In addition to wedding dresses, the site features vintage-inspired accessories, such as hair adornments, shoes and jewelry. Inspiration can be found throughout the site, and especially in the Nuptials of Yesteryear photo gallery. Brides who needs a little help defining their personal style can take the What Kind of Bride are You? quiz, which will provide them with a portfolio of product suggestions based on their answers. Links from dress pages will connect brides-to-be with BHLDN Stylists who offer advice, reassurance, and second opinions.

The new site fills a void for brides looking for something other than cookie-cutter, but less costly than couture. Its launch has been covered in depth across the media landscape, including CNN, Women’s Wear Daily, InStyle, The Huffington Post and others.

The same issue covers the charity soccer game played on July 30 to benefit the Starfinder Foundation, a Philadelphia nonprofit that aims to enhance the personal and academic growth of area youth by involving them in soccer. Old City Athletic Club, made up of employees and friends of WebLinc and Indy Hall, beat I-Site United 4-2 in the second annual match. More than $2,000 in donations were collected during the game from players and spectators. The post-game celebrations were held at National Mechanics.

So with the Phils on fire, the Mets sunk, the beer flowing like wine downstairs and our iPhones hopefully not turning into bricks with all of our third party apps, I guess you can say things are going well for Weblinc and Philadelphia at large.

Now for the end-of-Scarface-Tony-Montana-with-coke-all-over-his-face style pile of tickets…

The Fisticuffs dominated the Wednesday night league finishing the season at 44-8 earning the #1 seed for the playoffs. But even roads paved with good intentions can have a pothole here and there, and the Fisticuffs loss in the second round of the playoffs to fall into the loser bracket. Staring ignominious defeat and lifelong mockery straight in the face, the Fisticuffs rallied and blasted through the loser’s bracket and avenged their playoff loss to win the Wed Night title.

Now the stage was set as the Monday night champion Cobra Kais were the last hurdle to clear in the Fisticuffs quest for immortality. Mano a Mano, Ball to Ball, Rosin Bag to Rosin Bag, eight timeless warriors were to face off for the most coveted title in sport, and a chance at bowling immortality. A mere 3 games were all that were going to separate winners from losers, men from boys, and the wheat from the chaff.

Like a tumbleweed rolling through the Kansas plains on a blustery fall day, the Fisticuffs demolished the Cobra Kais in game 1 winning by 154 pins. As puddles of urine pooled beneath their seats, the Cobra Kais planned to sweep the leg in Game 2. But with steely resolve unseen since The Battle of the Bulge, the Fisticuffs dug their foxhole deep and repelled a furious Cobra Kai assault winning game 2 by a mere 5 pins. Now only needing to lose by less than 159 pins, the Fisticuffs assumed the crane stance, wrote up some new toe tags, and placed the Cobra Kais in their own body bags after game 3.

Much like war, there is a bond that grows between men thrust into the heat of championship bowling. And while Shakespeare never witnessed a battle more epic than this, if he had I am sure he would have commemorated the moment in prose:

From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of bowlers;
For he to-day that makes his spares with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so drunk,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen at North Bowl now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That bowled with us upon Saint Fisticuff’s day.

We encourage you to bring your personality to the table, wear what you’re comfortable in and, most importantly, be given the means to truly excel by working with smart and funny co-workers on big name brands in a truly egalitarian environment.

We’ve even got a bar/restaurant downstairs where you can swap stories with co-workers about run-ins with the law, music, movies and business over drinks and dinner. Our libertarian leanings, progressive practices and business savvy aren’t for everyone, but if you’re looking for a workplace full benefits, and the chance to see your work make a difference; it does exist, and it’s right here.

WebLinc is hiring. View our Careers page for our current openings and apply.

We decided to do a follow-up to a 2005 study conducted by our friends over at Happy Cog Philadelphia concerning the HTML and CSS validity of Philadelphia area web design companies’ homepages. That study found a majority of these Philadelphia web firms were not following the W3C’s HTML and CSS recommendations.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded over a decade ago by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who originally invented the World Wide Web. The W3C’s goal is to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web. These guidelines or “web standards” are important for a multitude of reasons, including faster page loads, easier site maintenance and accessibility for disabled users. (For more information on why you should be using these web standards, visit webstandards.org)

Of the 42 companies we’ve compared, only 3 had both clean HTML and clean CSS. Those companies are WebLinc, Happy Cog, and Advance Web Design.

When you hire a contractor to implement that beautiful new design for your home’s remodeling, you’d expect the design to be constructed in a manner compliant with modern building code practices and standards, right? Why wouldn’t you expect the same from your web design and development company? If your web vendor does not include web standards in your specifications documentation and final site output, it may be time to ask questions.

This study in no way implies the mentioned companies are not capable of creating beautiful designs for their clients, nor themselves. Rather it is the implementation of the design that comes into question here.

Please refer to the W3C validation tool for the most up-to-date validation information. If your company is listed above and you’d like to update your site’s status here, my email is jferry [at] weblinc.com.

*Update: 4/27/07 Electronic Ink’s homepage now validates.

To start, I’ll let it be known that SEO copywriting isn’t the only method to gain a high search engine ranking, but it is certainly one of the most effective means of garnering results; which is why it will be discussed heretofore.

There is a certain and subtle art when it comes to the insertion and distribution of SEO keywords and keyword phrases into a piece of copy. It can’t be too obvious that your articles are only a means of search engine optimization, but then again, it needs to be inundated enough for the search engines to pick it up. This, “happy medium,” so to speak, is a hard balance to strike, as many powerful search engine entries are multiple-word phrases which don’t often employ proper syntax.

Your search engine optimized copy will act as a fluid and cogent agent of your business, rather than a simple click-gathering ploy. When it comes to SEO, the idea is to quietly add as many keywords as possible, while keeping a common theme to your narrative and text. This blend of the writing craft and search engine optimization enables a smooth interplay between marketing your site and getting ranked higher on search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN, which will bring an exponentially higher amount of visitors your way.

Many online businesses, however, are still floundering when it comes to SEO copywriting because they either don’t think SEO will help them (wrong) or follow the rules doled out by the legions of experts who all say the same thing: a few keywords per page and keywords in your title page (also wrong, but not as wrong). What these SEO experts don’t tell folks is that hapless pages wrought with poor grammar, awkward phrasing or garbled syntax will drive customers away, rendering their high ranking useless. The truth is that it takes the skill of a professional copywriter familiar with SEO copywriting and other aspects of search engine optimization to truly optimize your page. It does, after all, take more than keyword heavy text to get your site recognized.

It takes exhaustive keyword research to determine which phrases and words are needed to tailor your copy per your customer base. You must also avoid highly competitive terms that bunches of people are fighting over and use less competitive terms in key spots throughout the copy. This will separate you from the pack, while still getting you a high ranking for important search criteria. Another major element of good SEO copywriting is unique copy. If you lift the copy from another site and tweak it to make it your own, the search engines will recognize your ruse and refuse rankings.

The aforementioned, among many others, are the techniques employed to create strong SEO copy, which, being a part of an effective SEO campaign, will have a significant and positive result for any eCommerce business. It brings in customers because of its proximity to the top of the search listings, creates positive copy for your business, and (as long as you can write with some flair and talent,) it makes your site interesting and will have potential customers reading, and consequently, buying.

As a copywriter I am obviously jaded and lean towards copy as an important element of any website, but as it is, copy is omnipresent on every eCommerce site and is an undeniably important aspect of both customer acquisition and retention. The next time you search for something on Google, Yahoo or MSN, ask yourself why you click on the top 10 sites, and what those other 800,000 are doing incorrectly; then think of the millions of people who do that same thing everyday.

SEPTA (www.septa.org)
The mass transit organization serving Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties is currently using an old table-based site that doesn’t conform to any web standards. Their site is littered with font tags, missing alt attributes, inline styles, and empty p tags for spacing. As for accessibility, SEPTA provides no support for users with disabilities via their web site, although SEPTA is required to provide transportation assistance to people with disabilities within their service areas.

SEPTA does do a great job at providing people with useful maps, schedules, travel alerts, and up to the minute train status.

Throughout the entire family of SEPTA web sites the designs are inconsistent, hard to use, and worst of all – non-compliant with web standards.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance and information architecture.

Philadelphia International Airport (www.phl.org)
Where to begin… Table-based, invalid DOC-TYPE, font tags, and inline styles make up this debacle of a web site whose only redeeming feature is that the site does have an ADA compliant text version of the site – but even that version didn’t provide a valid DOC-TYPE or a language attribute. The information architecture of the web site is disconcerting and the presentation of content is compact and poorly organized. Although Philadelphia International Airport’s web site doesn’t comply with web standards, the site does offer a lot of useful content. Travel preparation and flight information is readily available and accurate. Terminal and parking maps provide visitors with helpful tools to find there way around the airport. They also have a section devoted to Art & Exhibitions that provide information about the artists, the exhibits, and detailed pictures of the work.

With these recent expansions and upgrades made at the Philadelphia International Airport I would expect an upgrade to their web site. By developing a web standards based web site, they could offer more user-friendly ways to deliver their important and highly desirable content.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, information architecture, standards-compliant content management system, more intuitive search.

Commerce Bank (www.commerceonline.com)
The beloved, open every day Commerce Bank is a favorite among many in the area. With convenient locations, a wide-array of products & services, and amazing hours you would think they could do no wrong. Well, they have. It’s the typical lineup of wrong doings: Table-based layout, missing DOC-TYPE, use of deprecated elements, animated GIF’s, scrolling stock ticker and news, empty/missing alt attributes; I could go on and on. On some computers, the stock ticker actually crashes the browser and causes the screen to flicker. I didn’t even bother validating. Their online banking web site is a whole other mess of web standards non-compliance. At the very least you would hope that the web site would work cross-browser, but alas, it does not. Using their online banking web site in Firefox looks like 52 card pick-up, with elements aligning randomly. That being said, Commerce Bank does an amazing job with the brick & mortar establishments. I wouldn’t bank anywhere else.

Always expanding and loved by all of their customers we can only hope Commerce Bank comes to their senses and undergoes a complete overhaul of their web sites.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization.

Tower Investments (www.towerdev.com)
These urban developers have designed some amazing properties and turned troubled neighborhoods into hip urban communities with retail shopping and luxurious living spaces. But although their properties are chic and trendy, their web site is outdated and non-compliant. Flash based web sites, like Tower Investments, are impossible to use for disabled users, therefore excluding them as potential clients. By adopting web standards and Section 508 recommendations you open up your site to all visitors, instead of just sighted visitors. Flash is an amazing tool, and has its place on the web, just not as a primary tool for web site development.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization.

Amoroso’s (www.amorosobaking.com)
The beloved baking company, famous for fresh hoagie rolls, delivers a stale web site. The table-based web site fails at delivering standards-compliant content by using inline styles, tables for non-tabular data, and the ever present spacer.gif. The web site also uses a fluid or 100% wide layout, which is not necessary when the content being presented would easily fit in a fixed width layout for 800×600 screen resolution. Although when the site is resized for 800×600 screen resolution the browser scroll bars are activated due to the content area being too large for the resolution size. Also, fixed width font sizes are used throughout the site and don’t allow text scaling in certain browsers, making it difficult to read. Overall, Amoroso’s web site fails at meeting almost every web standard, but where their web site lacks, their products do not. Amoroso’s is still Philadelphia’s favorite roll, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization.

Rohm and Haas (www.rohmhaas.com)
The international specialty chemical producer, Rohm and Haas, breaks all the Web Standard rules. By combining table-based layouts with invalid CSS, missing DOC-TYPES, drop-down menu’s that break Section 508 accessibility standards, and others, they offer pages that possible investors and/or clients are not able to access. Their imagery and text color combinations also pose many problems with visitors who are color blind and/or have other vision problems. It amazes me that a global company of this size doesn’t deliver standards-compliant content, when their reach extends to all corners of the world.

That being said, the imagery and content on the site still delivers a consistent message and provide tons of important information to the end user.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization, Multiple Language Support.

QVC (www.qvc.com)
The television shopping channel, QVC, has an ecommerce web site that generated $1.09 billion in 2006 and they are ranked #14 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide. Their total revenue for 2006 was $7.07 billion with online sales accounting for a little more than 15.4% of their total revenue. The web site is currently a table-based non-compliant web site which is a Section 508 nightmare. From missing alt attributes to blue text on a blue background color the site is in desperate need of an overhaul. If the site were standards-compliant this mega online retailer would be able to open up their online business to many more customers; then couple that with the addition of a multiple-language support system and this site’s international use would exponentially boost.

Quality, Value, Convenience. QVC definitely delivers upon their name with their web site, even if it is lacking web standards. The product imagery is presented gracefully and the site is constantly being updated with new and featured products which shows that QVC takes the time to deliver what they stand for.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Multiple Language Support.

M.A.B. Paints (www.mabpaints.com)
Founded over 100 years ago in South Philadelphia, this family business has been a favorite among professionals for many years. Their slogan, “On Time As Promised, Or We Pay,” defines their loyalty to their customers. By supplying hundreds of stores throughout the country, M.A.B. Paints has a responsibility to their customer base to provide standards-compliant content on their web site. Currently, their site is using my all-time favorite gaff, frames. Needless to say, there’s a long list of problems with the web site. M.A.B. offers a retailer portal, most likely to provide their retailers with up-to-date inventory, pricing, and order tracking. I can only hope that their retailer portal does a better job at providing standards-compliant content, but I have my doubts.

Being in business over 100 years proves the strength of M.A.B.’s brand recognition and strength. In addition to their strong values and core principles, I believe that M.A.B could exponentially increase their business by offering a more compliant web site.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing.

PhillyCarShare (www.phillycarshare.org)
I am a huge advocate for car sharing and cleaner emissions for automobiles and I tip my hat to this great organization and commend them on their efforts thus far, but their web site is far from par. I am aware of the funding issues when it comes to non-profits and funding non-program initiatives but developing a standards-compliant web site isn’t something that costs extra. The basic standards-compliant web site can even be developed, in some cases, faster than a non-compliant, table-based web site. Needless to say, PhillyCarShare’s web site could benefit enormously with a web standards re-design.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization.

Philadelphia Management (www.philadelphiamanagement.com)
If you’ve lived in Philadelphia for more than a year you’ve probably come across this name. Philadelphia Management manages more than 4,600 residential and countless commercial properties, arguably making them the largest property management company in Philadelphia. Their web site makes the cut by breaking all the fundamental rules of web standards. Missing DOC-TYPE’s, table-based design, deprecated elements, and one of my favorites – spacer.gif. They, like many other sites mentioned, also use a fluid or 100% width layout, which is not necessary for their content.

They do a tremendous job, however, of providing detailed property information for their visitors as well as providing detailed photos of the property. Many property management companies do not take the time to provide this level of information for their visitors. With such a wide array of possible visitors Philadelphia Management needs to bring their web site up to speed with web standards and offer more accessible content for the end user.

Recommendations: CSS Redesign, standards-compliant content management system, Section 508 compliance, information architecture, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing.

By the way, if your company happens to be on this list, we’d love to offer you one free hour of consulting. Just give us a buzz.