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Any suggestions or comments would be welcomed. The site address is: [bleep]
Thanks!
[edited by: rcjordan at 1:56 pm (utc) on Aug. 27, 2003]
[edit reason] sorry, no references to specific sites, please [/edit]
What is the function of the site?
That should defene the form - not esthetics.
Too many approach website design with the mindset of a print advertisment. That may be fine if the site's function is to serve as an advertising brochure to be viewed by those that have been introduced to the company via other means.
If the purpose is to be found easily in the search engines, then esthetics may need to be compromised.
Give up the flowery font. Otherwise, your only option may be to cloak.
WBF
Now to your problem. You might do some good through the use of title and alt tags in your code, but I would still advise to drop the images and stick to real text.
As much as we all want to have good-looking sites, that is worth nothing if users can't find them. And graphics also take much more time to download, so you are making your few users angry.
Sorry, I guess this is not what you wanted to hear, but that's the way it is.
Sinner_G is right, alt-text should always accompany any image, especially if this image is text. The only exception is email-addresses, some people use images for these, so that they will not be read by spam-email harvesters, but that's off-topic i guess.
I'd advice you to put all the text from your graphics into alt-text for the same graphics.
/claus
Approaching this from another angle, how much money is the sales manager willing to spend to support this requirement? Search engine marketing can be made to work through ppc, pfi, site work-arounds, even cloakng ...but it gets to be very expensive.
Start here [webmasterworld.com].
This is where the magic of Flash integrated into a site is at its best.
One of the most memorable sites I've ever seen, which I found at Northern Light a couple of years back while doing research - and indexed very well, which is how I found it - was an online educational site that got the message across using "normal" HTML with Flash imbedded into the pages.
The main page was regular text, and the "presentation" elements were on interior pages, with the Flash imbedded within a framework of indexable, well written content. Not only was the graphical Flash presentation (with fancy text and visuals) aesthetically beautiful, but the movement added a riveting sense of drama.
What's needed graphically for print media, using elegant fonts, doesn't necessarily adapt to the internet. It's a different medium altogether, and the aesthetic concepts have to adapt within the limitations of the medium it's intended for. You couldn't have a website done the same way as a bus stop bench ad or a billboard, either. The nature of the medium has to dictate the form. This is where alternative technologies like Flash have their best use.
All I said is "Start here". ;)
cloaking (errr, sorry, selectively delivering content) based on user agent
It's certainly an option. Remember that what would be delivered in both versions is exactly the same content -- but in one version the text is in image files and in the other it's html text. There's no attempt at deception involved.
But Marcia mentioned another good option: even without using Flash, an approach could be taken that would integrate graphic elements in which the "elegant font" is used to establish a look and tone for the site, while the important body text is html in whatever common font best compliments that look.
Of course, the good news is that you'd have a lifetime job.
Right now, our site is getting about 7,000 visits per month. We do quite a bit of public relations/news releases, and all of our collateral material has our site address on it. Our company is working really hard to build a strong brand image, and while I understand the comments about different formats for different mediums, I also want to bring a level of continuity with the website.
Jordan
Otherwise i'll say - either add (more) (pure) text or deliver special pages to the spiders. Spiders are text-based, that's just the way it works, there's really no other thing to serve them than text.
With images, alt text is still a must, no matter what has been stated elsewhere in this thread (sorry, i will not compromize on that one ; )
/claus
