What's on Our Mind

Font selection and the lack there of - It has been an age old problem in web site design. Web developers seem to run into this problem consistenly. In fact, I ran into the problem of a typeface being named differently from one platform to another causing an inability to edit text within a Photoshop document provided by one of our designers.

Knowing that there are tools available to keep the web site looking good while maximizing SEO and minimizing efforts to make simple text changes, I decided it would be worth while to research solutions for embedding/displaying typefaces on the web. Though text images have their place, here are the two main issues that I see stems from using them:

• Text Images used on headers, menus and various navigation elements can add overhead.

  Creating images of text turns quick & simple text changes into tedious, frustrating work. Issues arise when developers don't have the font(s) installed on their system that are used in the layout file. In this scenario the developer has to either obtain the font to make the change, or have the designer make the change. This added link in the chain complicates any content changes which results in increased cost for the client.

• Search engines crawl web sites for textual content, not images.

  Though search engines now have an image search feature, the results are still driven by the content that surrounds an image within the text. Though I'm sure its possible with new technologies text content within an image can be read using OCR, however the amount of processing required to do that still isn't justified. Developers can specify a title/alt attribute for an image to help a search engine's crawler understand the context of the image. Problems can arise when a textual change is made to the image but not the title/alt attribute for that image.

Early Solutions

In the late 90's there was EOT and TrueDoc, technologies that compress a typeface by using a limited character set and various compression schemes. While EOT is still supported on Microsoft's Internet Explorer, TrueDoc was supported up to Netscape Navigator 4 and was discontinued in Netscape Navigator 6 since Netscape could not release Bitstream's source code for its font embedding technology.

Current Solutions

Today, we have a variety of browsers and platforms that people use to browse the web. Cross-platform, cross-browser solutions allow us to provide the same experience to a broader audience with out having to solve the problem more than once. Here's a list of current technologies available to give the web a typeface-lift that I know of:

• EOT only available on Internet Explorer.
• CSS2 introduced @font-face property allowing web developers to link directly to a font file on the web server.
• sIFR offers a cross-browser, cross-platform solution utilizing Adobe Flash
• Cufón offers a cross-browser, cross-platform solution using JavaScript and SVG/canvas/VRML.

I'm sure that the CSS2 @font-face property will become supported by more browsers as time goes on, but at the moment sIFR and Cufón offer the greatest compatibiliy. I focused on utilizing those techniques as a potential solution for our new site design.

What About the Font Foundries, Could there be legal implications?

The various licenses available from the font foundries seems to be the biggest challenge to this type of technology. When looking at font embedding technology you will need to be informed on what licenses dictate can be done with a particular typeface. Some licenses may allow you to use Cufón while others may only allow the use of Adobe Flash. See Fonts and the Law at fontembedding.com for more information.

Though sIFR and Cufón seemed the best choices, they are not with out their challenges to implement. Stay tuned for my in depth review of implementing these techniques as a typeface embedding solution! Until then, feel free check out sIFR and Cufón for yourself.

Often, we're asked how a store can accept credit cards. I mean, it should be easy. There are 2 main ways... Services like PayPal or use a Gateway. Paypal's pretty easy. But, they take a large percentage of the sale. Gateway's should be easy, and they are... But, there are several pieces in the chain. Forget one, and you don't get paid!

First, a bank account! Yes, you need a business bank account.

Second, a merchant account. Not the same as a bank account. At least, not usually! Sometimes, your bank can set all of this up for you (including the merchant account). Other times, you'll need to get a merchant account on your own.

Third, the gateway. Make sure your ecommerce software accepts the gateway you choose! Writing a custom gateway script can get expensive quickly!

The worst part of this, is you can't just call up a gateway and get an account! They will require you to go through an intermediary possibly your bank. Sometimes another company that provides merchant accounts. You need to make sure that the gateway's they use can work with your ecommerce software. Even further, you could have a problem if the gateway requires you to install anything on your server. Since most web sites are hosted on shared servers, do you have the ability to install any software? In most cases no.

Fourth, if you want to accept anything other then the standard Visa and MasterCard, you will need to apply to become a merchant for them. AMEX, Discover,... usually charge an additional monthly fee and a slightly larger percentage of your sales to be able to accept their card.

Writing content for a website is sometimes problematic. For instance, trying to write good quality content that has meaning to real people will sometimes not be 'search engine' friendly. The reverse is also true. There is a fine line that must be walked (written) in order to keep content SE friendly and person friendly.

It's the reason that some sites use cloaking. We NEVER use cloaking because it is considered a Google TOS violation. We believe in using only white hat SEO techniques. Although, they may not get you to the top of the search engines as quickly, they have staying power. Once you get there with good clean SEO, you'll be able to continuously rank well.