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HTML vs PDF: Advantages

The question about publishing a PDF document instead of HTML (web page text) comes up often with my clients. Simply publishing the PDF seems like an easy solution. Many industries do it, including the Fair and Festival industry. Whether the content is contest information, list of events or promtional flyers published as a PDF, HTML content is likely a better solution.

So what are the advantages of HTML content?

Publishing information on a fair’s website in HTML format as opposed to providing it only in a PDF document has several advantages:

Accessibility: HTML content is generally more accessible to users with disabilities. Screen readers and other assistive technologies can more easily interpret and interact with HTML content than PDF files.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engines can index and understand HTML content more easily than PDF files. HTML content is more likely to appear in search engine results, helping more people find the contest information.
Mobile Friendliness: HTML content can be responsive to different screen sizes and devices, whereas PDF files might not render well on small screens like mobile devices. HTML content improves user experience and makes the information more widely accessible.
Load Time: HTML content usually loads faster than a PDF file, especially if the PDF is large. HTML content can make for a more pleasant browsing experience, especially for users on slower internet connections.
Interactivity: HTML content can include interactive elements such as forms, buttons, and links to other pages. PDFs are generally static and offer different levels of engagement.
Ease of Updates: Changes to HTML content can be made easily and quickly by updating the webpage. PDFs need to be edited, re-saved, and re-uploaded, which is more cumbersome.
Embedding Multimedia: HTML allows for easily embedding videos, images, and other multimedia content. PDFs have limited support for such features, so the user experience may be enhanced through HTML.
Analytics: With HTML, tracking user interaction and gathering data on how visitors engage with the content is more manageable. HTML content can help in making informed decisions to improve the user experience.
Compatibility: While most modern devices can open PDF files, compatibility issues may still exist, especially with older devices or software. HTML content is generally more universally compatible.
Cost and Resources: Creating well-designed PDFs might require specialized software and skills, whereas HTML content can often be created and maintained with more readily available tools and expertise.
Localization and Internationalization: HTML content can be easily adapted and translated into different languages. HTML content can make the contest information more accessible to a global audience.
Linking and Navigation: HTML allows for the creation of hyperlinks and easy navigation within the content. PDFs can include links, but the experience could be more seamless.

In conclusion, while PDFs might be suitable for downloadable content like brochures or flyers, using HTML for publishing contest information online offers better accessibility, flexibility, and user experience. It aligns more closely with modern web browsing dynamics and meets a broader audience’s needs.

Attracting Visitors To Your Property

Creating Web Content

OAAS Presentation in Richmond Hill, Friday February 17, 2023, 1:30pm – 2:30pm, in the York B Room.

Thank you for the opportunity to present about the importance of having high-quality content on your website.

Google favors websites with content that is easy to read, makes sense, and gets to the point. This is because Google’s primary goal is to provide users with the most relevant and useful search results possible. If your website’s content is difficult to read or understand, or if it doesn’t provide value to the reader, Google is less likely to rank it highly in search results.

There are several ways to get content for your website, including creating it yourself, hiring a writer or content creation agency, repurposing existing content or AI content generation. It’s important to ensure that the content you use is original and relevant to your target audience.

To make your content valuable for search engine ranking, it’s important to optimize it for relevant keywords and phrases. This means including these keywords in your headings, subheadings, and throughout the body of your content. It’s also important to ensure that your content is well-written and easy to read, as Google takes the user experience into account when ranking pages.

There are several reasons why you want high-quality content on your website. First and foremost, it will help your website rank higher in search results, which can lead to more organic traffic and potential customers. High-quality content can also help establish your website as a credible and trustworthy source of information, which can lead to more repeat visitors and reinforcing the message to attend the fair.

In conclusion, having high-quality content on your website is essential for both search engine ranking and providing value to your users. It’s important to carefully consider where to get your content, how to optimize it for search engines, and why having high-quality content is important for your website.

If you were at this presentation.

Do you have any questions? – Send me an email or fill out the contact form.
Check out the links and handout below.

Handout

Download the PDF presentation handout from this link:

Attracting Visitors to Your Property – Creating Web Content

Links

Google Blog About AI Generated Content

This is an article in Google’s Blog talking about Google Search’s guidance and AI-generated content.

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/02/google-search-and-ai-content

Guidelines from W3C Global Internet Community

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) international standard, including WCAG 2.0, WCAG 2.1, and WCAG 2.2. WCAG documents explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities.

https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/

Google Spam Policies

Google’s Guideline: Our spam policies also address spammy automatically-generated content, where we will take action if content is “generated through automated processes without regard for quality or user experience” https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies

SEO Starter Guide

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide. Everything you need to know about making good content and helping it get found on web searches.

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide

Google Guidance to Make Content Valuable

Learn more about the E-E-A-T concept: recommendation by Google to make content valuable. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content

Google Quality Rater Guidelines

Click the link to extensive guidelines to get the entire PDF. Quality Raters are spread out all over the world and are highly trained using our extensive guidelines.

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9281931?hl=en

Content Writing Tips

14 Tips for Writing Awesome Website Content from a leader in Search Engine Optimization

https://www.semrush.com/blog/14-tips-for-writing-awesome-website-content/

Check to See if Your Web Page is Mobile Friendly

Test to see if your web page is mobile-friendly.

https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly?hl=en

How to Get More Conversions From Your Website

What is Website Optimization? A Practical Guide to Getting More Conversions from Your Website

https://disruptiveadvertising.com/conversion-rate-optimization/website-optimization/

What’s New with Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 – Find out how the latest generation of Google Analytics can take your measurement strategy to the next level.

https://skillshop.exceedlms.com/student/catalog/list?category_ids=6431

CNBC Video about Chat GPT

CNBC OpenAI Inverview. Watch this news broadcasters report about ChatGPT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOmpqdlVCoo

Wiki About ChatGPT

GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) – Learn about ChatGPT from Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT

Check if Your Content Original or Taken From Another Website

Check for plagiarism. GPT-2 Output Detector Demo. See if your text has been published anywhere else on the Internet.

https://openai-openai-detector.hf.space/

See if your text was written by AI or a Human

AI Text Classifier. Check to see if the text was written by AI or a Human.

https://platform.openai.com/ai-text-classifier

Perplexity AI – Alternative to ChatGPT

Perplexity AI. This is an alternative to ChatGPT. It also uses OpenAI, however you’ll find the results are not the same as ChatGPT. It is also free at this time.

https://www.perplexity.ai/?ref=FutureTools.io

World Password Day

My password is password

Intel created World Password Day, the first Thursday of May to address the critical need for solid passwords.

Strong and secure passwords are crucial, especially now that most of our work is done online. It is better to have complex and unique passwords, which are not easy to guess. World Password Day creates awareness about the importance of strong passwords.

Despite knowing the risks, not many people are in the habit of keeping their passwords strong. Take World Password Day as your cue to immediately change the weak passwords of your emails, social media accounts, and most importantly, accounts storing your personal information.

According to National Today:

99.9% – the percentage of threats to passwords that can be stopped using multi-factor authentication, according to Microsoft.

2020 – the year when the top type of information stolen around the world was credentials.

60% – the percentage of data breaches that involve credentials.

40% – the percentage of people in a 2020 study who said that their company data was compromised because of a weak or cracked password.

20 – the number of common categories into which the majority of passwords fit into.

40% – the percentage of organizations that rely on sticky notes for remembering passwords.

82% – the percentage of workers who admitted recycling the same passwords.

60% – the percentage of recycled passwords that appeared in multiple data leaks in 2020

25% – the percentage of data breaches, which were as a result of credential stuffing in 2020.

¾ – the number of employees who use the same passwords for their work accounts as they do for their personal accounts.

Other External Password Resources

Trustwave

Mac Sources

Tech Advisor

Growing Your Online Presence More Important Than Ever

We are amidst uncertain and unprecedented times. There is one thing that is sure however: the need for your online presence. With the government expanding the constraint to limit face to face interactions, shoppers are rushing to the web for their everyday purchases. Buyers have not vanished; they are essentially in a different place. The organizations that win are the organizations that make sense of their online presence.

Ask yourself some questions. Is your online presence ready so that your business can make it through this tough time? Here are a few strategies of your online business you need to think about:

Website – is your website user friendly? Is it easy to navigate?
Website Optimization – is your website SEO friendly?
Local Search Engine Optimization – can people near you find your products and services?
Social Media – do you have accounts on the major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter? Are you posting weekly?
Blogging – are you constantly updating your content so consumers can find you?
Pay Per Click (PPC) – have you considered paying for visitor traffic? Note: Google Ads produce, on average, $2.00 for every $1.00 spent.

It’s not necessary for you to employ all of these strategies. However, WeGo.ca Website Developers’ specializes in all of these and is prepared to help you apply them to improve your online business. We can also help you craft specific COVID-19 messaging and updates at it applies to your industry in Ontario, Canada. Please contact us for a free consultation.

Minimalism is Leaving Design

UX design becomes a more and more favourable way to develop elements the user interacts with. Graphic design is in a transitionary period. Likewise, with website design, everything in the visual arts world is getting increasingly dazzling. We see striking hues, exploratory creations, photomontages, serif fonts, metallics, and 3D designs. This is a significant departure from the flat, plain look of past trends.

Minimalism ruled for almost 10 years. Presently designers are moving into decadence and excess. Forget about usefulness. Ignore Helvetica and white space. Maximalism is an immediate response against minimalism. This style is portrayed by the resilience to defy the norms; clashing colours, hand-drawn designs, and complete silliness.

Voice Command Search

Welcome to the up and coming age of SEO. Say hello to Siri, Alexa, and Cortana. The quick adoption of tech savvy speakers given way to new searching behavior, known as conversational search. Web search inquiries have gotten longer and casual, similar to natural dialog.

As a result of this behavior, we need to reconsider the manner in which we compose our content. Conversational search inquiries are normally offered as conversation starters, for example, “Where’s a close by café that serves bagels and tea?” and “Do they have chai?” These inquiries are exact and require precise answers. Therefore, we have by and by observed an ascent in our SEO customers, explicitly those searching for schema development to support voice search.

As reported by a 2018 BrightLocal study, smart speaker users generally operate their gadgets to perform local business-related searches weekly. Over 50% of smart speaker users do this sort of voice command daily! Voice search optimization needs to be included in the ongoing tasks of search engine strategy. It must to be a piece of an inclusive on-Page or on-SERP optimization plan or Local Search strategy.

How to improve mail deliverability by avoiding role-based email addresses

What are role based email addresses and how does the system handle them?

Role-based email addresses (like admin@, help@, sales@, leads@) are email addresses that are not associated with a particular person, but rather with a company, department, position or group of recipients. They are not generally intended for personal use, as they typically include a distribution list of recipients.

What are challenges of role addresses?

Role-based addresses are typically company addresses defined by a job rather than a person and are often managed by several people. It is impossible to prove that everyone who will receive emails at these addresses has given their consent to receive them. Additionally, these types of addresses are associated with high bounce rates, high spam complaints, and spam traps.

Four Reasons NOT to Use “info@” as Your General Email Address

When creating a catch-all email address for your business, event or brand, experts recommend not using “info@,” or other similar innocuous email addresses. Besides lacking personality and being overly generalized, businesses make the common mistake of utilizing the info@yourdomain.com email address as the flagship point of contact for interaction through websites and marketing materials.

This is a mistake, as is using similar all-purpose email addresses such as:

contact@yourdomain.com
office@yourdomain.com
admin@yourdomain.com

In fact, below are a few challenges that you may run into if you are using an info@yourdomain.com email address. If you need alternate suggestions that will work better for you, your customers and your brand, WeGo can help. In the meantime, did you know that…

1. Info@ email addresses are not very friendly or personable.

You must think about your customer or the person you are communicating with. How do you think they feel sending an email to the very vague and mysterious “info?” Most people wonder if, or how often, the email address is monitored and if the person doing so will know how to help. Connecting with your customers and prospects is an important interaction that should feel personal. (Are you signing emails “Sincerely, Info?” Not likely.) Instead, you should ditch the info address for another more relevant personality that suits your brand. Also, there is nothing wrong with using a first name such as jennifer@yourdomain.com. If your company requires you to keep the ambiguous “info,” you might reply back from “[insert your company name] team.” It is still fairly anonymous but projects a warmer personality.

2. Some service websites don’t allow you to use info@ email addresses.

Facebook won’t allow you to register for personal pages or businesses pages with an email address that starts with info@. Role-based email addresses are becoming more frowned upon when creating accounts. Mailchimp, AWeber, Constant Contact and every other major email marketing service make it difficult to add role-based email addresses as subscribers. These web service companies maintain a list of email addresses that will be blocked.

3. You’re more likely to be flagged as spam with an info@ email address.

That’s right, your important message or reply can be filtered into the abyss of junk mail. Generic email addresses such as info@, admin@, webmaster@ and similar ones can be perceived as spam, bots, or automated email addresses which can prevent your desired recipient from ever reading what you had to say. So if you want to have your message delivered, use something more relevant and engaging that is a better reflection on your brand or uses your personal name.

4. On the flip side, info@ email addresses are more easily targeted to receive spam.

Not only do you not want your emails to be flagged as spam, but by using the “info@” email address it could lead to you receiving lots of spam. Yes, you can become more eligible to receive spam email by utilizing info@yourdomain.com. That’s because the automated systems operated by big-time spammers attach “info” to valid domain names. Since many businesses use info@ email addresses, the spammers’ success rates are pretty good. If you are receiving large amounts of spam from a similar source, you can try black listing the IP address of the sender. You can see it in your email source code or include the IP address as something your website forms include upon submission.

Avoid Role-Based Email Addresses

If you want to increase your chance of successfully delivering your message, replace your role-based email address with a personal email address. Each employee at your company should have their own personal email address @yourdomain.com. If you have to keep role-based email accounts, use them as inbound shared mailboxes. Deliver your message from a personal email account, it projects a warmer personality and won’t be blocked by spam filters. Please contact me for more information or help on personalizing your email addresses.

Effective July 2018, the Google Chrome browser will mark non-HTTPS sites as ‘not secure’

Google will identify insecure sites in the Chrome browser beginning mid-Summer.

Earlier this year, the company announced its Speed Update set to roll out in July, and recently has also announced it will then also mark all sites that have not migrated to HTTPS as “not secure.”

Google has confirmed a date of “early July 2018” as the start date. They have also disclosed how they will alert web surfers of the non-HTTPS status, or not secure.

Sites that remain on the HTTP non-secure protocol will be flagged with a warning in the URL bar of the surfer’s browser.

The non-secure flag will be built into the release of Chrome 68, which will be ready for download in early July.

You and your customers will be able to see the “not secure” text in the address bar of the Chrome browser. Mobile browsers may display the message differently. In either case, the results might cause your site visitors some concern.

There are some additional benefits to securing your site as Google is providing some small rankings boosts.

Depending upon the size of a site and scope of the project, a migration from HTTP to HTTPS can be quite an undertaking. Rest assured there are processes on making this change on your site(s), along with resources for validation and dealing with mixed content issues.

What Is An SSL Certificate?

An SSL certificate is a security certificate that once installed on a web server activates a secure connection between the browser the surfer is viewing the content on and the web server that the content is derived from initially.

The website’s URL protocol will change from HTTP to HTTPS. Currently, a security padlock will also be present in the URL as a way to further signal the status of the website’s Google SSL certificate.

SSL certificates help the web cut down on instances of cybercrime that are often performed through security loopholes in web browsers.

If the connection between the surfer’s web browser and web server are not secure through an SSL connection, a moderately skilled hacker could seize information, such as credit card numbers, as it is being typed into a form on an unsecured website.

Why are Google SSL Requirements Important?

Establishes Trust and Builds Brand Power
Provides Encryption of Sensitive Information
Provides Authentication

Amazon Web Services now offers local Canadian region availability

Great news for Canadian businesses looking for reliable and fast cloud services in Canada.

With Canadian organizations increasingly turning to the cloud but often insisting on using data centres here, observers have been wondering when Amazon Web Services would turn north.

The answer is, in a few months. Amazon will unveil its first Canadian data centre and regional office in Montreal at the start of 2017, the company said recently in Toronto at its first AWS Enterprise Summit in this country.

It has had a small presence here since late last year when it opened a field office in Toronto.

Stephen Orban, the company’s head of enterprise strategy told an audience of current and potential customers the cloud giant’s strategy centres around information security, back office systems and end user computing being consumed in as-a-service model.

Any business with meaning has a cloud centre of excellence that provides best practices, automation and governance, he said.

This new model tends to spur on a dev-ops culture that creates new products as app teams work closer together to take on more responsibility, he said. The build-up tends to have a similar pattern: Companies start with a desire for optimization, then migration followed by the establishment of a foundation that leads to a project.
Read more: http://www.computerdealernews.com/news/aws-canada-outlines-cloud-first-model-for-tomorrow/50854?utm_source=632458&utm_medium=CDN&utm_campaign=cdnnews%27,%27&scid=5d37cce0-608a-bda3-9b8a-4e604c15ff36#ixzz4sO32EL8U
or visit http://www.itworldcanada.com for more Canadian IT News