A little background on HTML 5

If you spend much time on the internet, especially around website design & development communities, you’ve probably heard of HTML 5. But what is it?

HTML 5 is the fifth version of Hypertext Markup Language – the language behind every website on the internet. HTML 4 as an official standard was published back in May 2000, and as you may know, 12 years is a very long time when it comes to anything related to the internet and technology.

While large portions of the HTML 5 specification are supported in modern web browsers – such as Safari, Firefox, and Chrome – it is not yet “the standard” and there are still aspects of it that are under development.

So what’s so special about HTML 5?

Well, think of this: YouTube debuted in 2005 – that’s five years after HTML 4 came out. When HTML 4 was being developed, video on the web wasn’t on their minds. (Flashback: http://lava360.com/10-years-old-web-designs-of-famous-websites/) The web has evolved immensely over the past 12 years, and it’s time we had a language that could support these features natively.

What is meant by that? Let’s look at our video example:

Since there was no standard for putting video on the web with HTML 4, different companies came up with their own strategies, meaning that today there are a number of different ways to accomplish that goal. And none of them are terribly friendly (which is why most of the videos you’ll see are hosted on sites like YouTube and Vimeo, because doing it yourself is just no fun).

“Okay,” you’re thinking, “but I don’t have any videos.”

Well that was just an example. There is a fair amount of technical improvement in HTML 5 that won’t impact most people, but here are a couple that you might find interesting:

• Form field types. Have you ever gone to enter your email address and accidentally left off the ‘.com’ or typed in your website instead? Well, improvements to those form fields in HTML 5 will make it easier for those kinds of mistakes to be caught by the form during processing and allowing the sender to correct the error.
• Semantic markup. This probably doesn’t sound interesting, but it means that areas of your website will be more easily recognized (and possibly ranked) by search engines for what they are, such as headers, footers, asides, figures (describing an image), audio and video.

“But it’s still under development, why should I care about HTML 5?”

Although the entire ‘spec’ isn’t complete, there are pieces that are pretty well complete and unlikely to change. That means it’s safe to use these stable chunks of HTML 5. But why should you consider it? For developers out there, it means a lot leaner code, and for the end user, less code means faster loading (and faster loading means search engines will reward you)!

Most of these fancy new features will degrade gracefully on browsers (Looking at you, Internet Explorer.) that don’t support HTML 5, and there are techniques to give these old browsers a boost where needed.

As an end-user, what’s the best way to benefit from the new features of HTML 5?

Use a modern web browser that supports these new HTML 5 standards. We recommend Google Chrome – it’s very clean, and has frequent, automatic, silent updates.  This means  you know you are running the latest and greatest version with almost zero effort. It is available for both Mac and Windows.

Mozilla Firefox is another extremely popular browser, and has also started supporting frequent automatic updates, making it a great choice for Mac and Windows users.

Apple’s Safari and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 & 10 both support (to varying degrees) HTML 5, but, as the bundled/default browser for Mac and Windows respectively, tend to see less frequent updates.

To upgrade to a new web browser, check out: http://browsehappy.com/

Recommended Reading on HTML 5

http://youtu.be/mzPxo7Y6JyA
http://tympanus.net/codrops/2011/11/24/top-10-reasons-to-use-html5-right-now/

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The mobile web shows no sign of slowing its growth; make sure you have a mobile website that's ready to compete!

Mobile website standards, as with everything else related to the internet, have continued to evolve at an increasing rate and InsideOut Solutions is proud to announce a new mobile website solution for our Inndx and WordPress website customers that offers greater design flexibility, content management, search engine optimization features.

This totally new version of our mobile website feature for WordPress websites is a major upgrade from the version we rolled out to our clients in May of 2011. The all-new administration interface makes management of your mobile website more efficient. The mobile site as it displays to visitors is more user-friendly with larger, easier to click links.

Have a look at one of our first clients to use this new mobile website service and compare the previous version with the new:

Previous mobile website was good, but we recognized a need for easier thumb clicking of menu items.

The new mobile website for WordPress is "thumb friendly" and customizable to meet your mobile marketing needs.

The new mobile website is packed with improved features to help clients improve their ability to effectively market their business in the mobile marketplace.

New and upgraded features include:

Multiple Layout Options

The new mobile website settings include four layout themes; each customizable for a selected photo or logo.

Google Mobile Search Friendly

• A mobile-specific sitemap XML file allows for easy indexing of mobile content by search engines
• Customizable title & content for mobile versions of each page, so that your mobile website can be optimized specifically for mobile search

Flexible Mobile Website Page Menu

Easily add a page and customize the content for mobile website pages.

Previously, our mobile websites were limited to 3 pages as tabs on a horizontal main menu and the rest in a “click to reveal” drop-down tab. The new mobile feature allows you to add as many of your pages to the mobile website’s new vertical page menu as you like via the Pages administration. You can also customize the menu item title to keep them shorter for mobile users.

Improved Mobile Website Special Feature

The “mobile-only” special editor now allows for text formatting, including use of headers, bold, italic, links, etc. just like the pages of your website.

Easily edit and apply text formatting, links, etc. to a special that will only display to mobile device users.

Full Site Option

Let InsideOut Solutions provide your Inndx or hosted WordPress website with an effective mobile solution!

The mobile device user has the option view the full version of the website and easily return to mobile version.

The Best Mobile Website Features Have Been Retained

The great features of the earlier version our mobile website service remain, including:

• Automatic display of mobile website on mobile devices
• Google Analytics tracking
• Automatic click-to-call feature on your phone numbers
• Prominent check availability links
• Google map link for easy access to directions
• Link to Facebook Business Page
• and much more

See the Advantage of Our Mobile Website Solution for Yourself

Use a smartphone, tablet computer or other internet-enabled mobile device to view our growing number of clients making the upgrade, including:

• lookoutpointinn.com
• innatcedarfalls.com
• englishmeadowsinn.com

Going Mobile with Your Website Is Affordable

Price for an entirely new mobile website is $400 for individual businesses and $625 for association/organization websites built in WordPress. Upgrading from the previous version is priced at $160.  These prices include a free instructional video for editing your mobile website after it launches.

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The first would be the WC3 validator.  The WC3 is the global standard setter for the internet.  All standards that web browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome follow are set by the WC3.  WC3 stands for World Wide Web Consortium.  The validator can be found here:  http://validator.w3.org/  Just put your web address in there.  While the results will mostly only be useful for web developers and designers, it is still a great place to start.  Errors in red are bad.  Warnings in yellow are not great, but shouldn’t be too big a deal.

If you have more than a handful of errors, you will see a reduction in load times and possibly Google Pagerank as well.  While errors you have today may not have been considered errors three years ago, they are not anymore and should be fixed to improve your site performance.  Contact your web developer and show them your results.

Another great way to test your site is to see how fast it loads.  The tool found here: http://loads.in/ lets you put in your website URL and see how long it takes to load.  Page load times affect bounce rates and conversion rates as well as your Google Pagerank.  Google wants to reward you for having a site that loads quickly.  Things like large images and large slideshow Flash files can negatively affect your page loads.  This tool is great because it shows you how a site will look while it loads at certain intervals.  You can also change what country and web browser you want to have the site load time checked in.  A load time under 4 seconds is great.  Under 8 and you are doing okay.  Above that and you should look into the reasons why.

These are two great tools to gauge the relative age of your site and see what you could improve on from a technical perspective.  Neither of these tools care about what your site “looks” like, just speed and coding method.  With the new HTML5 and CSS3 becoming more widespread, now is the time to update the functionality of your site to meet the current standards.

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All websites we design currently display correctly on smartphones, personal digital assistants (PDA) and other web-enabled mobile devices. InsideOut is now providing mobile-specific website services to customize the display of your website on those devices.

Use of mobile devices for web browsing has continued to rise through 2010 into 2011:

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Mobile vs. Desktop Market Share

With more and more web users accessing websites via their mobile devices, mobile websites are quickly growing out of their niche marketplace and into the mainstream. InsideOut Solutions recognizes this and now offers a couple of powerful mobile website options to our clients.

WordPress Mobile Website Plugin

If we host your WordPress-based website on Inndx.com, we can add a custom mobile plugin that will automatically display a version of your website that has been optimized for viewing on mobile devices when accessed by a web-enabled smartphone, PDA, etc.

The WordPress Mobile Website Header displays:

• Check availability link
• Phone number (automatically a “click to call” link on most mobile web browsers)
• Logo
• Custom navigation items
• Home page headline & top image

Page content is displayed directly below the top image.

The WordPress Mobile Website Footer displays:

• Business name
• Address
• Phone number (automatically a “click to call” link on most mobile web browsers)
• Email as a link
• Your social media links (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
• Link to your location on Google Maps

All pages of your website listed in the navigation display in the same custom mobile layout.  The website resides at a mobile-dedicated “m dot” subdomain (e.g. http://m.9cranesinn.com) which is quickly becoming the standard set up for mobile websites (and precludes the need for you to register a .mobi domain solely for mobile website display).

Note: we are in the process of completing a similar option for WordPress websites we host that are not part of Inndx.

Mobile Website Services for Non-WordPress Sites

If you haven’t migrated your website to the WordPress platform, InsideOut Solutions has developed a standalone system for our hosting clients that will automatically display a version of your website that has been optimized for viewing on mobile devices.

The Mobile Website Header displays:

• Business name
• Phone number (automatically a “click to call” link on most mobile web browsers)
• Email address as a link
• Link to your location on Google Maps

Page content is displayed directly below the top image.

The Mobile Website Footer displays a link to the full, non-mobile version of your website.

The Mobile Website Administrative Area allows you to control:

• Background color
• Text color
• Accent/link color
• Heading font
• Body font
• Site title (name that appears on the headline)

The Intro Paragraph entry allows you to write up page content using formatted text that allows:

• Text formatting (bold, italic, etc.)
• Paragraph formatting (left, center, right or justified)
• Bullet point or numbered lists
• Links
• Headers
• and more

You may enter any amount of text you want.  Include a prominent link to your availability calendar to encourage online booking.

These tools will help you create an attractive, visitor-friendly mobile website page for users of those devices.

InsideOut Solutions offers either mobile website upgrade for a one-time set up fee of $400 (the introductory price of $200 ended July 15, 2011).  There is NO additional hosting fee for your website; it is a value added service of your annual website hosting.  Simply give us a call at 1-800-500-8401, send us an email, or submit a contact form for more information about how we can help your business present its best face to the mobile web marketplace.

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Sites that take advantage of today's smallest average screen size have space to show off larger photos

How wide is your site?

The average screen size today is larger than it was five years ago. This means that if your site was built in 2006, there’s probably some unused screen real estate you could take advantage of now.
If your site can be widened, this means that there could be room for larger photos. Plus, you might be able to sport a nice multi-column layout that’s not too cramped; these sidebars can be a great place to post positive reviews or quotes, as well as call-to-action buttons.

Does your site have a “table-based” layout?

Once upon a time, it was common practice to build a site using a “table-based” structure. This was a great way to control the layout of your site – you could control columns as you would in a spreadsheet. However, this is not the way modern sites should work. Why? Those sorts of layouts are much more difficult to maintain over time since a lot more code goes into building the layout. More code means longer page load times – something that search engines now take into consideration when ranking a website. Lastly, it’s not correct syntactically, meaning that tables should be used for “tabular data” like comparison charts, or the sort of information you might put into a spreadsheet.

Are your main links image-based or text-based?

Did you know that there are only a handful of internet or “web-friendly” fonts? With current technology, we can expand that number, but in the past, the only way to use a non-standard font was to save your text as an image. This might seem pretty harmless because humans can still read it even though it’s an image of text. But here’s the problem: search engines aren’t human. Granted, search engines seem to be getting smarter all the time, but there’s still a limit to what they can “read”. If your text, and especially important links, were created as images the search engines can’t “read” what your pages or links are about, which may reduce the link’s relevance and ranking.

Sites that depend on Flash may not render correctly in some places

Does your site depend on Flash?

There’s no denying that Flash animation, when done well, is very eye-catching. But there are some things to consider, for example, Google’s relatively new site preview ability (that magnifying glass next to some of your search results). Google will attempt to get a snapshot of your site so visitors can quickly tell if this is what they’re looking for. But it can’t (at least not yet) capture Flash. Instead, it’ll replace what should be Flash with a gray block and a puzzle piece. Secondly, the ever-present iDevices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) do not support Flash. Fortunately, many effects that were once only possible with Flash can now be mimicked using other methods like JavaScript. For example, simple features, such as a header slideshow or photo galleries, are implemented easily in JavaScript. These two websites use JavaScript to make their slideshow run: Inn and Spa at Cedar Falls and the Oregon Bed and Breakfast Guild

How can you tell where your site stands?

If you’re not sure how your site measures up to the modern standard, and if you’re interested in finding out, contact InsideOut Solutions at info@insideout.com to request a free report. In a week or less, we’ll review your site and let you know how it stands, and what steps you can take to bring it up to date. Please write “Website Standards Review” in the subject line of your email request.

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Remember that while your aging website has been doing its job, your competition has been working diligently on their marketing efforts, many of whom have beautiful new, high functioning websites.

We’re just going to go ahead and rip the band-aid off and say it:
It’s time to update your website.

Planning a new website design for your inn can seem daunting. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, but there are a few basic functions and content areas you should include to make it an effective marketing tool.

1. Contact information on every single page

This seems simple, but small businesses miss this. Include the phone number you want people to call for inquiries. Preferably at the top of each page. Include a clickable “email us!” button that either opens an email client or links to your contact form.

2. A Blog

All social media marketing and other online marketing requires quality content. So if you’re considering any online marketing effort, you should start with a blog. To get maximum SEO benefit, your blog should be listed under your domain (something like www.yourinn/blog) instead of off-site through a service like Blogger.com. A blog can help your business in so many ways that this will require a separate blog post on the subject.

Some of the main benefits include:

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• A communications channel for your business that produces content shareable on social sites like Facebook and Twitter.
• A great way to establish your business as a resource in your area and a way to connect with your guest (past, present and future).

3. An SEO strategy that targets your inn and its ancillary services

The people who know name of your inn can find your website. So optimizing your site so that people can find you through Google when they search “your inn’s name” isn’t the most critical piece. Of course you should include your company name on your website and in the metadata, but the fact is that your inn’s name is going to be on your website multiple times, and therefor your inn probably can’t help but be found on Google. Instead, focus on terms that people who may not know your business are searching for.

4. Geographic information in your SEO efforts

Most businesses with brick-and-mortar locations rely on customers within a certain geographic area. Fortunately, when most people search for a product or service, they include a location. For instance, if you need a plumber, you might search “plumbers in Seattle” This is why you should use your location in page titles and other metadata as well as in the text that appears on your website.

5. Photos & video of your inn, your offerings, yourself and your staff

Customers like pictures. And they like to see that you know what you’re doing. Give them top quality photos to look at. We recommend working with a professional photographer experienced in location based photography.

6. A newsletter sign-up

Give people a way to stay in touch with your inn such as a newsletter sign-up. This will let you share information about your inn through email marketing. Yes, you can certainly send out a newsletter by email each month, but you can also use this list to share information you think your guests and prospects will find valuable whenever you have it. If you have a blog or news page, an RSS feed subscription button is another good idea. This will let you stay in touch with your clients each time you add a blog post.

7. Social media accounts

If you’re active in social media, with Facebook, Twitter LinkedIn, etc., include a page, a section on the Contact page, or in the footer of your website where you list which accounts you have with links to each them.

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Westby House Inn and Restaurant

Recently launched is a new website design for innkeepers Mike and Marie Cimino, of Westby House Inn and Restaurant in Westby, Wisconsin. We designed a website for them in 2007, built in static html and css, and using InsideOut’s Web Tools, including Easy Edit, Photo Gallery, Gift Certificates, and Specials Editor tools. These tools allowed innkeepers to edit the content of their website, upload and manage photos in their photo gallery, add and manage their specials page, and collect and manage gift certificate requests.
A few years later, InsideOut’s tools were still doing the job they’d been cut out to do but in the meantime, WordPress had risen to high potential and created new standards of website management. When Marie came to us wanting more flexibility to add photos and pages to her website, we designed and built a WordPress site for her, giving her all the flexibility of her old site, plus the ability to add photos and new pages throughout the site, herself.

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See the new Grays Harbor Tourism Website

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Click to view the new website

InsideOut Solutions is pleased to announce the launch of a new website and blog for Hoyt House, an Amelia Island bed and breakfast inn in Fernandina Beach, Florida.

This beautiful new website was designed and developed by InsideOut Solutions in WordPress and features the photography of Christian Gianelli.

With the new WordPress platform, Hoyt House hosts Deborah and Myrta will be able to:

• Manage their entire website with a single login.
• Find everything easily with the very friendly WordPress user interface.
• Make quality blog posts with the #1 blogging platform on the web.
• Easily add, modify and delete website pages, page copy, blog posts, images and photos galleries & albums.
• Enjoy easy Search Engine Optimization control.
• Access InsideOut’s stock images and custom WordPress photos, recipes & specials plug-ins.

InsideOut Solutions is migrating many of our clients to the WordPress platform so that they may take advantage of the ease and flexibility of control it offers.  Please contact us if you’re interested in having your website upgraded to WordPress!

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The team behind the Driftless website and tourism is a collaboration of folks representing Kickapoo Valley, Crawford county and Vernon county; Pete Knapik from the Inn at Lonesome Hollow in Soldiers Grove, Marie Cimino from the Westby House Bed and Breakfast in Westby, Eric Frydenlund from the Crawford County Tourism Council, and David Boyer from the Kickapoo Valley Association. Pete and Marie had enjoyed their experiences with the Wisconsin bed and breakfast association site we designed, and asked if we couldn’t make something similar for their unique and beautiful area of the state.

The site contains an abundance of information about the area. Users can read about the unique geography and the history of Driftless Wisconsin.  Explore the farmlands and vineyards as well as quaint, friendly towns and Amish communities. There are numerous attractions and things to do in the area: find the best places to go fishing, hiking, or camping. See the historical sights and landmarks, take a tour of the Amish and farming communities, or check out the Suggested Itineraries to plan a day trip.

Browse the Business Directory to find various businesses, places to shop, find lodging, restaurants, and services offered. Take a look at the Events Calendar to see what’s happening in Driftless during your stay, or to get an idea for the ideal time to visit. And be sure to revisit the blog to keep up with the latest news and information!

We welcome you to experience Driftless Wisconsin.

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