Merry Christmas, dear Orthodox !

Improving SEO for blogspot bloggers. Lesson #1.

Everybody wants to have at least not worst SEO on own blogs. In case if you have you own blog on Domino or another platform, use your hands and do updates but if you are one who use blogspot, here it couple tips I would like to suggest to do. It is quite simple and fast.

1. Title tag. Check it on main page, does it says what you wanted?
looks on different pages as well. If you want to update it go to Design of your blog and open it as HTML, find area with title and replace it on such one

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/> | Your additional keywords</title>
</b:if>

Actually you are free to put there whatever you want. Mostly all says that ideal length for title tag is 69-70 chars. So remember that and try to make it near to that.

2. By default blogspot does not include meta tags such as description and keywords, so we have to add that manually (at least my blog did not have these tags). Good length for this tags are: meta description ~156, meta keywords is about 180 chars. Here is snapshot of what you need to add to your template.

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl'>
<meta content='bla bla bla' name='description'/>
<meta content='lotus, motus, fotus, focus, etc' name='keywords'/>

if you read logic carefully you will see that it says: add meta tags only for main page, that's because otherwise we will get these tags on all pages and that's very bad, google does not like same meta description on pages. that's duplicate and you will decrease PR. Later I will add some information how we can have unique meta tags on pages.

3. sitemap. I believe it is not necessary as we are already you google so it does this automatically, but anywhere, better to do :), I hope you have already enabled RSS on your blog. So just open Google Web Master add you site there and find menu Sitemap and try to add next /atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=300you can update max-results as u wish. If everything went fine you should see Status 'OK' and number of of URL should be same as you have in you atom.xml.

4. that's is not linked to blogspot problem, but just remember that:
- Images should have title and alt.
- Tag <strong> is better that <b>, but as I see it requires go fix it into HTML of your entry.

Summary
These tips are legal and easy to implement, but remember, unique and interesting content is the key.

Native JSON

var jsonObjStr = '{"name":"Erast Fandorin", "speciality":"detective"}';
var object_person = JSON.parse(jsonString);
// object_person is object now with 2 properties

var personString = JSON.stringify(person);
// personString now keeps the string '{"name":"Erast Fandorin", "speciality":"detective"}'

this native JSON is now supported mostof browsers, so just use it :)

Useful option when you are doing Java in LDD

If you are doing java in LDD you always need to save design elements after you update your source code. It is so painful (at least for me) because each time I need to check result I have to switch from source window to design window and do save there.

To avoid that - set this option you see on screen below (I believe at some point IBM will set as default)

CSS staff you have to know

I'm sure most of you have worked with CSS. I'm sure many of you know that, but some do not, so here are some nice practices that can help you.
1. div>h1 { color: red;}
- means all h1 that are child to div will get that CSS, but not sub child.
examples:

<div>
<h1>this is red</h1>
</div>

<div>
<p>
<h1>this is not red</h1>
</p>
</div>

2. p+h1 {color:red}
- means make red h1 in case if it is going just after p on the same level
examples:
<div>
<p></p>
<h1>this is red text</h1>
</div>

<div>
<p></p>
<h2></h2>
<h1>this is not red text</h1>
</div>

3. p~h1 {color:red} (similar to +)
- means make red h1 in case if it is on the same level with p

examples:

<div>

<p></p>

<h1>this is red text</h1>
</div>

<div>
<p></p>
<h2></h2>
<h1>this is also red text</h1>
</div>

4. p:first-child {color:red}
- means make red p in case if it is first child
examples:
<body>
<p>This is red text</p>
<p>This is not read</p>
</body>