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CSS FONTworks with higher browser
@font-face {
font-family: Papyrus;
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1. You’ve had a client that thought they knew more about design than you.
2. Your clients pay you for your professional expertise and skill, yet you’ve run into one of ‘those’ clients, that refuses to take the advice from the very person he/she is paying for advice (you).
3. You’ve had a client that insisted on using the font “Papyrus,” and you had to hold in your barf as you prepped it [the design] for printing.
4. You’ve requested a vector logo from a client, and instead, they email you a 72 dpi image they grabbed from a website.
5. You’ve used typography as a texture.
6. You don’t have a favorite font because you love “Typography.” Not Fonts. Choosing a favorite font would be like choosing a favorite child, it’s just wrong.
7. You collect as many free stuffs from the interwebs as you can on your hard drive, hoping that one day, that cool project will come along that you can actually use some cool shit on.
8. You’d rather have a free font than a free gallon of gas.
9. It’s hard to talk about frustrations at your job with a group of friends because they have no idea what “Vector” or “DPI” is, just to name a couple.
10. You’ve had a client ask you to “Make the logo bigger.”
11. You’ve had a client that insists on “filling up the space.”
12. You’ve learned to over-price web design projects because most clients are more picky about their websites than a high school girl picking out a prom dress.
13. You feel like you’re “On Call” half of the time because clients procrastinate so much.
14. You know keyboard shortcuts that require 4 fingers.
15. You’ve lost hours of work because an application crashed, and you had to start over from scratch because you were in the “zone” and forgot to save. Basically, you were having so much fun being creative that saving was the last thing on your mind at the time.
16. You’ve “Live-Traced” something.
17. You spend more hours per week looking at CSS showcase sites than you do at the gym.
18. The only thing that would make you happier than the demise of IE6 is world peace.
19. You’ve done everything but give up a body part to talk a client out of a “Flash Intro.” Yeah. I said it. Flash Intro. Sad, so so sad. (goes along with #2)
20. You have enough fonts on your hard drive to last you for: 1 font per day for about a decade, give or take a year or two.
21. You know, explicitly, what a “Flourish” is.
22. You worry about negative space as much as the content area.
23. You get phone calls from friends and family members on a regular, sometimes annoyingly-frequent basis, wanting your services for free or extremely cheap. (and the “portfolio” line makes you want to throw something across the room)
24. You’ve had a client that wants a website they can “update” on their own, but doesn’t know shit about websites.
25. You’re never more than 99% happy with your final product because you believe that EVERYTHING can be improved upon. (especially with those tight-deadline projects)

Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site. Even if you choose not to implement any of these suggestions, we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the “Quality Guidelines,” which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index or otherwise penalized. If a site has been penalized, it may no longer show up in results on Google.com or on any of Google’s partner sites.

• Design, content, and technical guidelines
• Quality guidelines

When your site is ready:

• Have other relevant sites link to yours.
• Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
• Submit a Sitemap as part of our Google Webmaster Tools. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your webpages.
• Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.
• Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

Design and content guidelines

• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
• Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
• Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.
• Make sure that your TITLE tags and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
• Check for broken links and correct HTML.
• If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
• Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

Technical guidelines

• Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
• Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. These techniques are useful for tracking individual user behavior, but the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site, as bots may not be able to eliminate URLs that look different but actually point to the same page.
• Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This feature allows your web server to tell Google whether your content has changed since we last crawled your site. Supporting this feature saves you bandwidth and overhead.
• Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled. Make sure it’s current for your site so that you don’t accidentally block the Googlebot crawler. Visit http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html to learn how to instruct robots when they visit your site. You can test your robots.txt file to make sure you’re using it correctly with the robots.txt analysis tool available in Google Webmaster Tools.
• If your company buys a content management system, make sure that the system can export your content so that search engine spiders can crawl your site.
• Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines.

Quality guidelines

These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites). It’s not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn’t included on this page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.

If you believe that another site is abusing Google’s quality guidelines, please report that site at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport. Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to problems, so we attempt to minimize hand-to-hand spam fighting. The spam reports we receive are used to create scalable algorithms that recognize and block future spam attempts.

Quality guidelines - basic principles

• Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
• Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
• Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

Quality guidelines - specific guidelines

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
• Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Don’t send automated queries to Google.
• Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Don’t create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware.
• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
• If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

If you determine that your site doesn’t meet these guidelines, you can modify your site so that it does and then submit your site for reconsideration.

1. Look at and read as much of the content you will be designing for. Look at and read content of related subjects. Think about who the content is for. Think about how the content will be used. Mix all that together in your mind and sleep on it.
2. Sketch and mockup ideas. Starting on paper is ideal because it frees you from thinking about tools and lets you focus on concept.
3. Convert the best of your mockups into a working site. This is the technical part I write about the most, which I really love but is only one of the steps in the design process.
4. Test the design as throughly as possible. Not only technical does-it-look-right-in-all-browsers testing, but have your friends tell you what they think. Watch your mom try to use the site. You will absolutely find things you can improve doing this.
5. Release the design upon the world and see how it goes. Ask for user feedback. Make changes. Tighten things up. In print design, once your design hit’s the press

There are thousands of design resources on the web which can lead to an overwhelming experience when looking for inspiration or ideas, so I created a list of resources that I use on a regular basis. Here is a list of 50 design resources that can be helpful to any designer or marketer.

CSS Galleries

Sometimes it can be hard to come up with design inspiration. CSS galleries are a great place to get design inspiration and they can also be leveraged as a great source of traffic. If you can get your design on these galleries it can drive thousands of visitors to your website.

Unmatchedstyle
cssBeauty
cssvault
Stylegala
CSS Drive
css thesis
Styleboost
CSSElite
CSS Import
Web Creme
CSS Mania
DesignShack

Web Standards

Designing with web standards is a great way to keep your code clean and search engine friendly. Why design a site with a 1000 lines of code when it can be done in 100 lines of code.

Developing With Web Standards - This document explains how and why using web standards will let you build websites in a way that saves time and money for the developer and provides a better experience for the visitor. Also discussed are other methods, guidelines and best practices that will help produce high-quality websites that are accessible to as many as possible.
Roadmap to Standards
Web Standards Project - The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Web Standards Checklist
Importance of Web Standards

Validators

Now that you know all about web standards, here are some tools that can help check if your site is compliant. These tools will also help you find errors in your code.

HTML & XHTML Validator
CSS Validator

Usability

Usability is probably the most important factor in a website design. Making your website usable can help improve the experience for your visitors as well as help improve your conversion rate.

What is usability
Usability First - An approach to web design which emphasizes usability.
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes - Blogs are often too internally focused and ignore key usability issues, making it hard for new readers to understand the site and trust the author.
Web Design & Usability Guidelines - An 18 part online book that goes over usability and design guidelines.
Web usability - the basics
The Culture of Usability - How to spend less and get more from your usability-testing program.
90% of All Usability Testing is Useless
Ten deadly sins of web design - A list of ten huge mistakes no web designer or developer should be caught making.
Information architecture resources
Usability Views - Usability with a twist.

Blogs/Resources

Blogs are a great resource for up-to-date information on design and usability. Here is a list of blogs that you may want to subscribe to or read on a regular basis.

Stopdesign
Signal vs. Noise Blog - A design and usability blog by 37signals.
Digital Web Magazine - Digital Web Magazine is an online magazine intended for professional web designers, web developers and information architects. The magazine consists primarily of work contributed by web authors, as well as by others who occasionally delve into the web realm. We put emphasis on and provide recognition for contributed work. The Magazine is recognized by nearly all of the major web design agencies in the industry.
A List Apart - A List Apart explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.
456 Berea Street - This is a site by Roger Johansson who writes articles on web standards, accessibility, or usability in one way or another.
mezzoblue - A semi-daily expository and exploratory on all things web, design, and typographic. It is also a personal portfolio site with works in any creative discipline the owner feels fit to publicize.
Adaptive Path
Jesse James Garrett - The blog of the founder of Adaptive Path.
Jeffrey Veen
Your Total Site - YourTotalSite touchs on a wide range of subjects that include usability, accessibility, visual design, online marketing, (X)HTML & CSS, JavaScript, Information Architecture, and more.
IxDG Resource Library - A repository of information about interaction design.
Apples to Oranges - A blog by Ryan Nichols.
Demystifying Usability - A blog by Frank Spillers, a usability consultant.

Color Resources

Color is an important factor in design. Color can separate your site from your competition and it can also convey a specific message to your visitors. If you provide a personalized service you may want to choose colors that are soft and personal or if you want a corporate look and feel you may want to pick hard colors. Here are several resources that I use to help me make color decisions.

Color Schemer - Online color scheme generator.
Color Meaning - An article that explains the symbolism and meaning of different color types.
The Meaning of Color in Web Design - How colors influence audiences when marketing products through the Internet.
Symbolism of Color
Color Matters - Explore how color affects emotions, appetite, vision, sexuality, design, and art.

Typography

There are many different types of fonts and they can greatly affect how readable your site is, so choose wisely.

1001 Free Fonts - A large selection of true type fonts for Windows and Macintosh.
The Anatomy of Web Fonts
Typetester - Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its’ primary role is to make web designer’s life easier.

Firefox addons

SeoQuake - obtain and investigate many important SEO parameters of an internet project on the fly

SEOpen - provides some basic tools to help with search engine optimization including google backlinks, yahoo backlinks, PageRank check, http header viewer, and more

Google Analytics - Provides deep analysis on all traffic, including paid search.

IBP - Several tools for checking rank positions, basic SEO page analysis and link building tools.
WebCEO - Site optimization, promotion and analysis.
WeBuildPages - Free software for SEO analysis, back link and anchor text tool.
Link Building 101 - Basic link building instructions and tips.
Link Baiting - Good link baiting tutorial.
Google Webmaster Central - Statistics, diagnostics and management of Google’s crawling and indexing of your website, including Sitemap submission and reporting.

Pay-per-Click Tools

WordTracker -Data is based on the Metacrawler and Overture search engines.
KeywordDiscovery - Data is based on the number of search engines.
Keyword Optimizer - Enter a list of keywords and this tool will remove any duplicate entries and re-order the list alphabetically.
Google Analytics - Provides deep analysis on all traffic, including paid search.
Google Suggest - As you type, Google provides the top 10 most popular keywords that begin with the keyed-in letters, in order of popularity.
SpyFu - Find out what competitors are bidding on, estimates for the cost of PPC advertising and other bells and whistles.
Hittail - Finds and easily groups the actual terms being used to find your site into an Excel format. Great for finding niches and long keyword strings.
Google Trends - Graphs historical trends of various Google searches.

Google External Keyword Tool - Historical trends in keyword popularity.
BidCenter - A good tool for comparative analysis and easy to use.
SEO Sleuth - Find what AOL users search for (AOL produces 2x the retail conversions as any other engine).
ROI Calculator - This calculator measures the ROI (return on investment) of a CPC (cost per click) campaign.

Site Tools

C-Class Checker - Use the Class C Checker if you own several cross-linked sites.

Code to Text Ratio - This tool will help you discover the percentage of text in a

Future PageRank - This tool will query Google’s various data centers to check for any changes in PageRank values for a given URL.
Internet Officer - Checks for redirects.
Live PR - The Live PageRank calculator gives you the current PageRank value in the Google index, not just the snapshot that is displayed in the toolbar.
Keyword Cloud - This tool provides a visual representation of keywords used on a website.
Keyword Difficulty Check - Use the Keyword Difficulty Check Tool to see how difficult it would be to rank for specific keywords or keyword phrases.
Page Size - This tool will help you to determine HTML web page size.
Site Link Analyzer - This tool will analyze a given web page and return a table of data containing columns of outbound links and their associated anchor text.
Spider Simulator - This tool simulates a search engine spider by displaying the contents of a web page
URL Rewriting - This tool converts dynamic URLs to static URLs. You will need to create an .htaccess file to use this tool.
Keyword Misspelling Generator - Allows you to generate various misspellings of a keyword or phrase to match common typing errors. Useful for creating keyword lists around your most important keywords to bid on.
Keyword Density Analysis Tool - Finds common words and phrases on your site.
Hub Finder - Finds topically related pages by looking at link co-citation. Post about tool.
Page Text Rank Checker - Tool allows you to check where each phrase or term occurring on the page.
XML Sitemaps - Makes free Google Sitemaps for sites up to 500 pages in size.

Google Tools

Google Webmaster Central *Tool - See how Google crawls and indexes your site and learn about specific problems they’re having accessing it.

Google Labs*Tool - Cutting edge Google tools that are currently in beta

SpyFu for Google Bidding*Tool - Lets you see which keywords your competitors are buying and which ones they optimize their site for.

Google Future PR *Tool - This tool will query Google’s various data centers to check for any changes in PageRank values for a given URL

Google Sandbox *Tool - Enter the URL or keywords in the box, and you will see up to 20 sample AdSense ads for the URL or keywords

Google Dance Watch - Google Datacenter Search Tool

Google Page Rank Formula and Sandbox Explanation - Check link popularity on Google, Yahoo and MSN

Google Google Information and FAQ

Google Reinclusion Request *Tool - Remove information from search requests

Google Advanced Search *Tool - Quick explanation of different search parameters.

Google Page Rank Check (All DC’s)*Tool - Look up any site’s pagerank

Google Keyword Ranking Check*Tool - Find where a site ranks for keyword searches

Google “Need-To-Know” Info- Start here if you’re not familiar with Google

Beginner Adwords Tips *Instruction - Learn how to utilize AdWords

How Google Analytics Work *Instruction- Interpret Analytics results

Check Google Keyword Prices *Tool- Keyword price research

Hit Tail *Advanced Adwords Tool - Reveals in real time which keywords people use to find your website.

Hit Tail Documented - How to use HitTail to your advantage,

Even More Tools!

Getting into DMOZ - How to get a website listed in the Open Directory Project

Meta Tag Generator Tool

RoboForm - A MUST-HAVE! - Completely automates password entering and form filling.

Keyword Density * - Helps webmasters and SEOs achieve their optimum keyword density for a set of key terms.

Web CEO - SEO Software *Tool - Great SEO software package.

IBP Pro - SEO Software *Tool - Another good SEO software package

Robots.txt Generator *Tool - Allows you to hide files or directories that you don’t wish the search engine spiders to find

Domain Age Check *Tool - Use this tool to find the age of any domain, including your competitors’ or ones you might want to purchase

Who Supplies Who with Search Results*Tool - Search engine relationship chart

Adwords Click Fraud Study *Information - In depth study on click fraud

IP Information *Tool - - An online DNS tool suite

PPC Hijacking *Information - Info on Pay-per-click hijacking

Comprehensive Link Building 101 *Tool - Link building is the single most important element to obtaining high rankings in all of the major search engines

Link Baiting *Instruction - How to create the most link-worthy content