SEO tests, Klout and more… – The Monday December 5th Roundup

Welcome back this week. Sad news from Justin Cutroni, as he leaves us for a job at Google. He’s going to be singing the praise of web analytics for fun and profit. Meanwhile the internet is awash in talk about SOPA, the United States new anti-piracy bill, which content creators are defending on the grounds that an easier way t go after pirates is needed, but service providers and free internet proponents claim is going too far.

Other than that,we have some neat HTML/JS scripts for saving user input, SEO tests, klout and more…

Create

We start the week with A List Apart and their guide to getting started with Sass, the CSS style sheet syntax/converter.
Now HERE is a cool post. Smashing Mag has how to auto-save user input in forms using HTML5 and sisyphus.js.

Attract

Get Elastic has a great post on some research by Thumbtack.com on how to test title tags in search.
Social Media Today seems to have very mixed views on Klout. From straight out disliking it, to even handed “who influences you” posts, to “using Klout to your advantage”. Note, those were all posted today, too…

Analyze

Justin Cutroni no longer works with us. However, before we get too sad, we should note that he has gone on to work at Google. As he says, bitter and sweet – not bittersweet.
A little bird told me that ClickZ has a neat article on what governments officially say about web analytics. Sadly he only looks at the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia under the excuse of only speaking English. What about India and South Africa? And I bet Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Finland would all be easy to find/translate. Ahh well, maybe Ill do that for a post.

Optimize

E-nor has 10 tips for building better landing pages. Most of these should be obvious, which makes me wonder why people miss them so much. Perhaps what we should make is a checklist for landing pages…
Six revisions as a post on minimalist design, asking “how minimal is too minimal“? Despite the name, this post is really a praise of minimalism, talking about great minimalism and just warning against a few mistakes.
One of my favorite blogs, You Are Not So Smart, has a great example of how the human mind doesn’t work as well as we think. Specifically this post is about change blindness and the amazing color changing card trick. Not going to say too much, other than that it’s a pretty amazing card trick.

Kent Clark

Some have compared him to the Dalai Lama, others to Kublai Kahn. When he isn't teaching third world children how to purify water with nothing more than a plastic bottle and a garden hose, he is creating mad waves for surfers off the west coast with little more than a paddle. Some say there is a boat involved, others that he walks on water. Little is known about his background. he appeared from nowhere 15 years ago and claims heritage from a land with neither want not need. He makes little comment, stating only that it was a pretty cool place. Fire does not burn him, cold does not hurt him. Words could... but they don't. When he passes, pedals fall off branches. When he speaks, hair tugs at skin, pulling just slightly in his direction. He does not sleep but he does dream. He has muscled his way into the lives of the famous and whispered his way into their hearts. And in the wee hours he plays oboe softly, as if to sooth the night to sleep.