domain and prevent duplicate content errors.

I think it’s a great way to bring communities together.

The Community Exchange is a very simple idea. You sign up for an account with your name and email and also give your postal address. You then get to add 3 or more things you would be prepared to lend, give away or help with. It then shows you all the people within 500 yards and all the things they have added. You can message them and ask to borrow their stuff.

It’s beautifully simple and I think it could be a big success. Check it out and sign up for an account!

Wild Invention build Wildliy Creative little bits of stuff such as: Games, Microsites, Innovative Social Media apps, Flash, Actionscript and various other lovely and fun things.

Web standards have been a hot topic for the past few years. The drive to standardise the way browsers see the web and and the way developers present their content has lead to huge improvements in developer productivity, accessibility and search engine friendliness.

Questions you should be asking when commissioning a website are:

Does it use semantic, table free markup?

Websites should be written in a such a way that they make sense when unstyled. This is helpful for people who are not able to see or use a styled webpage. This group includes people using assistive technologies to help with a disability or people using small screen devices such as PDAs or mobile phones. It’s also easier for search engine spiders to use.

Is it navigable in the absence of Javascript/Java/Flash/images etc?

A website should not require the user’s browser to have certain features enabled. For example Javascript can and should be used to add powerful and rich interactivity to your web browsing experience but in most cases the site should continue to function at some level without it. This allows people using less fully featured browsers and those sitting behind corporate firewalls to use your site. It’s also good for search engines.

Does it validate?

XHTML and CSS should ideally validate to W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) standards. These standards provide a fixed reference point that browser developers attempt to match. A site that validates is more likely to work in all browsers and continue to work in future browsers.

Does it comply with WAI guidelines?

The WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) is a group charged with producing web accessibility guidelines. Complying with these guidelines in part or in full will ensure that users of assistive technologies such as screen readers can use the site. This doesn’t mean that sites have to boring, in fact quite the opposite. With a little thought a site can be made to work for all users, taking advantage of features such as javascript and flash when they are present.

Heavenly Media is able to comply with all relevant website accessibility standards. We have experience building UK council websites which must by usable by all. We also have experience developing rich user interfaces in a way that degrades nicely for users of alternative browser technologies.