As you work with your webpage template you always have to consider how it will look, and how it will function. It wouldn’t hurt to know how those search engines will see it as well (SEO!?!?). You can use the W3c validator and the W3C CSS validator but what about those pictures, links, keywords?

Let’s start with the search engines. Let’s give the spiders something to sink their. . . uh, eyes into. Yes, I’m talking about keywords, content, links!! There is a very interesting analysis, scanning utility at Inet. David Walton has provided this validator service free of charge. As well a lot of good tutorials. David also sells an array of webpage templates.

Go to his Content and Analyzing page and try your webpage. Just type in the URL and give it a few seconds. Voila, you will find an easy-to-read display and an effective profile of your website’s search-friendliness. I ran several pages through it and I got plenty of info.

Watchfire has the WebXACT tool, which will point out quality problems as well as accessibility and privacy issues with your template webpage. After it has scanned the page it gives a list of errors and warnings. The errors can be corrected, and on the warnings you can just make a judgment call. I ran several webpage template URLs through the website and it works great.

So next time you are down to running tests on your project, consider these two very helpful online validators.

Feelin’ the Moment

Arthur Browning