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Is there anything such as a harmless typo? Well, most of them merely turn off your visitors or embarrass you. But that’s not all. They can cost you cold hard cash. According to Reader’s Digest, the most expensive typo blunder cost $543 million! In this article, I’ll show you six WordPress grammar checkers that will […]
The post 6 Top Grammar Checkers For WordPress appeared first on WPExplorer.
In this week’s news, Chrome tackles focus rings, we learn how to get “donut” scope, Global Privacy Control gets big-name adoption, it’s time to ditch pixels in media queries, and a snippet that prevents annoying form validation styling.
Chrome, Edge, and other Chromium-based browsers display a focus indicator (a.k.a. focus ring) when the user clicks or taps a (styled) button. For comparison, Safari and Firefox don’t display a focus indicator when a button is clicked or tapped, but do only when the button is focused via the keyboard.
Some developers find this behavior annoying and are using various workarounds to prevent the focus ring from appearing when a button is clicked or tapped. For example, the popular what-input library continuously tracks the user’s input method (mouse, keyboard or touch), allowing the page to suppress focus rings specifically for mouse clicks.
[data-whatintent="mouse"] :focus {
outline: none;
}A more recent workaround was enabled by the addition of the CSS :focus-visible pseudo-class to Chromium a few months ago. In the current version of Chrome, clicking or tapping a button invokes the button’s :focus state but not its :focus-visible state. that way, the page can use a suitable selector to suppress focus rings for clicks and taps without affecting keyboard users.
:focus:not(:focus-visible) {
outline: none;
}Fortunately, these workarounds will soon become unnecessary. Chromium’s user agent stylesheet recently switched from :focus to :focus-visible, and as a result of this change, button clicks and taps no longer invoke focus rings. The new behavior will first ship in Chrome 90 next month.
:not() selector enables “donut scope”I recently wrote about the A:not(B *) selector pattern that allows authors to select all A elements that are not descendants of a B element. This pattern can be expanded to A B:not(C *) to create a “donut scope.”
For example, the selector article p:not(blockquote *) matches all <p> elements that are descendants of an <article> element but not descendants of a <blockquote> element. In other words, it selects all paragraphs in an article except the ones that are in a block quotation.
Announced last October, Global Privacy Control (GPC) is a new privacy signal for the web that is designed to be legally enforceable. Essentially, it’s an HTTP Sec-GPC: 1 request header that tells websites that the user does not want their personal data to be shared or sold.
The New York Times has become the first major publisher to honor GPC. A number of other publishers, including The Washington Post and Automattic (WordPress.com), have committed to honoring it “this coming quarter.”
From NYT’s privacy page:
Does The Times support the Global Privacy Control (GPC)?
Yes. When we detect a GPC signal from a reader’s browser where GDPR, CCPA or a similar privacy law applies, we stop sharing the reader’s personal data online with other companies (except with our service providers).
em-based media queriesSome browsers allow the user to increase the default font size in the browser’s settings. Unfortunately, this user preference has no effect on websites that set their font sizes in pixels (e.g., font-size: 20px). In part for this reason, some websites (including CSS-Tricks) instead use font-relative units, such as em and rem, which do respond to the user’s font size preference.
Ideally, a website that uses font-relative units for font-size should also use em values in media queries (e.g., min-width: 80em instead of min-width: 1280px). Otherwise, the site’s responsive layout may not always work as expected.
For example, CSS-Tricks switches from a two-column to a one-column layout on narrow viewports to prevent the article’s lines from becoming too short. However, if the user increases the default font size in the browser to 24px, the text on the page will become larger (as it should) but the page layout will not change, resulting in extremely short lines at certain viewport widths.
If you’d like to try out em-based media queries on your website, there is a PostCSS plugin that automatically converts min-width, max-width, min-height, and max-height media queries from px to em.
:user-invalid to browsersIn 2017, Peter-Paul Koch published a series of three articles about native form validation on the web. Part 1 points out the problems with the widely supported CSS :invalid pseudo-class:
<input> elements is re-evaluated on every key stroke, so a form field can become :invalid while the user is still typing the value.<input required>), it will become :invalid immediately on page load.Both of these behaviors are potentially confusing (and annoying), so websites cannot rely solely on the :invalid selector to indicate that a value entered by the user is not valid. However, there is the option to combine :invalid with :not(:focus) and even :not(:placeholder-shown) to ensure that the page’s “invalid” styles do not apply to the <input> until the user has finished entering the value and moved focus to another element.
The CSS Selectors module defines a :user-invalid pseudo-class that avoids the problems of :invalid by only matching an <input> “after the user has significantly interacted with it.”
Firefox already supports this functionality via the :-moz-ui-invalid pseudo-class (see it in action). Mozilla now intends to un-prefix this pseudo-class and ship it under the standard :user-invalid name. There are still no signals from other browser vendors, but the Chromium and WebKit bugs for this feature have been filed.
The post Weekly Platform News: Focus Rings, Donut Scope, More em Units, and Global Privacy Control appeared first on CSS-Tricks.
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Every year, the SEO landscape evolves to meet the needs of algorithm updates, user demands, and other technological advances. Does that mean 2021 is going to introduce a lot of changes? Probably not. You will find that much of 2021 is going to reflect SEO trends from 2019 and 2020. That said, there are some trends that continue to hold strong, such as the saying “content quality is king.”
To make your content all the more relevant, however, you need to fine tune your SEO strategy. Lucky for you, we have put together information on several SEO tactics and trends to get you ahead of the competition in 2021. Check them out.
One thing that many are noticing is the continuous fluctuation of search rankings. Whenever Google releases an algorithm update, your website’s ranking is going to be affected. Your ranking may move several spots. It is rare when a website’s SERP remains in the same spot.
But that doesn’t mean you should ignore SEO and SERPs. Once your rankings have improved, website traffic will increase.
Your position on that first result page is so, so crucial. Sometimes, there are less than 10 spots, depending on the ads and snippets and other information. If you aren’t ranking for a topic, you need to reconsider your SEO strategy.
That’s the first step you should make: review your strategy for 2021 and figure out what is obsolete.
The user experience (UX) has swiftly grown in importance throughout the past couple of years. That is because Google has begun measuring UX and, if your site doesn’t have enough of it, the algorithms will keep you from a top ranking SERP.
Ouch.
But why is UX so pivotal in your site’s success? Consider this: a user who we’ll call Tom visits a website after making a query through Google. Within seconds, Tom decides to return to Google. Then, he checks a second website and never has to return to the search results. Google will notice how Tom reacts to both websites and will decide that the second site is much more satisfactory.
This action between Tom, Google, and the websites is known as “pogo sticking,” where a user will visit a couple of sites before finding one that they stick to. To Google, it’s a display that says the user wasn’t satisfied with something on the sites they left. And when users aren’t appeased, Google isn’t either.
So, how do you increase the user experience for 2021? Here are some tips:
All of these are part of something called Core Web Vitals, or standards of website development. The more you fine tune your website design to meet those standards, the better off the UX will be.
Google recently announced in October 2020 that it will now index passages, not just web pages. This means that a web page with multiple paragraphs now has a chance to rank for every single piece of content rather than the emphasis being on the first sentence at the top of the page.
Google described this new feature: “By better understanding the relevancy of specific passages…we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information you’re looking for.” In other words, if the final paragraph of a 20-paragraph page has relevant information, Google can now pinpoint that and show it as part of the search query result.
What does this mean for you? It simply means you can develop your ideas more fully and not have to worry about cramming all kinds of information into the beginning of a web page.
What is a featured snippet? You have seen them before—those little blurbs of text at the beginning of the SERPs that aim to answer your question. The content is automatically pulled from pages that are indexed by Google. Consider the featured snippet as #0, because it is above even the treasured #1 spot.
Landing the featured snippet is highly advantageous. Not only does that give you a spot well above the competition, but you get seen. Sure, people might not click on the featured snippet for more information. It doesn’t matter. Your visibility increases dramatically, leading to more click-throughs.
So, you should do some keyword research for a topic then create a set-up that would put you in the running for the featured snippet position.
Throughout the years, the best length for blogs and other content was always a point of contention. Some people said that longer content was better, while others claimed that short bits of information are more appealing. The answer as of 2021 is that it depends.
It depends on the reader, the demographic, the keywords, and the amount of information it takes to answer all the questions someone could potentially have. You also have to ask yourself, “Do I really need a 3,000 word article when a 5-minute quick video has the same result?” There are some cases when a longer, more thorough discussion is going to be beneficial, but you can balance it out with shorter clips of information that are easily digestible.
There is one thing you don’t have to worry about so much now, though. Google has stopped paying so much attention to the keyword densities and word count. Now, you can focus on the content and providing clear, concise information. That will help you rank more than fluffed up content ever will.
The overlooked page title is more useful in 2021. Many lack optimization, and it ends up dragging you down in rankings. There are many ways to vary your page titles to draw more attention to them, such as dashes, complete sentences, and vertical pipes.
For example, the title “The Best Hops for Homebrewing Beer,” can also be written as:
You may have to test for which variance is most effective over a span of weeks. It may seem a bit difficult at first, because you might lose some ranks if the keyword relevancy doesn’t work as well as other variations, but you won’t know until you try.
The key is to zone in on a keyword or long tail keyword then make multiple titles revolving around that keyword. You may add in a brand name or other details to help pinpoint a specific group of users, too.
Similar to page titles, you can also adjust the headers throughout your website. Your instinct may be to over-simplify certain things, such as information about shipping and handling on your website. If you write a blog about it, you wouldn’t just call it “Shipping.” You would want people to know how certain elements of the shipping works, how orders are processed, what certain statements on their account mean, and so on.
In the end, you might come up with a header like, “What You Need to Know About International Shipping and Handling.” Again, you can try multiple approaches to see which header is most favoured.
Recently, the quantity of backlinks leading to your page is far less important than the quality of those links. In fact, if you acquire far too many backlinks at once, Google will actually counter that attempt to rank quickly and hold your page back. One of the reasons for this is the black hat practice of buying links.
So, in 2021, the best method for retrieving backlinks is to not concern yourself with them right away. Publish your content and focus on organic growth. Once your content has been live for a few months and has drawn some attention, you can then look for link prospects. It is more organic, and you will see more growth because of it.
This is an age-old tip, but it certainly continues to influence rankings everywhere. If you want a better user experience, then you need to look at your images, files, and alt text. Faster load times can be unlocked if you decrease the size of image files. If you don’t know how yet, you can use an online tool called ImageOptim, which will get the job done quickly.
You also want to name any files with keywords or something that will complement the alternative text. For example, if your blog is about the different kinds of cakes in the world, then you might have an image titled “Egypt-basbousa-cake.” You will then have alt text that states something like, “A sweet cake called basbousa from Egypt.”
Videos are an excellent way to boost website engagement, especially when you are posting them to social media. However, while those videos will get people interested in your brand and message, they are not always going to directly optimize your website. One useful hack that also adds to a page’s SEO is to provide a transcript. Not only does the additional text make your video more accessible to some users, but that content will help Google and other search engines zero in on the subject matter.
You can automatically generate the transcript with services like Speechpad. Just clean it up before posting, and you have an easy, accessible post.
By now, you should realize that every new page is a new chance to appease SEO standards, play up to UX, and work towards ranking on the SERPs. Whether you are making a single page or posting an entire cluster of information, you need to think about everything as having some kind of purpose. From the page titles, headers, subheaders, alt text, keywords, image names, captions, and so on, everything goes towards SEO.
Don’t forget about any facet of your website. You should be doing long-tail keyword research, since that will give you a chance to tap into a specific demographic. In other words, your content should be answering questions, from top to bottom. Use those long-tail keywords to fine tune the content, potentially earning you more traffic, conversions, sales, and engagement.
Even if the technology has not yet been fully embraced, there are people who absolutely love to say, “Hey, Google,” and “Hey, Alexa,” somewhere close by. The reality is that voice searching can be a lot easier when your hands are full, and people are going to use what is available to them. Since devices like Echo and Alexa have grown in popularity, that means that voice searches are also increasing.
While voice searches are no different from a regular search query done on the phone or computer, it does mean you have to consider how someone might naturally ask a question. Again, this is where long tail keywords come into play. People aren’t just going to say, “Buy space heater” to their Echo Dot, they’re going to speak as if talking to someone else: “Hey Echo, where can I buy a space heater?”
Keep that in mind while making content!
With these tips and trends for SEO in 2021, you should be able to unleash more potential and absolutely dominate the search engine result pages. Quality of content will continue to hold sway over keywords and everything else you do. So commit fully to the user experience and entice people to stay longer on your site. From there, your rank should rise.
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