Making Sense of Web Colors

In 1994, Netscape defined 216 colors that have priority in browsers based on the 256 colors displayed by an 8-bit system. 40 colors display differently between PCs and MACs and are therefore eliminated.

These 216 fixed colors, known as web safe colors are universally recognized by all browsers and operating systems. This means that web pages which use only these colors have a better chance of looking the same on any browser.

Less than 5% of computer systems are currently using 8-bit systems and are thus confined to 256 colors. However, you should still use web safe colors as a starting point, especially for logos, flat color illustrations, backgrounds, and large areas of the same color in any image.

Colors are made up of 3 pairs of hexadecimal digits. Each pair represents a value from 3 root colors: red, green, and blue usually represented as RGB.

Hexadecimal is based on 16 digits not 10. So, A would be equivalent to 11, B to 12, and so on. For example, 000000 is black, FFFFFF is white and FF0000 is red. The first pair of numbers shows the amount of red, the second set shows how much green and the last set shows how much blue is used to obtain that particular color. 00 represents no amount of that color (0%) while FF is the most amount of any color you can use (100%).

Here's the percentage breakdown:
0%=00, 20%=33, 40%=66, 60%=99, 80%=CC, 100%=FF.

Web safe colors, which are made up of 3 pairs of identical hexadecimal digits, consist of every combination of 00, 33, 66, 99, CC, and FF for each root color (6 x 6 x 6 = 216).

Todays computers are no longer limited to the 256 colors displayed by 8-bit video cards. 16-bit cards display 4096 colors (referred to as web smart colors) while, 32-bit cards will display millions of different colors (referred to as unsafe colors). The total number of possible colors is over 16 million as each root color can be one of 256 values (256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216). Your browser can display any of these colors as long as your video card will support it.

There are many color wheels and charts available on the internet to help you choose web safe, web smart, or unsafe colors. Here are a few:

A 216 web safe color chart can be found at:
http://www.permadi.com/tutorial/websafecolor/ And also at:
http://www.techbomb.com/websafe/

4096 Color Wheel will provide the hexadecimal values for web safe, web smart, and unsafe colors along with different saturations of hues and is available at:
http://www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html

DHTML Color Wheel provides the hexadecimal codes for all 16,777,216 colors. It's available at:
http://www.geocities.com/~prof_al/examples/colorwheel.html

Another version of the same color wheel displays your chosen color on the entire page. Find it at:
http://www.jeffchester.com/colorwheel.html
Although modern browsers will display over 16 million colors, colors other than web safe colors may not display the same on different browsers. If you choose to use colors on your web pages from the web smart or unsafe color palettes, always view your pages on different browsers. This is to make sure that the colors that look great on your browser display the same or close to the same color on other browsers.

Using Keywords and Keyword Phrases Effectively

For best search engine optimization, you must use your keywords and keyword phrases effectively.

For optimal effectiveness, use different keywords and/or keyword phrases on each page of your website. Optimize each page for those keywords and/or keyword phrases that are relevant to the content of that particular page.

Title Tag

-Use keywords and/or keyword phrases as a descriptive title for each page.
-Use your most relevant keywords and/or keyword phrases in your home page title.
-To be the most effective, title tags should contain only keywords and/or keyword phrases.
-Repeat the keywords and/or keyword phrases 2-3 times but make sure that the title makes sense. An example for this page would be: Keyword Usage, Using Keywords and Keyword Phrases Effectively.

Meta Tag Keywords

-Place all relevant keywords and keyword phrases in your meta tag....< name="keywords" content="______">
-If possible, avoid using single keywords as they may be too competitive. Use keyword phrases instead.
-Don't repeat your keywords more than 2-3 times to avoid offending some search engines.
-Separate keywords and keyword phrases with commas or spaces, not both. Example: keyword,keyword phrase,keyword or keyword keyword phrase keyword.
-Use common misspellings or miss keyings. Ex: keywrod or keywird.
-Use different forms of keywords whenever possible. Ex: web site and website.
-Use singular and plural versions of keywords. Ex: website and websites.
-Use upper and lower case. Ex: Website and website

Meta Tag description

-Use your keywords and keyword phrases in your meta tag description....< name="description" content="______">.
-Repeat your most important keywords and/or keyword phrases a minimum of 2-3 times.
-The total length of your description tag should be no more than 20-25 words.
-Your description should make sense as this is what often shows up in the search engine results page. This is your opportunity to persuade users to click through to your site so be sure your description is enticing and contains keywords and/or keyword phrases that will attract visitors.

Content

-Many search engines concentrate on the first 250 words of your text when looking for keyword relevancy and density so concentrate your keywords and/or keyword phrases there.
-Strive for 5-7% keyword density (5-7 keywords and/or keyword phrases per 100 words of text). If your keyword density is much higher than this, your copy may not make sense AND the search engines may consider it keyword spamming.
-Use your most important keywords and/or keyword phrases throughout your copy but without sounding repetitious.
-Use your most important keywords and/or keyword phrases in your H1 tag. To give more weight to your H1 tag, use only one H1 tag in your copy. (Your H1 tag should contain your most important statement so you shouldn't need to use more than one H1 tag.)
-Use keywords and/or keyword phrases in your image ALT tags. For example your logo ALT tag should say something such as: ALT="keyword logo image".

META tags are not as important as they once were as most search engines are now searching your copy when looking for keywords and/or keyword phrases. Some search engines use the first sentence of your content as your site's description. Therefore, it's become increasingly important to have the first 250 words of your copy be keyword rich.

It may be better to write your content first, then choose your keywords and/or keyword phrases from the content. Rewrite your content as needed, adding keywords and/or keyword phrases that pertain to the theme of the content. In this way, you've chosen keywords and/or keyword phrases that are relevant to your content, instead of trying to write content to fit your keywords and/or keyword phrases.