#making it harder for search engines to pick out text from an image?

[underthehedge]

Just a wee question but: what's with the underwater effect screenshotting of posts thing?

I've seen it a fair few times over the last year and from enough different blogs that I suspect it's got some sort of a purpose, but I don't know what it is.

I'm sure someone who sees this can tell me.

[heejojo]

thirteen: how it really is

pairing: yang jungwon × female reader with txt and itzy appearances

genre: fluff, angst, crack, smau, flowers shop au

summary: y/n is used to getting what she wants, even if the person is in a relationship because as far as she’s concerned, the person isn’t married yet, but why is it frustrating when the flower shop owner doesn’t pay any attention to her?

wc: 1.3k

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taglist[open]: @ncityy04 @ko-komi @jungwoniics @01718 @meltinghershey @enhyphun @adoreyeonjun @wonionie @jungwoniethinker@seungwaitamin @definitely-not-kyuzu @n1k1tty @elaineju @primorange @dei-lilxc @fylithia @icywhatim @sunghoonsflwr @angelamazing @bbanggami @ryujnworld @yukii0-0 @hobistigma @strawberryyukhei @woonieiv @chimsugacookie @oureris @sluxie @beomgyuv @babyberrie @chaebb @yjwfav @youreverydayzebra @luvyhee @lumixen

Jungwon tried to stop the way his heart raced faster anytime someone said they needed to talk to him. He searched his brain trying to look for a moment where he had upset you. Did you want to leave? Although you caused trouble a lot, you still helped him when orders got too much and he was grateful for that.

You had been out of it lately, zoning out and forgetting orders. You knew whatever Mirae had said about you wasn’t true in the slightest. You feared that if Jungwon knew, he would be like the rest and think of you in a different way.

Everyone else already had their fixed perception of you in their heads and who were you to ruin it for them? As long as you looked good in the image they had in their heads, it didn’t bother you. For Jungwon, it was different. Not only do you work for him, you already regarded him as your friend.

Jungwon closed the store and sat down next to you. Wiping his hands by the side of his trousers so they wouldnt feel sweatier, he cleared his throat.

“Something was going around on Twitter and I wanted to let you know before you got the wrong idea.”

“I haven’t had the time, let me check now,” he says and brings out his phone and scrolls. He comes across one of Mirae’s comments and turns to you with a confused look on his face.

“That’s what I was talking about,” you tell him with a strained smile.

"Why is she saying those things about you? Are they true?" the emotions on his face are unreadable so you're not able to tell what he's thinking.

"They're true and at the same time, it's not true"

"It can't be in the middle. It's either it’s true or it isn't true"

"That's why I wanted to tell you now. Are you willing to listen?"

"I'm here already, aren't I?" he asks. Seeing your crestfallen look, he tries to reassure you, "I'm willing to listen"

You take in a deep breath, thinking everything through again. You were about to expose one of your most painful memories to him so he wouldn't have the same misconception others had of you.

The air that surrounds both of you becomes tense. Your hands reaching over to hold the handle beside you before beginning the story.

“The people that you see around me now are the people that have been by my side for the past five years. You’ve had this shop for almost four years haven’t you?” he nods and you continue. “I studied law because of my parents. Back then, I had no aspirations and didn’t know what I wanted to be. All I knew was that I enjoyed working. My dad convinced me to study law and I agreed because it was better to do something like that than nothing at all. I had worked as a criminal lawyer for almost a year before I quit my job.”

“I met Yuna in university. She was the first person I talked to and we clicked ever since. At that time, Niki's parents kicked him out for not wanting to study engineering so he stayed with Sunghoon off-campus and worked many jobs and studied hard so he could attend that particular school. He got a scholarship and is studying animation now. He forgave his parents later and talks to them now”

“Jay studied business to work with his dad and he enjoys what he does because he can work from home. He enjoys what he does since he gets to work from home” the thought of your best friend enjoying his life made you smile.

“We all met each other at different times. Jay met Niki and Sunghoon at a convenience store and at that time, it was a friend of mine that introduced us all. The irony was that we’re no longer friends anymore” you stated with a bitter laugh.

“What happened between you guys?”

“At that time, I had a crush on him and everyone knew it. It’s not like it was obvious but I told him about it and he told me that he reciprocated them. Things went well at first, with Sunghoon and Niki faking disgust anytime we did cute things together or Jay and Yuna fawning over it. Then one day, I started getting texts from random people who would call me a homewrecker and when I’d ask them, they wouldnt respond. I told Jay about it and he tried contacting the girls that sent those messages himself but they wouldnt respond to him. I showed Heeseung and he brushed it off saying that they would leave me soon”

“Even though I tried not to show it, I hurt a lot from those messages. After a while, we swept them under the rug. I changed my number and they had stopped the messages. At that time, Heeseung still hadn’t asked me out. Anytime I asked him why he’d say, ‘I’m waiting for the perfect time to do so’. I let it slide. When I’d take the initiative, he’d say we should wait instead. He was messing with my feelings and I let him,” Tears were already welling up in your eyes and your hands started to itch. Gripping the handle of the chair even harder, you decide to continue talking.

“He would get pissed if I talked to other boys and say stupid stuff. Niki was the first one that noticed the way he was treating me and tried to talk sense into me but I wouldnt budge. Jay and Yuna knew because I told them how upset I was over it and tried to counsel Heeseung but nothing was working. I didn’t tell Sunghoon because he would get angry and want to retaliate”

“Heeseung later apologized and things went back to normal. It was nearing the end of that particular semester and Sunghoon took us out for drinks. At the restaurant, I could feel that people were watching me but I couldn’t tell who.”

“After that day, Heeseung took me to the movies to celebrate me getting my summer job but we didn’t even make it into the cinema before a girl came and started calling me names. I was very unsettled because I didn’t know her and yet she said those types of things and Heeseung didn’t bother to defend me. He stood there and when I tried to explain myself, she shouted at me even more. She didn’t shout at the boyfriend that cheated on her, instead of at the person that was unaware of it all. Believe me, if I knew he was in a relationship I would have not gone for him”

The tears that you were trying your best to control came down in full force. All that time when you and he would talk about how much you wanted to be part of each other’s future, he had a future with someone else all along. With a gentle touch, he lifted your hand from the chair and gave it a squeeze which made you cry harder.

“You don’t have to finish the story. I trust you” he said. More tears streamed down your face. It was the first time someone apart from your friends said that they had believed you and it felt satisfying. You didn’t have to continue hiding under your facade anymore. You gave him a soft smile and continued speaking.

“I called Yuna to pick me up and I stayed with her for a month. She told the boys what happened and said I needed to be alone. I cried the whole time I was with her. The boys gave me space for about two weeks before they came to check up on me. They were so angry and wanted to go out. Sunghoon was the scariest. I had never seen him that annoyed before. Jay had to cool him down. That day, we all promised each other that we wouldnt do anything to him and forget about it. After all, he was now with his girlfriend so there was nothing else to worry about. Since then, we’ve been even closer and even if they irritate my soul, they’ll always be like family to me”

Jungwon felt sorry for you and angry at himself. Angry for not being nice to you when he met you and sorry that you went through so much. To date, people still thought of you as a homewrecker or a mistress when you were nothing of the sort.

“He deserves to a beating up” he stated wanting nothing more than to hit Heeseung.

“I’m over it, I wanted to tell you.” Jungwon could tell that you were still not over it, considering the way your body shook.

“Do you want a hug?”

“Yes please,” and he took you in for one. Even if he worked with soil all day, he smelt good. He smelt like comfort and wait...baby powder!?

After a while, you had to ask, “Do you use baby powder?”

“It makes my skin soft” and you giggle.

You don’t know for how long you stay in his arms, all you know is that you feel better.

[90363462]

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NINE INCH NAILS' 'THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL': 8 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW

Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, 1994

photograph by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

text DAN EPSTEIN

March 8, 2019 

On March 8th, 1994, Nine Inch Nails released The Downward Spiral, a landmark not just for Trent Reznor's career, but for hard, electronic-oriented music in general. Featuring harrowing and uncompromising tracks like "Mr. Self Destruct," "March of the Pigs," "Hurt" and "Closer," which managed the difficult feat of being addictively catchy while also being unbearably intense, the densely layered record has sold almost 4 million copies in the U.S. alone, and influenced just about every dark and edgy metal, hardcore and/or electronic act that came after it.

In 1992, NIN's heavily distorted Broken EP had signaled Reznor's move away from the clean and commercial sounds of 1989's Pretty Hate Machine; now, nearly two years later, it was clear that Reznor's artistic vision had evolved even further. "This time I wanted to make an album that went in 10 different directions, but was all united somehow," he told Guitar World in 1994. "I didn't want to box Nine Inch Nails into a corner, where everything would be faster and harder than the last record ... On this record, I was more concerned with mood, texture, restraint and subtlety, rather than getting punched in the face 400 times."

Most of the album was infamously written and recorded at Le Pig, Reznor's home studio at 10050 Cielo Drive in Beverly Hills, the same address where actress Sharon Tate, her unborn child, and four other people were murdered by followers of Charles Manson. Reznor has insisted many times that he had rented the property before learning of its history. "The reason I was there is because it's a cool, nice house on this beautiful green mountainside that overlooks the whole city from the ocean to the downtown," he told Kerrang! in 1994. "It's really quiet and secluded, yet it's also five minutes from the Whisky …"

"If there was any sort of vibe then it was one of quiet, maybe sadness. But the nice thing about the house, which I feel had nothing to do with what happened there, was that I wouldn't leave it for weeks. The house was on its own, gated in, and once I realized I hated L.A., there was never any reason to leave. That perhaps added to the isolation and claustrophobia of the record."

Here are eight things you might not know about the album.

1. The album was significantly influenced by David Bowie

Recorded at a time when much of the rock world was looking back to Seventies punk and heavy rock for inspiration, Trent Reznor used David Bowie's moody and atmospheric 1977 masterpiece Low as a guiding light for The Downward Spiral. "I got into Bowie in the Scary Monsters era, then I picked up Low and instantly fell for it," he told Kerrang! "I related to it on a song-writing level, a mood level, and on a song-structure level … I like working within the framework of accessibility, and songs, of course, but I also like things that are more experimental and instrumental, maybe. You may still be expressing extreme emotions, but instead of loud guitars it's the silence of restraint. When you think it's going to explode and it doesn't, it's over."

2. Most of Trent Reznor’s vocal and guitar parts were recorded spontaneously

Despite Reznor's reputation for perfectionism, and the fact that it took a year and a half to complete The Downward Spiral, most of his own vocal and guitar contributions to the album were recorded in a fairly off-the-cuff manner. "The music just flows out of Trent like no one else I've ever known," longtime NIN engineer and mixer Sean Beavan told Sound on Sound in 2012. "As with any great artist, there's a lot of procrastination, but while he's playing [video] games, his brain is still working and at any moment he could come up with something fantastic."

Beavan recalled that he and the other engineers working on the album always had been on their toes, in case Reznor suddenly felt a creative urge. "You had to make sure that one or two mics were always available for him to sing at any given moment," he said. "You captured the moment with him. It might seem that there wasn't a lot of thought behind what he was doing, yet he'd obviously been thinking about it for a long, long time and he would lay down maybe three tracks of the vocal without ever repeating himself. He'd always ad-lib stuff, and after you picked one of the takes he would never allow you to punch in anything less than an entire verse … To his way of thinking, whereas the rhythm should be perfect, the emotion should come from the voice and the guitar. So those things were largely performed in a single take."

3. “Piggy” may have been about former NIN guitarist Richard Patrick

The fact that The Downward Spiral was recorded at the same house were Sharon Tate and her friends were murdered by followers of Charles Manson led many listeners to believe that the lyrics to several of the album's songs were written in reference to the killings. The word "Pig" had been written in blood on the door of the house by one of the killers, so therefore the song "Piggy" — with its chorus of "Nothing can stop me now" — was widely interpreted as being about a mass murderer and his "family." However, former NIN guitarist Richard Patrick (later of Filter) believes the song was actually about the dissolution of his friendship with Reznor.

"When a guy writes a song called 'Piggy'��about you, there's obviously tension or some leftover shit," Patrick, who left NIN in 1993 during the recording of The Downward Spiral, told the Sacramento Bee in 2010. "My nickname was Piggy. He's writing songs about me … you know, I wish it hadn't been so complicated and so weird. I wish it would have been a little more fun. Maybe one of these days we'll talk and it'll be OK, but it doesn't feel like it's a friendship, that's for sure."

4. “Ruiner” was Reznor’s least favorite song on the album

With its slamming industrial beats and glitched-out layers of sound, "Ruiner" is one of The Downward Spiral's most compelling tracks. But Reznor admitted to Guitar World in 1994 that he wasn't satisfied with how it came out. "There's always one song per record where you work and work and work, and it just takes a hell of a long time for the song to come together," he explained. "Then you get into the trap of saying, 'Well, I spent so much time on this, it's gotta be good. I've gotta make it work.' It's usually one part that's fucking the whole thing up. And that's usually the part that you think is really great. You'll hear a million playbacks of the song and say, "Man, that part is so fucking cool. Why is the song not happening?' Then finally someone hits the mute button for that part and the song's good. And you realize, 'Oh fuck, it's that part I love so much.'

"So on this record, 'Ruiner' was the hardest song to write. I still don't know if I got it right. I have such a bad vibe from that song now — from it sucking in so many different ways."

5. Reznor was originally unsure about keeping “Closer”’s most famous line

The infamous howl of "I want to fuck you like an animal!" has made "Closer" a favorite of strippers — and the bane of conservative pundits — for a quarter of a century. So it's kind of surprising to learn that Reznor originally had severe misgivings about including the line in the song. "Trent was actually worried that 'I wanna fuck you like an animal' sounded too trite, even though it was the thing that everyone would relate to," Beavan told Sound on Sound. "He was always so concerned about making 'real art' that he'd wrestle with the people-friendly aspects. Still, he obviously reconciled himself to that line, because we kept it."

6. “Big Man With a Gun” includes an audio sample of live-in-the-studio girl-on-girl sex

The Downward Spiral contains a variety of non-musical samples, including audio snippets from the films Texas Chainsaw Massacre, THX-1138 and Robot Jox. "Big Man With a Gun" also includes a sample that's credited to Tommy Lee, though it had nothing to do with Lee's work with Mötley Crüe.

In Tommyland, his 2004 autobiography, Lee recalled bringing several porn stars (including a woman with a well-earned reputation as a "squirter") to A&M Studios — where Reznor was working at the time — as a "birthday present" for NIN bassist Danny Lohner. "I bring the girls across the hall into the Nine Inch Nails studio," Lee recalled, "lay them out on Trent's grand piano, say, 'Dudes, set up the mikes, get some grapes, roll the tape and have a seat. You're not gonna believe this.' The girls take the grapes and stick them in the squirter's pussy only to suck them out and stick more in."

Said "squirter"'s moans of pleasure were picked up by the studio mics, and subsequently appended to the beginning of "Big Man With a Gun." "They reversed it and fucked with the tone of it," Lee explained. "But if you listen closely you can hear her."

7. Reznor didn’t think the album had any commercial potential

It's not uncommon for recording artists to lose perspective on their work, especially after months and months in the studio. When Reznor finally delivered the completed version of The Downward Spiral to Interscope Records in late 1993, he was happy with the finished product — but also completely convinced that it was entirely devoid of hit potential.

"When I handed the record into Interscope, I recall apologizing to them because I thought it had no commercial, 'single' potential," he told Alternative Press in 2004. "I loved the record, but I felt sorry for them having to try and sell it. As soon as [lnterscope president] Jimmy Iovine heard 'Closer,' he said it was a hit. That's when I knew he was crazy, and it goes to show what I know."

Indeed. Not only did the album reach No. 2 on the Billboard 200 — it was only kept off the top spot by Soundgarden's Superunknown, which had been released the same day — and go on to reach quadruple platinum status in the U.S., but "Closer" became a genuine radio hit (albeit in a censored version) in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia.

8. Reznor was initially weirded out by Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt”

Country legend Johnny Cash's Rick Rubin–produced 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around featured new interpretations of country classics mixed with some stunning reworkings of contemporary material — the most stunning being Cash's moving cover of "Hurt," which received considerable airplay on both country and alternative radio stations, and earned the Country Music Association's coveted "Single of the Year" award in 2003. Though Reznor gave Rubin his blessing to have Cash cover "Hurt," he recalled to Alternative Press that "the idea sounded a bit gimmicky to me," and that Cash's interpretation of his song initially  "sounded … weird to me."

"That song in particular was straight from my soul, and it felt very strange hearing the highly identifiable voice of Johnny Cash singing it. It was a good version, and I certainly wasn't cringing or anything, but it felt like I was watching my girlfriend fuck somebody else," he said. It wasn't until he saw Mark Romanek's video for Cash's version that everything clicked for him.

"I pop the video in, and ... wow. Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps ... Wow. I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn't mine anymore. Then it all made sense to me. It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. Some-fucking-how that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning — different, but every bit as pure. Things felt even stranger when he passed away. The song's purpose shifted again. It's incredibly flattering as a writer to have your song chosen by someone who's a great writer and a great artist."

Nine Inch NailsTrent Reznor

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[undertalethingems]

Bark at the Moon, Chapter 2: Reconnections, Recollections

<Previous / Next>

Or read on my Ao3>

Rating, Setting: Gen, Pre-canon

Chapter Warnings: None

Chapter Summary: Sans is at a loss for what to do. He's lucky his brother isn't the only one who looks out for him, and that he's not the only one looking out for Papyrus... But they both have a lot of work ahead of them.

It had been two weeks. Two long, empty, lonely weeks. Sans hadn’t given up on his brother, per se, but he had given up on looking for him. A check on the numbers revealed nothing out of the ordinary; as far as he could tell, Papyrus was definitely still alive, and there was nothing funky with the timeline. More mundane sources of information continued to come up dry, and the few times Sans had gone out, there was a subtle unease in town. If only Papyrus knew his neighbors missed him... not to mention his own brother. It was like he'd vanished into thin air, and Sans knew that was one thing his brother couldn't do. So he was just... gone.

Sans was starting to feel he'd messed up somehow. He knew he was far from being a perfect or even a really good brother, but he didn’t think he’d done anything to make Papyrus feel running away was necessary…. No, Papyrus would have aired his grievances long before that, he was sure.... But then again, would he? It's not like Sans ever did anything about all the things he nagged him for. Maybe after feeling unheard for so long, he'd left. A cruel voice in his mind liked to whisper as much and worse, and without Papyrus to motivate him, he wasn't doing much to combat it.

He rolled over on the couch and ignored the empty chip bag that crinkled under him, the remains of lunch. Going to Grillby’s had become too taxing sometime last week, and most other foods were similarly inconvenient if they sounded good at all. He wanted nothing more than for Papyrus to burst in and scold him for being so lazy, but dreams of exactly that and the knowledge none of this mattered anyway had spoiled his hopes. He’d just wait, like he always did. He heaved a sigh, and was letting his eyelids drift down when a knock on his door startled him.

He waited, and it came again--much harder.

“Sans?” Undyne called, her voice only slightly muffled by the door. “Sans, you better be in there. I'm gonna bust this down if you don't answer now!”

Oh boy. He hauled himself up, brushed off the worst of the crumbs, and answered the door. Undyne grimaced as she studied him.

“Oh thank god, but dude, you look awful. I was here to see if you were okay, but, I think I just got my answer. C’mon, you’re not staying inside anymore.”

“eh, i’m not really feeling up to going out,” Sans mumbled, wondering if he looked as tired as he felt. “was kinda hoping you had info on my bro, to be honest, but…”

“Sans, no one’s seen you in three weeks,” Undyne stated.

Sans looked up at her with brows furrowed, questioning.

“i was just at grillby’s like… five days ago,” he protested, but Undyne shook her head.

“Grillby himself called me in on a wellness check. It’s been three. Weeks. Two since Papyrus… disappeared. I… guess you lost track of time, huh?”

Sans wilted--he was missing a whole week. “… it really flies when you’re having fun. sorry you went through all this trouble. tell grillby…. i dunno. tell him i’m ok, i guess.”

“You’re not okay,” Undyne growled, snatching the shoulder of his hoodie. “What if Papyrus came home to find you like this? Or—or worse!? Come on! We’re getting you cleaned up, making you eat some real food, and then we’re going out to look for Papyrus because if this keeps going we’ll lose BOTH of you.”

Sans didn’t have it in him to protest. She... she was right. He let her strongarm him into his own house and into the shower—though she gave him his privacy once she’d turned the water on, and the warmth felt so nice he considered staying in for a few days. But that would mean missing out on food he probably wouldn't be paying for, and he was actually hungry now. He washed up and put on the change of clothes Undyne had left him, and when he did finally emerge he found she’d thrown most of the trash away and there was an open spot on the couch. It was fated to remain empty though as she hooked her arm around his shoulders and marched him out the door.

Grillby’s exploded in shock when the two walked in, and they were swarmed by the regulars trying to greet them. Undyne howled, ordering everyone to give Sans some space, and they were finally able to make their way to the bar. If Sans was honest, part of him didn’t really want to be here, but more of him could admit he’d missed it. His friends were quick to fill him in on the latest gossip and jokes, and he realized they were doing for him what he'd done for them so many times before. They were trying to cheer him up.

After enjoying good company and a meal Grillby had assured him was on the house, at Undyne's urging they headed out to begin the search anew. Sans dreaded reaching the tile puzzle now, knowing it was the last place with any evidence of his brother and yet be such a glaring dead end. He sighed, and nudged some of the freshly accumulated snow with his slipper as Undyne talked on her phone behind him.

“Wait a minute, I’ll ask. Hey Sans,” she spoke, tapping his shoulder. “You remember what day it was that all this started?”

“yeah. it was… tuesday, exactly two—well, three weeks ago,” he answered.

“Thanks! Okay, um… as far as I know, he starts at 6 AM, sharp. Yeah. It would’ve taken him a little while to… okay, gotcha. I’ll hang on.”

There was a long pause. Sans wondered if he really could fall asleep standing up. Odds were looking pretty good. He let his eyelids slip down...

“So… you do see something? Uh-huh… that’s too bad about the lens, but you can confirm there was movement here during our timeframe? Awesome. Well, not awesome, but, you know. Thanks Alphys, you’re the best. Talk to you later.”

“well?”

“Dr. Alphys set up these cameras all over to watch for humans, and as it happens, they caught Papyrus walking over here, but not getting any farther than that. Thanks to that snowstorm, this area’s camera got iced over--of course--but she could see enough to make out… something,” Undyne explained. “Hold on, she’s gonna text me a couple pictures.”

There was a ping, and she studied the images with a frown before holding it out for Sans.

“I dunno. I definitely see something, but, can you make any sense of this?”

Sans took her phone and studied the blurry pictures. He could barely make out the trees in the background, but at least the division between them and the snow-covered ground was clear enough. There wasn’t anything that looked particularly like his brother, but there was a whitish arch of something and a smudge of orange that seemed to dart across the frame. It was a better hint than anything they’d had before, but what was it?

Sans squinted at the pictures—wait, was the arch a spine? And his tired mind dredged up memories he hadn't known he had. A lab. A scientist. Two living weapons, the pinnacle of magical engineering--and an accident that erased nearly all evidence it had ever happened. A hand on his shoulder steadied him, and he looked up to see Undyne giving him a worried look. He handed her phone back wordlessly and shoved his hands into his pockets, magic racing.

“Are you okay? You got kinda… unsteady there for a moment.”

“’m fine,” he answered, well aware his eye lights had blinked out.

“Sans, dude, you’re freaking me out,” Undyne called as he walked away, inspecting the edges of the clearing and peering into the trees.

“can i ask you a favor?”

“Uh… yeah?”

“go pick up the least greasy thing from grillby’s you can and wait here. i know what happened to papyrus,” Sans stated, staring into the depths of the forest. The indents were distant and faint from layers of fresh snowfall, but he could see the pattern now and wondered how he hadn’t noticed them before. No points for him, that was sure.

“Uh, sure thing. See you… both? Soon,” Undyne said, and in a blink he was gone.

The forests outside Snowdin were thick and ancient, and most monsters avoided their depths. It was largely the threat of frostbite and getting lost that kept them away, but save for a few exceptions monsters generally preferred company and civilization to untamed forest anyway. If this was where he’d run, it made sense Papyrus hadn’t been found by anyone.

Sans followed his brother’s tracks—long, bounding marks that only increased in distance from one another as he’d picked up speed—and called his name, hoping the trees and snow wouldn’t simply swallow his muted voice altogether. It got darker, and quieter, and there was a growing sense he was trespassing. If he didn’t have his shortcuts Sans might’ve been afraid of losing his way, but it didn’t matter. Shortcuts or not, he would have kept searching now that he had a lead. Considering what the last four weeks had done to him, who knew what state Papyrus would be in.

He eventually found himself in a wide clearing where fresh snow and gusting winds had swept the tracks clean, and sighed. His trail had gone cold again, and he gave a halfhearted laugh at the pun. Papyrus would have hated it…. What he wouldn’t give to hear his exasperated groans again. He called his brother’s name, and listened to it echo faintly until silence laid heavily over him once more. That was the worst of all—the utter silence of an empty world.

Wood cracked behind him, and Sans whirled, magic flaring in his left socket. A pair of orange rings that almost matched met his gaze, and for a moment it was all he saw before he made out the rest of the entity’s face and body from the surrounding gloom. His magic faded, and he sank to the ground. He wasn’t sure how much time passed as they simply stared at one another, but it had to have been at least five minutes before he found his voice and finally addressed the being watching him.

“papyrus?”

A raspy whine answered, and Sans winced. It was his brother’s voice, but weaker, and wordless. Papyrus had always been so proud to learn new words, but now he wouldn’t say even one. This was bad.

“c’mere bro, let’s get you home, huh?”

Papyrus stared for a while, and Sans tried not to listen to the rising panic in his soul. He'd come when he'd called, he had to remember, had to recognize him, right? Why was he still standing so far away...?

"... bro?"

Finally, Papyrus shook himself out, inhaled, then staunchly shook his head with a huff. He hesitated, but did walk over, head held low as he slowly approached. He paused again, only a few feet away and studying him warily—then sat and curled around himself. Sans eyed him sadly, not liking how faint his eye lights were or that he didn’t want to come home. He thought for a while, then leaned back on his hands with a sigh.

“look… i get it. you don’t want to show off your cool bod, it’d be too awesome for anyone to handle and you can’t bear to do that to someone.”

Something that sounded loosely like “nyeh heh heh” chuffed from Papyrus’ jaws.

“but… it’s been three weeks, bro, goin' on a month. everyone wants to know where you went. uh… i’ve been… even lazier than usual without you. i’ll warn ya now, you’re gonna have some major vacuuming to do.”

An exasperated groan rose from his brother.

“i know, i know. but… bro… you can’t be okay with living like an animal out here. I’M not okay with you living like an animal out here. c'mon, undyne’s waiting for us with food, somethin’ hot from grillby’s, and i specifically asked her to get the least greasy thing she could order 'cause i know how you feel about it. there’s a whole month of mtt shows to catch up on. there’s… bedtime stories, and i can’t afford to slack on those, heh…”

Papyrus gave a shuddering sigh. Sans watched as he stretched out his long forelimbs and turned his palms up, contemplating the digits tipped with slender, deadly claws. Then, he buried his face in the snow and laid his hands across his skull, a picture of despair.

“bro, papyrus, it’s ok. you’re smart, you’ll figure out how to change back,” Sans comforted, reaching out to pat his brother’s head. "you're not gonna let something like this get you down, are ya? c'mon. let's go home.”

Papyrus finally raised his head. He looked so tired as he fixed him with a weary look, and Sans’ soul ached. He could only begin to imagine how his brother had felt out here, by himself in a body that must have stirred up old memories—too many of which were unpleasant. But the light shone in Papyrus’ sockets just a little brighter, and he stood up swiftly, head held high.

And then he fainted.

Sans did his best to appear at his side to catch him, but even if skeletons weren’t heavy monsters Sans was decidedly not in shape and the impact made him stumble. He took a moment to regain his footing, but with his brother limp but in his grasp at last, he removed them from that part of reality and placed them back in the tile puzzle room. Undyne jumped at their sudden appearance and would have probably summoned a spear or two if she weren't already holding a takeout bag. Her eye darted over them, and Sans might’ve laughed at her dumbfounded expression if his brother hadn’t still been unconscious.

“What. The HELL. IS THAT?!” she finally shouted as he laid Papyrus down gently, and he bristled at her harsh words.

“excuse you. THAT happens to be my brother.”

Undyne gestured wildly before finding words to express herself again. “BUT? HOW?? WHAT??!”

Papyrus finally moved, his eyes blinking open, though it took a moment for his irises to reignite. Sans ignored Undyne’s flailing and snatched the takeout from her, sitting near his brother’s head and digging around for whatever awaited in the small paper bag. A few days without food wouldn’t affect a monster’s health much, and certainly not someone with high stats like Papyrus, but nearly a month was another story and he was more than a little worried. He withdrew what turned out to be a toasted turkey club sandwich, mentally thanked both Grillby and Undyne for listening, and helped his brother sit up to finally eat something. It wouldn’t be enough to bring Papyrus’ energy back all the way, but he’d be better off than where he was now by a long shot.

The sandwich was snapped up upon being offered, and after a moment Papyrus felt strong enough to stand on his own. Undyne had settled into just staring at them both skeptically, jaw slack and hands clenching and unclenching as if to summon a spear at any moment. Sans crumpled up the bag and stuck it in his pocket, and looked from his brother to the guard captain with amusement. Papyrus looked nervous—or maybe embarrassed, and his first attempt to speak came out as a gusty hiss. But he stepped back, took a moment, and coughed into his fist to clear his throat.

“Hello, Undyne.”

If Undyne had been dumbfounded before, she was well and truly stunned now. She sank to her knees staring, and Sans couldn’t help but laugh at her. A scream started to croak from her, and he decided it’d be best they all headed back to their house before her yelling attracted attention from the other patrols. He beckoned his brother over, and took Undyne’s wrist as he laid a hand on Papyrus’ shoulder, and in an instant they were in the living room... not a moment too soon.

Undyne screeched at the top of her lungs, reaching a truly impressive volume even Papyrus winced at. Her next instinct was apparently to fight, lunging for her friend as if to throw him over her head. Sans darted out of the way as she sped past, and a soft ping sounded before she was flung sideways into the couch. Papyrus gave his brother a disapproving look, but he gave it right back.

“no fighting in my house,” he said, wagging a teasing finger. “sorry to burst your bubble, undyne, but until papyrus is back at full strength i’m not letting you beat him up.”

“I’M NOT GONNA BEAT HIM UP! I’M JUST GONNA PUNCH HIM FOR BEING DUMB!!!” Undyne roared, leaping from the couch and promptly hauled flat on her face. She growled and pushed herself up, only to fly to the ceiling and stick flat on her back. “Will you QUIT with the BLUE MAGIC?!”

“not unless you stop trying to hit my bro,” Sans countered, and Papyrus laid a hand across his eyes.

“Sans, please put Undyne, who need I remind you is our boss, back on the ground?" he asked, voice still shaky from disuse. "I am quite capable of handling her rigorous expressions of affection, thank you.”

Sans looked over to him and sighed. “you’re right as always bro. i just… i know you’re tough and all, but you’re also not at 100 percent and undyne is pretty intense.”

“YOU BET I AM!”

“plus, i haven’t seen you in basically forever after you disappeared, so forgive me for bein’ a little protective.”

Undyne drifted down at last, and though she glared at Sans she didn’t seem intent on continuing her charge when she landed. Instead, she sat decisively on the couch and folded her arms, fixing them each with a sharp look. “Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. BOTH of you are going to explain what the HECK is going on with Papyrus, and THEN! We’re getting him something else to eat so we don’t have to treat him like a delicate flower.”

“Flowers are actually quite tough!” Papyrus offered, but shrank under a skeptical glare.

“SO! Who wants to start telling me why or how Papyrus ended up as a… dog-dragon-horse thing?”

The brothers exchanged looks.

“It’s just a skeleton thing, you wouldn’t understand,” Papyrus dismissed. “Most of the time I am the wonderful tall fellow you are familiar with, but if I so wish, I can become… this! It’s a thing.”

“yup, it’s true,” Sans confirmed, but Undyne didn’t look convinced.

“So, you could transform into this awesome creature this whole time… and you never told me?!”

“W-well, you see, I never had reason to bring it up! My usual good looks are more than enough as well as more practical for my day-to-day life, so, I much prefer them. Not to mention I… actually completely forgot how to change. Such things happen even to someone as great as me, tragically…” Papyrus explained, his claws fidgeting, "but it's fine! This is totally a normal thing."

Undyne considered his words and finally relaxed. “Huh. Well, do you… remember how to change back?”

“do you think he would have run away if he did?” Sans shot, and she deflated.

“Right. But, if it’s just something you can do, why’d you hide it? There’s all sorts of monsters out there, no one would even blink at you.”

Papyrus grunted nervously. “Consider that this form is considerably more intimidating, and I, already a sight to behold… Not to mention! I want to be known based on my merits--my wit, my battle prowess, my shockingly handsome bones! Not a silly transformation gimmick that wears off within an hour of playing with it.”

Undyne laughed, a welcome sound after her furious screams. “I guess that’s fair. Wait, if this is a skeleton thing… does this mean Sans can do it too?!”

“nope. even if i could... i'm way too lazy for any shapeshifting shenanigans,” Sans answered lightly. “my bro has the ‘cool werewolf’ gig all to himself.”

“I am not a werewolf!!!” Papyrus cried, stomping his feet as the others chuckled. "I am still, clearly, a skeleton!"

“Alright, well, I guess that’s good enough for me. You dudes need anything, let me know, but now that this is resolved I have work to get back to. Oh yeah… Papyrus, consider figuring out how to change back your new assignment. If you really don’t want to go out looking like that, I figure it’s pretty much top priority. And Sans… you get half watch shifts this week, since you’ll probably have to help Papyrus out with… a lot. Sound good?”

“you know i won’t complain about working less,” Sans teased, and she rolled her eye.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you punks later, okay? Call me if you need anything--it's... really good to have you back, Papyrus.”

Papyrus looked like he didn't know what to say.

She finally left, closing the door behind her. Sans heaved a sigh, and debated whether to make the effort to move to the couch or just sit on the floor. He decided the floor was good enough. Papyrus made a face but sat too, drawing his own deep sigh.

“Well, what are we going to do, brother?”

“i dunno, bro. you need something else to eat, for one. but beyond that… i dunno. mostly… i’m just glad you’re back too.”

“If I am honest, it is good to be back. You weren’t kidding about the vacuuming though, ugh. Did you do anything while I was gone?”

“… i slept.”

Papyrus groaned. “You would. In any case… I am still rather famished. As you can guess, the forest... didn't exactly have grocery stores. Pardon me if I don’t cook fresh spaghetti for us, I’m sure you’ve missed it terribly.”

“more than i thought i could,” Sans laughed, and it was true. It had never been the flavor that was enjoyable about Papyrus’ cooking.

Sans proposed various techniques for Papyrus to try changing back over dinner, many of which he’d already thought of and attempted. He continued regardless, suggesting progressively ridiculous remedies until Papyrus laughed at him. They curled up on the couch together to watch TV, and Sans was happy to see his brother’s eyes drift closed—Papyrus never seemed to sleep, even when he really needed it.

No doubt he really needed it now.

The next day saw about as much progress, and Papyrus’ happiness fade. Sans tried to ignore the worry growing inside him, but it was clear that the time alone with no success had done a number on Papyrus’ self-confidence. Toss in whatever memories he might’ve relived and no wonder he was having doubts.

Sans watched him pace the living room floor, occasionally sweeping up stray bits of trash he hadn’t noticed before. He was antsy, and judging by the way his tail lashed he was increasingly agitated by the situation. The fact he had to stay inside probably wasn’t helping either.

“you wanna go let off some steam somewhere?” Sans suggested before his brother could start another transit across the carpet, and he startled out of his thoughts.

“Hm? Oh, I’m fine! I just need to think!” he replied, standing stiffly. “The Great Papyrus will not be bested yet!”

“no way, but, i was just thinking you might like to get out before you wear a rut in the floor,” Sans continued, and Papyrus glanced at the carpet. There were a few places where his claws had snagged, and they all aligned perfectly with where he’d been pacing.

“Ah. I see your point. Where could we go? I don’t want anyone to see…”

“i was thinking the woods, middle of nowhere. kinda where you ran away to, but not for another three weeks, heh.”

“That sounds suitable. Alright! We do have a nice house but I can admit it is rather cramped for someone of my stature at this time, so! Take us away, brother!”

Sans obliged, and in an instant they stood in the clearing where they’d reunited only yesterday. Papyrus inhaled deeply and took off running, and Sans happily watched him tear across the field—getting some exercise was just what an active guy like his younger brother needed, and it wasn’t fair to make him stay indoors all the time. He leapt, and rolled, and sprinted through the snow, cackling all the while as he exerted himself. Sans waved to get his attention, then summoned a maze of bones for him to dodge and weave around. Papyrus raced through it flawlessly, and Sans couldn’t help but swell with pride. His brother was so cool.

As he watched, he could almost remember what it was like too.

Something juddered out of sync in his soul, and he froze. Oh no, nope, he was not doing this now or ever again. He shut his eyes and thought about how nice it was to be what he was now, tried to focus on how his soul had felt before something else had awakened within it, and was relieved to feel that foreign sensation die away. The Underground didn’t need two of them running around, and Papyrus had always had an easier time switching forms than he did—even when they both remembered how it all worked. Rubbing the side of his skull, he sat in the snow, and when the magic maze dissipated Papyrus came over to see what was wrong.

“Sans? Are you alright?”

“yep, fine. all those bones wore me out.”

Papyrus made a face. “You really do need to work out more! That was hardly anything compared to what you used to do.”

“yeah, well, that was before i discovered being lazy is the best thing in the world.”

Papyrus groaned. “If I need exercise you do too! Come on, lazybones!”

He was hauled up with a clawed hand and nudged in the back by a toothy snout, and gave an exaggerated groan as he stood. “these legs were not made for running, i’ll have you know.”

“Oh, come on Sans, I know you can do it! Chase me!”

Papyrus dashed off once more, and Sans took a few steps before simply cutting into his brother’s path. The indignant howl he got in return was worth being shoved into the snow, and in retaliation he used a touch of blue magic to bowl his brother over. Papyrus kicked, sending a shower of slush over him, and for a moment they just laughed at one another.

“I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else from you,” Papyrus finally said, pushing from the snow. “You have grown to enjoy a much slower pace ever since we… since whatever happened."

“yup, i’m gonna enjoy every moment i get. though, i will say… without you around to push me, i do get… too lazy,” Sans admitted, then sighed. “to be honest bro... it woulda been fine if you’d given me a sign you were okay, a note, anything, but not knowing if you were ever gonna come back... or why you left... well, it was rough. so, uh, i guess what i’m saying is… don’t do that again or i’ll have to ground you.”

Papyrus studied him, then hung his head. “I’m sorry Sans, I know I should have, but… I was. Uncertain.”

It was Sans’ turn to prop himself up and look quizzically at his brother. “about what?”

Papyrus fidgeted under his gaze, clearly considering his words before he continued. “How much do you remember of what happened to us?"

Sans furrowed a brow. "more than i'd like, but less than i should."

“S-so, w-well, when this, happened, I—I didn’t want you to see. I didn’t want anyone to see, but especially not you, because I remembered—I remembered a little of how bad we had it, and if you didn’t remember, I didn’t want to accidentally remind you,” Papyrus explained, digging his claws into the ground. “And then you came and found me, and didn’t care that I was what I am, and I felt like a fool for thinking it was better I had left without a word. I’m sorry, brother.”

Sans leaned back with a soft, bittersweet chuckle. “and here i always kept the fact i remembered anything a secret ‘cause i didn’t want you to worry either. we’re hilarious, a real comedy of errors.”

“Indeed.”

“anyway. the important thing is figuring out how you can change back. i don’t remember a thing about that myself, and obviously neither do you. seems like a thing you just gotta feel.”

“Agreed,” Papyrus huffed. “It used to be so easy! How did we do that? As effortless as the bones we conjure, as natural as breathing! It’s so… so frustrating Sans. I… I don’t want to be this. It’s so easy to just... let my thoughts slip away. And I remember that... they wanted us to lose them, wanted us to... be less of us. And after all I've worked for, I refuse to go back to that!”

"you got this, bro. despite everything that's happened, it's still you."

“I know… It’s hard though. But! Hard things have never discouraged me before! We just have to keep trying no matter how long it takes!”

“you got it,” Sans said, his mood lifting at his brother’s boundless optimism. “you ready to head back home then?”

“I think I’m going to take one more lap! You should try to as well, and no cheating!”

“if i did we’d be here for another hour. you go ahead, i’ll be right here.”

Sans watched him rise and make one last circuit around the clearing, then in a blink they were both back home. Papyrus shook snow from his talons and gave a contented sigh, then sat with a determined look on his face. He puffed out his chest, and Sans knew he was in for one of his brother’s monologues.

“Now that my restlessness has been cured, it! Is time! I can approach the issue of my transformation with a clear head! The simple fact remains that my memory of the technique has been obscured by forces strange and concerning, but! I was able to recall how to turn with the simple triggering of a distant memory of the instruction to do so, so! It stands to reason that a memory of the opposite instruction will have the same effect. Said memories may be distressing and difficult to pinpoint, but! The Great Papyrus has never been one to back down in the face of danger! Nyeheh!”

“nope. like i said bro, you were the bravest one there,” Sans affirmed, sifting through his own tenuous recall of their old lives. “i was never strong enough to do anything, and the... assistants, well... they never spoke up about animal cruelty either. says a lot about them, and none of it’s good.”

Papyrus looked at him sadly. "You know, Sans... I don't think they knew what we really were. With how he was, how could they? I think even he pretended not to sometimes..."

Sans huffed a short sigh. "yeah. think you might be right about that."

“… I wish it all could have been different.”

“me too.”

“But! It’s different now! We’re the determiners of our fates! And I say I will be this beast no longer!” Papyrus declared brightly, banishing the grim mood that had settled in momentarily. Standing proudly, he scrunched his eyes shut and concentrated—to no avail. He sighed, and let his legs slide out from under him until he lay spread-eagle on the carpet.

“i can’t believe i’m seeing my brother lay down on the floor with my own two eyes,” Sans teased, and Papyrus scrambled to rise.

“Nyeh! Do not think for an instant I was being anything remotely close to ‘lazy’ or ‘tired’!” Papyrus refuted, glaring at him with comically bugged eyes. “The effort of trying to overcome my natural inclination for this form simply took some recovering from!”

“so, you were tired,” Sans summarized, earning more disgruntled complaint from his brother. He’d missed this so much.

“Fine! Yes! I required a brief respite,” Papyrus conceded, sitting back on his haunches so he could fold his arms. “If I am honest I am quite tired of this form’s stubbornness! I know I must have been instructed to change many times, but I cannot recall how I managed such a simple task and it! Is! The! Worst! Thing!”

“wow, and that’s pretty bad, since that means it’s even worse than my jokes,” Sans commented, and his brother stamped his forefeet down.

“It is!”

“well, we better get to work then. undyne said this was your new assignment, i can’t believe how much you’ve slacked off on it already.”

“No! Nooooo!” Papyrus howled, clasping his head in his hands.

The banter continued as the brothers worked to recall what had once been a regular part of their lives. Some memories slowly filtered back, hazes of shadows and sharp objects resolving into people with needles and too-bright rooms full of instruments. Long nights that sometimes became days that became nights again, spent alone and shivering in an empty room. Hours of training for a task neither of them really understood, harsh tests of every aspect of their abilities imaginable, pushing them to the limits of their endurance. Fleeting moments of happiness together.

All encouraged and directed by a man whose words could seem kind, but masked a cruel curiosity and an unbending will. They were never meant to have souls or personalities. He was going to ensure his work continued despite those.

But for all these memories, there were still gaps. Black holes that would never divulge the information that had once been there--and considering the nature of what Sans did remember, he couldn't help but feel perhaps that was for the best. But if Papyrus' memory of how to shift back had been engulfed by one of these voids... then he might not ever remember, and have to figure it out all over again. On Sans’ part, he’d at least recalled why he didn’t know the method to change back, and it had nothing to do with a spotty memory.

“AT LEAST IN YOUR OTHER FORM YOU LOOK MORE LIKE A SUCCESS. NEVER TAKE THIS SHAPE AGAIN.”

The words had stung anew, a biting remark on a small, frail body that was useless to a lab that only made weapons. He ought to at least look the part, and wasn't allowed anything else. It was only the third time Sans had taken that smaller form in the lab; from then on, he'd slowly accepted his life as a beast. It was easier that way.

"I think perhaps we've had enough," Papyrus said in a low voice, shaking him out of a flat stare after recalling that particular memory. "Let's take our minds off things for a while!"

Sans was glad to get up and laze in front of the TV as Papyrus reheated leftovers for them both. MTT had something mindless on as usual, and it was just the thing for drowning out painful memories. Papyrus snorted when he noticed his brother had fallen asleep, and busied himself with cleaning up the dishes before rejoining him on the couch to doze himself. It had been a long day, but more were sure to follow. They needed all the rest they could get.

It wasn't going to come easy.

[teal-crown]

Mitty's unprofessional guide to Menus in RPGMakerMV

Hello guys, Mitt here!

I'm here to give you guys some tips and tricks on how to tackle menus in RPG Maker MV! This will be another one of those big posts yeee!

Disclaimer: I'm far from being a good programmer, but I've learned a few things from trial and error, and I hope my tips will help anyone out there!

I'll also explain exactly how I did Marinette's current menus, and give you a few tips on how you can make something different from a simmilar concept.

I would like to first quickly mention the “Luna Engine”, which came out a while ago. I have never tried it, but it looks handy, and might be the way to go if you're willing to spend a few monies. I can't really give any advice on it though, so do your research first.

This post will be divided in 3 parts:

1. Evented Menus - Common technique, practice makes perfect, try new things.

2. Marinette's Menu - Combination of specific plugins.

3. Making your own menu

So let's get into it!

1.Evented Menus

I figured I would talk about these here!

There are many ways to go about evented menus in any version of RPG Maker. It’s usually quite easy to adapt the method from diferent engines.

Sadly, I'm not very skillful with evented menus, so I can’t directly teach you how to build cool shenanigans, but I remember I made a very simple one for one of Marinette’s previous builds by following some tutorials. These might give you a heads up on how to start with interactable image buttons/ image based layout: [1][2][3][4]

After you get the hang of the mechanics, just start experimenting!

- MV has some performance issues, so it's important to fix those as well when using this technique (or similar) to avoid blinking pictures. There are some preloading plugins out there, but you can also manually load pictures beforehand.

- You can get plugins to the mix to make the job easier. (there are for example plugins that let you call events like they were common events, and another one that lets you assign common events to keyboard keys etc.)

- It's important to practise with dummy menus in projects, mess around with variables, conditions and pictures, and have a ton of patience. This is how you learn to make fancier stuff.

- It's better to pull off this kind of menus in shorter games, otherwise it can get really confusing when it comes to certain mechanics you might want to implement. Be cautious when deciding on making an evented menu for a longer game. (I’m primarily refferencing a fully evented items menu)

- If you find a developer with a really amazing menu out there, it's always nice to ask if it's evented, as you might get some tips from them! A few devs in the discord group are very skillful with evented menus of all kinds, so keep an eye out for them!

- If you just want to event the main menu, use the following script calls to call the other scenes:  (Also check out this helpful list)

SceneManager.push(Scene_Item); //Opens Items scene

SceneManager.push(Scene_Save); //Opens Save scene

SceneManager.push(Scene_Load); //Opens Load scene

SceneManager.goto(Scene_Title); //Goes to title

SceneManager.exit(); //Closes the game

The point is, you can do nearly everything (and sometimes better!) with events, as you can do with plugins. All it takes is a lot of patience and practise.

Marinette's current menus could’ve definetely been made with events to have animations and nifty details, but the approach I took was way simpler for me, personally, since I don't have much experience with detailed evented menus, especially when we go into the items, options, save... I honestly have no clue on how to make all those features work properly yet. It would be nice to study the subject one day, though.

2. Marinette's menu

This is the part where I talk about our menu!

- I started by making a few mockups, which are just images with concepts for menus, from which I posted some in a previous post.

I knew I wanted to keep the map behind the menu visible, preferably either with the default MV blur effect or darken the screen a little. I also knew I wanted to be able to use the items from the menu since the begining.

For both the items menu and the main menu, I used a combination of different plugins.

-Soulpour777's "Horror Menu Customizer" to draw out the simple options in the main menu, replacing the default ones. I also made a plugin myself, with heavy help from an online tutorial, that added an invisible window on the top left to center the image.

-Jiffy's "Grid Inventory" to make the item menu's layout.

-Nelderson's "Replace window with Picture" to draw out the images attached to each window. This was the only plugin that I found that worked with transparent images. Be mindful though, some windows overlap, and the images are centered on the top left of each window/ box. If I remember correctly, though, the "Menu Backgrounds" by SumRndmDde is also a good option to do this, but it turns transparency into black, which didn't work for Marinette. Also, disable the game's textbox frame unless you want it to be drawn on top of the images.

-Finally, SumRndmDde's "Super Tools Engine" was used to move around and delete certain windows/boxes that got in the middle of the layout I wanted initially. Basically it edits the boxes’ placement on previously made menus, like the grid items' menu and the main one.

This is how I went about the current menu, and it works wonders! ahaha

Even though I still have some images to finish for it, the layout is final for the most part.

Now...

3. Making your own menu

This is where you'll make a menu of your own!

The reason I explained Marinette's menu like that, is because you can use a simmilar combination of plugins to get any layout you want, with a little searching! Using this kind of approach makes it honestly easier for people like me who...sadly haven't learned how to code yet, but are eager to play around with it.

The first step would be to sketch out some mockups, having in mind the plugins that are available to you. There are a few instances where features you might want are harder to pull off yourself without knowing how to code for being extremely specific. An example of this is menus which open moving menus on the side or something like that.

This is an example of that kind of menu:

This one would probably work best with eventing, if you don’t know how to code.

Be aware of your own limitations, but try to innovate!

With all this in mind, the steps to make a menu would be:

1. Pick a plugin (or just use the default?) that draws out a layout that you can edit with the Super Tools Engine. There are numerous plugins out there that do this, so it isn't hard to find one! Look for cool features in those plugins! Here, have a bunch

2. Edit that plugin with the Super Tools Engine to rearrange the windows or remove any you don't want.

3. Use Nelderson's "Replace window with Picture"or SumRndmDde 's "Menu Backgrounds" to attach images to each part of the menus, like a puzzle. Might require some trial and error, screenshot the window to get it right a little more easily.

Aaaand that's it! You can probably change the text or replace it with images as well, but that calls for more plugin hunting.

Try to mix and match plugin features, ask for the help of coders and be patient! It won't be that much of a headache, and you'll be happy and relieved after finishing a pretty different menu! Also, go past page 1 in google ahaha

If you get stuck on something for too long, leave it and come back later when you have evolved your skillset like the programmer pokemon you are!

I hope this little guide helps anyone out there, don’t be afraid to contact me if you need help. I’ll try to help if I can!

Thank you so much for reading, I’ll see you guys later!

-Mitty

[as-write-as-rain]

Once Upon A Dream (remix) - Chapter 3

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Summary: A Sleeping Beauty/Winter Soldier remix, featuring the reader as a SHIELD agent who might have powers (or just a really finely tuned intuition)

Warnings: None. If you’ve seen and enjoyed the Captain America films, you shouldn’t find anything troubling here.

The third chapter of my Fairy Tale AU for @moonbeambucky’s 5k Writing Challenge! Life seems to be keeping me pretty consistent at publishing a chapter every two weeks, despite my attempts to go faster. That bug I picked up laid me low for longer than I would have liked -- that’s an unfortunate side effect of fibromyalgia, stuff hits me harder and lasts longer than it would for regular people. I promise I am working hard and hopefully will be able to publish more frequently in the near future ❤️

Chapter 3

Less than 24 hours later, you were rendezvousing at Pentagon City mall with Steve and Natasha, and trying to come up with a plan on the fly. While they headed to the Apple Store in an attempt to decode the contents of the zip drive, you were tasked with finding a getaway car. As you scoured the parking structure for the perfect vehicle, your mind was racing with the events of the last 12 hours – Director Fury was dead, and the three of you were now on the run from the organization you’d once considered your safe haven.

I still can’t believe he’s dead, you thought, shaking your head. Your thoughts kept drifting to those final moments, watching helplessly as the doctors struggled vainly to save him. If you hadn’t seen it with your own eyes, you wouldn’t have believed it. If only I’d gotten in touch with Maria sooner, or been able to really make her understand.

Yet, even as these thoughts floated through your head, the rational part of your mind reminded you that you had contacted her with plenty of time to initiate a contingency plan. You’d definitely done everything you could.

Unfortunately, sometimes that’s still not enough.

You sighed and tried to refocus. You hadn’t even slept well, because of course you hadn’t had one of those nice dreams where you and Bucky cuddled in hammocks on the beach. No, instead you had to dream that you were wandering the dimly-lit hallways of a creepy old building, searching for someone, becoming more and more desperate to find them. You always woke up from those kinds of dreams feeling disoriented and horribly, terribly alone.

Which was definitely not helping things right now.

You finally targeted the perfect truck – a Chevy Silverado Z71 that would be able to handle whatever terrain or road conditions lay before you, all without calling attention to itself or its passengers – and were in the middle of hotwiring it when your phone beeped with a text from Nat.

Hope ur rdy 4 us, company’s here [kissy face]

You chuckled. Of course, even when she was in mortal danger, Nat always had time to send an emoji.

You hurried to finish your task, praying that whoever had been dispatched to bring the three of you in would stay busy inside the mall instead of wandering out here. At the very least, you were confident that your intuition would let you know if you were in immediate danger. Finally, the engine roared to life, and you dove into the driver’s seat.

You pulled up to the 1st floor mall exit, the squeal of the tires echoing throughout the garage, just as your friends came barreling through the door.

“Howdy, Strangers. Need a lift?”

Steve didn’t even react to your pithy greeting; instead, he opened your door, taking you by surprise for once. “Hop in the back, I’ll drive.” When you didn’t move immediately, he clarified, “I know where we’re going and how to get there; we’ll fill you in on the road.” With a nod, you clambered into the backseat, and in minutes you were on 395 headed (roughly) north.

“So…” You leaned forward between the seats and blew a bubble with the gum you’d stolen from Nat’s pocket. When it popped, you prodded, “What’s the plan?”

Nat stretched a leg up on the dashboard and smirked, her eyes on Steve. “We’re taking a little trip down memory lane.”

“What, like Brooklyn? That’s like…” You tried to calculate the distance, but quickly gave up. “…a million hour drive.”

Steve rolled his eyes at both of you, but the split-second twitch of his lips told you he wasn’t really mad about your teasing. “We couldn’t crack the zip drive, but we were able to trace where it came from: Camp Lehigh.”

At the blank look on your face, Nat took pity on you. “New Jersey.”

You sat back with a huff.

“I think I would have preferred Brooklyn.”

Steve shook his head and glanced at you in the rearview mirror. “Me too, to be honest.”

You sagged against the window, watching trees and cars speed past. At least the drive would be somewhat scenic; that’s something, right? You were just about to ask Nat to turn on the radio, hoping to find some good road trip tunes, when she spoke up again.

“I have a question for you, Rogers.” She studied him for a second before quickly adding, “Which you do not have to answer. I feel like if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?”

He cut off her rambling. “What?” His tone, while exasperated, didn’t sound annoyed so much as amused.

“Was that your first kiss since 1945?”

You almost swallowed your gum. “WHAT?!”

Grabbing her arm, you practically yelled in her ear, “Did you kiss Steve???” You turned to the now bright-red super soldier. “Did you kiss Nat?????”

“No! I mean, yes, technically, but – ugh! It was a diversionary tactic!!” Flustered Steve was always your favorite, and you fought to hide your grin.

“Aww come on, no need to be coy. I know you felt something,” Nat cooed flirtatiously, fluttering her eyelashes, and he looked like he might combust. You would have started cracking up if you weren’t so eager to hear more details.

Your grip on Nat’s arm tightened and you shook her a little, and you couldn’t resist adding a little teasing of your own. “All this time we’ve been wondering why he won’t go out with any of the girls we try to set him up with. Now we know, it’s because he’s been sweet on you!”

Steve squawked, turning even redder and clenching the wheel so hard you were afraid he might wrench it off. “It – it’s not like that!! We saw the Strike Team, they were searching the mall for us, and we needed to avoid them so the civilians would be safe….. And then we were about to pass Rumlow on the escalator, and then Natasha here said that public displays of affection make people uncomfortable and…” He trailed off, and the whole thing was so funny, you couldn’t hold your laughter in anymore.

Camp Lehigh was abandoned and overgrown, and definitely far from welcoming. You tried to squint your eyes and visualize a skinny pre-serum Steve running laps or striving to complete an obstacle course, using pictures and footage you’d seen in the Smithsonian exhibit to help anchor the scene. The image never quite crystallized, though; you always had trouble truly envisioning Steve as that small, scrawny figure in the photos. He’d been such a solid, powerful figure for as long as you’d known him.

Plus, from the minute you entered the camp, your senses had been on high alert, which really didn’t help your imagination either. You were overwhelmed with a really bad feeling, and knew danger was lurking somewhere nearby. You couldn’t identify the source, though, because it didn’t seem to be coming from a specific direction.

Except maybe…down? But that didn’t make any sense.

“What is it?” Nat had been in the middle of announcing that this was a dead end, when suddenly her tone changed. You turned to see Steve stalking towards a bunker, Nat trailing behind him.

“Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place.” Thank goodness Steve knew rules and regulations like the back of his hand, or you might not even have noticed anything was out of place.

He smashed the lock with his handy shield, and the three of you entered the cold, musty building. Shivering, you brought up the rear, severely disliking the way it felt like a mausoleum.

Steve flicked a switch, and ancient fluorescent lights flickered aglow, illuminating an unassuming office space of some sort. Clunky old desks, filing cabinets, and office chairs were arrayed throughout the room; thick dust and cobwebs coated every surface, making it clear that no living being had been in here in a very long time.

And, inevitably, your feeling of impending doom increased.

Glancing around, you spied a large symbol on the wall just as Nat did, and realized that this must have been where SHIELD began, all those years ago. You supposed it made sense; Captain America began here too, and this had been their homebase of sorts. Of course when they came back from overseas, they would have chosen somewhere familiar, somewhere the seeds of SHIELD had already begun to sprout.

You followed your partners into a library or storage room of some sort, where a trio of prominently displayed photographs confirmed your hunch. You recognized all three people from the Smithsonian exhibit; but apparently Nat had never been, because her next question made you cringe.

“Who's the girl?”

You purposely avoided making eye contact with Steve, because you already knew how he must be feeling. This camp, the place where they first met and got to know each other, was already brimming with memories of her – and now her face was on the wall. Young. Vibrant. Fierce. Just the way he probably remembered her. He’d been to see her just yesterday, confronted yet again with the fact that a lifetime had passed him by in the blink of an eye; and he was left with an obsolete snapshot of a moment in time, and an ache for what could have been.

There was a long, awkward pause, and then Steve literally sidestepped the question by striding deeper into the room.

You’d just opened your mouth to whisper a quick-but-vague explanation to Nat, when he pointed to a cobwebbed bookshelf and pondered aloud, “If you're already working in a secret office...” He paused to insert his hand into the space between the bookcases, and then, with surprising ease, slid them apart, revealing a hidden alcove. “…why do you need to hide the elevator?”

A sudden spike of anxiety shot through you, and you knew that only danger waited below. But the feeling was different than the one you usually got when you were about to be physically attacked – and before you could pinpoint what was different about it, the elevator ride had ended and the doors were already opening into a cavernous basement filled with ancient computer relics.

[kirankowda]

Google calls its Shopping campaign feature by many names- ‘shop window’, ‘lifeline’ and ‘front-door greeter’. All of these are accurate- every business’ shopping campaigns function as the online front door to users wishing to window shop or actually make a purchase.

It goes without saying, then, that to improve Google Shopping ranking is to make or break their entire search ad and digital marketing strategy. But before getting into rankings and optimization, it is important to understand what Google Shopping is.

The tool, which links to Google Merchant Center, allows eCommerce businesses to show your ad, with the product image and product title, on the top of Google’s search engine results page and across certain Google platforms. Users can then search, view and compare products without having to leave the page or application they’re on. If they’re interested in some product ads, a click-through will lead them to the business website page- either a landing page, category page or singular product page, depending on what had been advertised.

With the continuously growing number of ads and advertisers, competition between similar businesses has become more neck-to-neck than ever before. It can be hard to stand out from the crowd, and even harder for users to pick what might suit their needs the best. To address this issue, Google rolled out a product rating procedure that arranges ads based on user product reviews and then shows them to users based on the search terms entered with modifiers.

The modifiers are key here because they’re what Google uses to identify whether the user wants to see product ratings or merely wants a display or carousel of related photos.

Only Google knows the exact metrics used to identify what products rank and what don’t. However, the general consensus is that the firm looks both at rating quality and rating quantity. Rating quality is the number of stars out of 5 given by each user to a product, while rating quantity is the number of ratings given by users overall to one product.

The weight of each ranking is high on the desktop browser but increases multi-fold on mobile devices because Google only shows three ads, and makes the ranking of each product or ad pop even more prominently. Therefore, securing a spot in the top three mobile ads means you will rank in the top 5 on desktop and this inevitably will lead to more leads and a higher conversion rate.

Why do eCommerce businesses need to focus on Google Shopping ranking?

Need #1: Builds credibility.

It’s natural human behavior to assign more credibility to something that’s ranked highly and by many people. Therefore, rankings and ratings play an important role in building the credibility of a business from scratch or reinforcing it for repeat visitors.

Need #2: Increases first-time buyers.

A huge part of running an eCommerce business is getting first-time users to convert to buyers on their very first visit. This reduces the need for remarketing campaigns and cross-selling but also displays that your ads and products have made a good enough impact to spark a payment the first time out.

Need #3: Influences purchase decisions.

Ranking high on Google’s list can give an eCommerce business a near-monopoly over a browsing user’s behavior and purchase decisions. This is because many of these ‘top-selling’ or ‘best products’ that are highly rated appear early on in the purchase funnel and are more likely to leave a lasting positive impression on a user than if they see the same link in a regular search engine ranking.

Need #4: Encourages more reviews.

When customers see the number of reviews that a product has, or have enjoyed the product immensely, then they’re more likely to leave a review and a star rating of their own. This is only a boon for the business, because more reviews meet one of Google’s metrics, while a good product or great customer service may well fuel the meeting of the other metric, which is rating quality. Either way, increasing and encouraging reviews never did any harm.

How can you improve your Google Shopping ranking?

This is a question a business must ask themselves if they want to flourish on search engine results. Rankings and star ratings are emblems of trust embedded right into the ad so they increase footfall and generate brand assurance. To set up Google Shopping Ad rankings, a business can follow:

Method #1: The default way

Fill in the ‘products rating interest form’ set up by Google.

Ensure that each product has more than 50 reviews through Google Customer Reviews.

If reviews were collected through a third-party aggregator, then a business must get in touch with that party to set up Product Ratings on Google.

Enter your Merchant name, Merchant Center Account ID, Home page URL, target country and other personal details.

Hit ‘submit’.

Of course, setting up your ads for Product Ratings isn’t as simple as this form. Google has a set of strict policies that apply to all merchants who decide to sign up for this program, such as:

Merchants must give Google monthly updates on reviews.

Review feeds must align with Google’s content policies and must be of high quality.

Reviews must positively be collected and owned by merchants and shouldn’t belong to third parties or other businesses.

User-generated images can be used but these again must pass Google’s stringent policies.

Method #2: The AdNabu way

To have product ratings set up and generated by an experienced team of experts, sign up for free on AdNabu. With years of knowledge in developing and managing effective Google Shopping campaigns, the AdNabu team can assist in developing the perfect rating model that not only boosts a business’ rankings and Quality Score but also encourages customers to leave more positive feedback.

AdNabu understands the importance of Product Ratings and general Google Shopping rankings to a business, so a good deal of their efforts is also channeled into devising strategies and plans to improve ratings through digital marketing or other Google tools.

To get started, all it takes is 5 minutes of your time to sign up for a free trial on AdNabu:

Navigate to the AdNabu homepage.

If you’re registered, click on the ‘Login’ option and enter your dashboard.

In the top left corner, you will be able to see a ‘Start Now’ button- click on it to begin.

Best practices to improve Google Shopping Ranking

Best Practice #1: Gather enough reviews.

Google needs at least 50 reviews for a product to be listed for Product Ranking. However, it’s always better for a business to start off with more than that so as to see immediate effects. It’s important to ensure that these reviews have been shared with Google and that subsequent ones are also sent to them.

Best Practice #2: Make leaving reviews easy.

If you have a review section on your website, make it easily accessible and user-friendly. This will encourage users to leave reviews when they see it. Many businesses also provide discounts, points or sweepstakes for users who leave reviews about a product and this incentivizes the entire process, making it much more rewarding for a user, too.

Best Practice #3: Improve your Quality Score.

Your quality score, assigned to you by Google, is an estimate of the quality of your product ads, used keywords and destination landing pages. Once again, the exact measurement metrics are only known to Google, but a quality score can heavily impact an eCommerce store’s chances of making it to a top 5 product ranking.

Best Practice #4: Collect positive reviews.

The quantity of reviews doesn’t hold much effect on a rating if the quality is bad. Therefore, try to ensure that you receive positive reviews that focus on the product. This could be triggered through good products, excellent customer service, timely delivery and so many more factors that influence a buyer’s decision making, interest in the product and how much they enjoy it in the end.

Best Practice #5: Use negative keywords.

Negative keywords are those search terms that you don’t want to draw a match for. By identifying and setting negative keywords, you can streamline traffic generated by ads to a flow that is more relevant and readier to purchase than without negative keywords. These also help to improve quality score, which monitors how much traffic you’re getting through these ads and the quality of said traffic.

Best Practice #6: Use a good product image and product title.

To generally increase reviews and improve ranking, it is crucial that an eCommerce store use high-quality, high-resolution images in their ads. It’s also equally important to craft compelling product titles that are capable of drawing a user’s attention while also being accurate. These need to be aligned to the landing page the ad leads to, otherwise, there’s a dissonance in the information given out and Google may issue warnings or suspensions if it’s drawn to their attention.

Best Practice #7: Monitor using Google Ads.

Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) can give you crucial insight into how your ads are performing in general. This can help your Google Shopping ads rank higher because it identifies what’s doing best and what products or ads are failing. Using this, you should be able to rewrite description text or optimize products’ titles to better promote your products and also increase their chances of appearing in the top-ranking carousel that appears in the Google Search results.

Things to Consider while improving your Google Shopping ranking

Consideration #1: Improve product titles and descriptions.

Your products may not be showing up for long-tail searches on Google if their product descriptions are not detailed enough. Since Google uses your product inventory information to monitor your products and deliver search results, it’s essential that your titles and descriptions contain as many attributes as possible so that they appear as broad match or long-tail searches.

Consideration #2: Use a product ID to monitor metrics.

In the Dimensions tab of Google Shopping, you can use the Item ID option to go beyond overall campaign performance and pay attention to individual performance parameters for each individual item within a product type or product group. This allows you to focus carefully on the ins and outs of each product to optimize them and increase their chances of ranking.

Consideration #3: Look at Devices report.

This tool allows retailers to view different performance statistics across various devices. This is key because mobile Google Shopping ads generate higher and higher amounts of revenue year after year, thanks to the scroll able carousel on mobile devices.

Consideration #4: Set device-optimized bids.

For an extra layer of adjustments, you can maintain mobile traffic as a separate campaign. This allows you to set bids based on devices and purely based on items that you see performing better on mobile than on desktop. The same traffic doesn’t come from both desktop browsers and mobile browser; the number of ads, device screen, and internal optimization is all decisive factors in driving traffic.

Consideration #5: Optimized products titles.

Product titles are the number one factor in optimizing your data for Google Shopping ads. 80% of why an ad shows up in Google is because of a product title; the remaining 20% comprises other feed attributes like product descriptions and bidding. Product titles should ideally follow a natural flow that is similar across all products. They should also have keywords; while pure keywords aren’t too important in Google Shopping, these keywords are essentially key terms that derive from user search queries. However, avoid keyword stuffing at all costs because this could cause trust and approval issues down the line. Be descriptive enough to include all important attributes like size, color, and gender if applicable. However, keep in mind the character limit while writing.

Consideration #6: Stick to character limits.

While writing descriptions and product titles, it is crucial to keep well within the 150-character limit, ideally around 70 characters. This is because past 70 characters, a title gets truncated so you essentially only get those 70 characters to convincingly grab a customer’s attention. While crafting titles, keep them as close to search engine queries as possible to highly elevate your chances of showing up and then ranking as a relevant, trustworthy ad or product.

Consideration #7: Product and Seller ratings are different.

Google displays two types of star ratings: product ratings and seller ratings. Product ratings are what customers who have bought that product have to say about the quality of the product and possibly how accurate the ads were. Seller ratings have to do with the sellers’ customer service, delivery, packaging, and other determining factors. Both of these are crucial when trying to increase rankings, but seller ratings are more in a seller’s control primarily because they can make changes to strategy and logistics if required.

Consideration #8: Use only clean images.

Google is highly particular about the images used in product ads, unlike text ads which don’t need images. The company will disapprove products if they include anything that reduces the virtual genuineness of a product, like watermarks or heavily overlaid logos. Clean high-quality images against an all-white background are key to getting your ad listed in the first place and then moving up in the rankings.

Consideration #9: Monitor Conversion Tracking.

Through Google Ads or Google Analytics, you can track purchase behavior and click-through for your online store. Ensure that your tracking code snippets are adjusted properly so transaction details are correctly recorded. Also, ensure that a tracking code is properly installed on your store to see where your traffic is coming from and if it has anything to do with your products ranking.

Conclusion:

Google Shopping ranking is the passport to a successful eCommerce online campaign and a surefire way to generate more leads and keep those conversion rates soaring high.

[ms31x129]

Little Boy Blue

Summary:            

“Son, you look like you’re going through some hard times. And every once in a while you gotta accept a little help.”

XFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXFXF

It was almost time. He could feel it.

He walks to the end of the room and pulls back the ugly brown drape.

Yes, it would be soon.

He knows it, can almost physically sense it, the same way he can feel the cold that is creeping through the edges of the window pane. Frost clings thick to the glass like tiny snow drifts in the corners. Absently he uses his fingernail to carve a heart into the icy landscape.

He remembers once doing the same thing to the soft skin of her back. She’d giggled as he’d traced ‘I Love You’ with a feather-like touch.

His eyes darken when he remembers finding the trace of red the laser had missed.

And just like that he recalls the city he’s lost the most in. His nails dig in, scratching out the ice-etched heart.

He should have known better than to seek refuge in that wretched city of all places.

He left in May and now in December, when most people are celebrating the holidays with family and friends, he’s just getting through each day.

He’s traveled across the country hundreds of times; usually she was by his side. She wasn’t always happy about it, but she was there.

But he’s tired of moving, of running. Tired of being without contact.

When he left, he’d thought maybe he could teach. Access to whatever false ID and credentials he would need was easily remedied. He’d moved every 3 days from May to July. By then his funds had dwindled and needed to be replenished somehow.

* * * * *

A small town with a community college in Arizona needed a Mythology instructor; Professor Kent Searcher accepted. He gathered the text books he needed, read them cover to cover and had his class syllabus prepared in three days. He found it ironic that he was looking forward to using some of the knowledge he’d worked a lifetime to achieve in this capacity.

Surprisingly, he was content teaching the students–some of them so willing to believe–who didn’t need solid scientific evidence.

The students sensed it the moment their professor’s mood changed, his animated speech breaking off in mid-sentence.

He cleared his throat and bowed his head, asking them to please study quietly until the end of class. He removed his glasses and sat, thumbs digging into the corners of his eyes.

The motion hadn’t been casual enough that they’d missed his reddened eyes and several wayward tears.

He got word the last week in September. They were coming.

He’d left with 8 bags in May. By October, when Mark Hunter took a job coaching High School Basketball, there were only 4. Two of those remained in the trunk of the car.

Six weeks later he accepted a dinner invitation from the 8th grade English teacher. He was lonely and longed for some one on one adult conversation.

She was attractive, though her beauty paled in comparison to the one he still loved. The one he still dreamed about every night he closed his eyes.

He arrived at 7. She smiled and ushered him into the living room. He made himself comfortable on the couch while she excused herself for a moment. He was shocked when she returned and placed a baby into his arms, “Could you hold him while I check the oven?” He nodded dumbly.

How could he forget she’d told him about her 6 month old son?

She returned to find him openly weeping, even as her son slept on, oblivious. He stood, handed her the baby and left.

* * * * *

Finally a bright spot on the horizon. He was needed.

At home. He was going home.

Danger.

A mad dash.

He was chased between boxcars and engines.

A missed chance.

A petite figure stood on the platform, watching the train with him depart.

He ran to his car, eyes burning, tears clouding his vision. He was somewhere in Ohio when exhaustion overcame him and he drove the car into a ditch.

* * * * *

He was found unconscious and taken to the local clinic.

The mechanic who towed the car offered him a job in exchange for the repairs necessary to get his vehicle back on the road. Mr. Guthrie didn’t even mind that he didn’t have any automotive experience short of putting the key in the ignition. He just said, “Son, you look like you’re going through some hard times. And every once in a while you gotta accept a little help.”

He became a wiz at tire rotation, fixing flats and oil changes. He heard the explosion as he was walking to the garage one day. Guthrie’s Repair Shop was a ball of flames; black smoke clouds floated up from the building. He ran back to the bed and breakfast, threw as much as he could into one bag and left town in the truck Mr. Guthrie had loaned him.

He’d abandoned the truck 2 hours later.

He didn’t know if the man who’d taken a complete stranger under his wing was alive or dead as he boarded a bus headed east.

Just one more thing to weigh heavily on his mind.

As the bus ate the highway miles, he fell into a fitful sleep, realizing; each time They found him was sooner than the last.

* * * * *

Donovan Seeker left the grocery store where he worked as a stock boy… man, went to his dingy efficiency apartment and changed into his jogging gear.

Even the snow of mid-December didn’t slow his pace. His normal route took him within 5 blocks of the Liberty Bell, but this night he travelled a new path.

He ran until he spotted the shop. He turned 180 degrees, saw the bar across the street and made his way in.

Dirty, dark and smoky.

A place for adulterers, drug dealers, prostitutes… and whores. Low-life, scum.

The kind of place she shouldn’t have been in… but had.

Anger lashed through him. He turned, slammed the door open.

Run, run, run. Legs pumping. Heart pounding.

What should have been ancient history wasn’t. It just wasn’t.

He made it back to the apartment, unlocked and opened the door with a forceful bang against the wall. He stripped quickly, climbed into the shower.

Hot, hot water. Scrub, scrub. Harder. Faster. He tried to get rid of the images, the anger.

Finally he shut the water off. Dried off, calmer than before. A car door slammed, he made his way to the window.

They were coming.

He grabbed his jacket, his wallet. Reached into the pocket quickly and felt the softness of his one memento. He heard them coming down the hall. Out of time, he opened the window and crawled out onto the fire escape. The old window slammed, catching his jacket sleeve.

They kicked the door in, searched the room. A leather jacket was hanging from the window. They looked down and saw him disappearing around the corner.

They smiled, knowing they would succeed soon.

* * * * *

He’s left his frosty window.

Reclining on the bed he lets his insecurities and anger reign.

Why is he the one running? Why aren’t they together?

Instead he’s the one alone. He’s the one unemployed and surprised at being depressed over getting laid off from a janitor’s job.

At least she still has….

While he has nothing, nothing at all.

Maybe she’s moved on, has another man, another lover. Someone to help raise their son.

Their son. HIS son. A son he should be able to see dressed in a little Santa outfit tonight, Christmas Eve. And then after he’s asleep, the naughty elf could come out and play. He could urge mommy to get naked and on her hands and knees in front of the Christmas tree, while they play 'drive the sleigh’.

Maybe it’s Doggett. He’d sure managed to fill in nicely in the work place. Maybe he’s warming the sheets too.

He knows it isn’t him, and hasn’t been since before William. So few times really; when was William conceived? He hopes it was after they’d shared a beer and movie date together. A happy, comfortable moment in their lives. He hates thinking she was already pregnant and feeding liquor to the tiny person growing inside of her.

He remembers the day he left with such clarity.

* * * * *

William was unusually alert and fussy for a newborn. Could he sense he might never see his father again? Scully started crying and he’d taken the baby into the bedroom, stretching out on the bed with him. Still shirtless after his shower, he held his son against his skin. His large hands held his precious package with tenderness and awe.

He began to sing, softly, his voice full of emotion.

Scully came into the room just in time to hear him choke out, 'he learned to walk while I was away’. She stifled a sob and left them alone.

William quieted, listening intently to his father’s voice singing a heartfelt rendition of 'Cat’s in the Cradle’, he’d finally dropped off to sleep.

After placing William safe and sound in his cradle. Mulder finished dressing and went into the living room.  Scully sat on the couch, quiet, subdued. They avoided looking at each other. He picked up his bags and was almost out the door before Scully was in his arms. She wanted to make love, she didn’t care that she’d just given birth. Kissing her lips and brushing her tears away with his thumbs, he gently declined.

Two hours later, on the road to nowhere, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the only thing he had of William’s. He brought it to his nose and inhaled the sweet baby smell, felt the soft yarn tickling his skin. Swearing to himself to never, never lose it.

* * * * *

But he did.

In fucking Philadelphia.

He lost the only physical connection he had to his son. Such an insignificant thing really, just the warming cap he’d worn during his short hospital stay, but it’d meant everything to him to have something that had actually touched his son.

There hadn’t been time for pictures.

He goes to the window again, sees his reflection and the tears streaming down his face. He has nothing to remember his son by, while she has it all.

He wonders how long it takes for love to turn to hate. He wonders how much longer it will be for him….

And if he’ll run the next time They come for him.

The end…

                                 Notes:  

I wrote this years ago. Started it just after the S8 premiere and finished it just after Trust No 1 aired. It’s on Gossamer, but I’m going to update it a tad along with my other fic and migrate the updates here. So below you’ll find original notes.

1. I miss the X Files. 2. I miss Mulder’s passion and wonder. 3. This is dedicated to Jemirah, she makes my wild ramblings not so-well-rambling. *g* Thank you.

[nicholsondonovan96-blog]

Jasa SEO Jakarta

Research Motor Optimization: Secrets You Can not Uncover Elsewhere Are Below If you want to drive targeted traffic to your internet site there is no greater way than to enhance it for research engines. If you rank hugely on Google for key phrases that carefully use to the subject of your web site, you will not only get a ton of new audience, but they will be intrigued in your content material. We have included a handful of ways you can get commenced beneath! For research motor optimization, the first thing you need to do is sign up with Google and other look for engines (this kind of as Yahoo! and Bing). You can go to a specific web site, fill out a quite short kind with your internet site handle and you will most likely be "crawled," in other terms additional, by that lookup motor faster. To ensure that your web site is as easy as attainable to crawl, keep your web site architecture flat. Don't use too a lot of sub folders, instead use descriptive names for every single web page. Keep your internet pages with the most aggressive key phrases in their names, shut to the root folder, so they will obtain a larger website page rank. By making the URL of a website with obvious search phrases, you will boost the simplicity of their lookup-capacity on look for engines. The URL of a specified webpage will also make it simpler for individuals who are checking out your web site to navigate close to. In jasa seo jakarta , by getting obscure and complicated URL's, it will make it harder for people web pages to demonstrate up in the best position of any look for engine. Study your keywords and phrases before you begin the search motor optimization method. You need to know which keywords are far more likely to deliver visitors to your web site, and which search phrases are becoming utilised most often for the merchandise that you sell. There is certainly no position in optimizing your internet site for a time period that web consumers by no means search for. Usually contain descriptive and productive tags when making an attempt to enhance your Seo. Limit the tag to thirty words and phrases or less. By no means go above 100 KB for this particular page. Always be mindful of your internet site standing. Use ranking internet sites like alexa and googlerankings to hold observe of no matter whether you are dropping or getting website visitors. Do it your self Seo starts with keeping an eye on your status often. Checking these stats will enable you to locate out if your optimization is getting an effect. If you do not have time to do it yourself, uncover a newsletter designer provider. For a price, these organizations will create top quality newsletters to send out out to your devoted, or new, email subscribers. These newsletter firms will also at times link back again to your website, rising your strike level and your search final results. If web site protocol makes it possible for, include 1 link inside the body of the post that leads to data on your web site. Scammers steal articles or blog posts and often publish them without making any adjustments. With a link major to you placed within the report, even stolen articles can be of benefit to you. If a site includes photos, it is crucial to optimize the website by which includes descriptive 'alt' tags in each and every picture url. Alt tags screen to visitors if they have picked not to view images on your site. The takeaway message from this paragraph is that Google appears for key phrases in alt tags, just like any other text material on your web page. By no means fluff it up. No a single likes off matter tangents or irrelevant details- not readers, research engines, or write-up directories. Even if your write-up may conclude up shorter than you intended, do not incorporate added info that does not belong there. Get to the stage and maintain it there to attract the most interest. When producing backlinks to your web site in purchase to boost your world wide web site's look for motor rating, don't forget which factors determine the worth of a url. A quality backlink relies upon on the anchor text in the url, the pagerank of the webpage linking to your web site, the webpage title of the page linking to your internet site, the track record and high quality of the site linking to your website and the technique utilized to create the backlink. Incorporate keyword-wealthy descriptions of your photographs in the ALT tag, to improve your search motor optimization endeavours. Look for engine spiders are not able of recognizing images or understanding the textual content contained inside of the graphics on your website. To support the spiders recognize each and every picture, write a key phrase crammed description in the picture ALT tag. Keep your internet site up to date with new sizeable material. The research engines rank internet sites increased that are actively becoming labored on and current. Web sites that continue to be stagnant without obtaining genuine content material updates extra have a tendency to drop off the rankings so make certain you are introducing considerable further material on a standard foundation. Creating a unique capture phrase that matches properly with whatever ones advertising can be a great issue to incorporate into kinds posts. Not only will it help 1 supply content for their articles or blog posts but it will also create a way for viewers to acknowledge that specific write-up one is generating. Google and other search engines function diligently to insure that look for engine returns are as goal and relevant as achievable. These companies do not react kindly to world wide web web page homeowners that attempt to circumvent objectiveness and relevancy in favor of drawing consumers to their web site making use of shady Search Motor Optimization tactics. Make positive that you have excellent, special crucial terms that will get people to your website page. They must be quite certain and descriptive. This way when men and women sort in specifically what they are seeking for, your website will fulfill them, and offer them with a swift end and buy. When utilizing site content material to enhance your lookup engine rankings, you ought to use a routine of posts. Using scheduling can mean that you have a matter that might or else be swamped by desire in other websites, so you wait around a week to revealed it and get far more interest. If you strategy ahead, you can pre-create holiday themed articles so it really is always completely ready to go, as one more case in point. If you put into action all of the previously mentioned ideas and tips you may absolutely be in a position to enhance your internet site and bring a whole new audience of men and women who are really interested in your articles. This will enhance advertisement clicks, sales, newsletter indicator-ups and increase any other monetized portion of your net site's income.

[ib-ra-blog1]

10 Easy Ways To Get Top Search Engine Optimization Rankings

1) Chose your Keywords Carefully Once you have chosen your business and purchased a domain name the next step before submitting your site to search engines is to find useful and relevant keywords. Without this step your website will get lost in the millions of websites competing for your business.

To start our keyword research we need to utilize some very useful tools. The first website viewed should be Google Keywords which is a free tool that displays the amount of searches and competition for specific keywords. It also allows you to find more specific keywords that can better describe your site.

A better tool would be to purchase some type of software such as Word Tracker which offers detailed information about keywords. Unfortunately word tracker is not free, but there are other services that are.

2) Find a Niche Market This cannot be stressed enough as it is much harder to receive top search engine rankings for a new site than an established site. A new site will have to fight amongst web sites that have established high search engine rankings.

To compete with these web sites you would be crazy! You first need to find a niche market, and then build up your website to a position as to where it can compete with these generic terms. For example let?s say you have a web site geared towards weight loss. You would not use the keyword weight loss because it has too much competition. You can use one of the keyword tools to find suggestions of related keywords that you will be able to compete against. You may find the keyword ?weight loss surgery? or ?weight loss techniques?. These phrases are much better keywords than generic terms like ?weight loss?.

Use the list of a few keywords and check out the competition that word/ phrase has on Goggle. Look at the number of competitors. If this exceeds a few million, then you need look for a more specific keyword. The next step is to observe the top listed pages and see how well they are optimized. You can download Google Toolbar and add Page Rank to your browser for free.

A low Page Rank between 0 ? 3 means that you can easily compete with these web pages. A web site with a Page Rank of 4 ? 6 is a bit tougher to compete with, but is manageable using my guided steps and expertise. You do not want to compete with web sites that have a Page Rank above 7. Check the domains homepage, not a sub page to get an accurate Page Rank! 3) View Competitors Source Code It is important to view potential competitor?s source code to see if they have efficiently performed on page search engine optimization. To do this on your Brower click ?view? and then click on the ?source? option as displayed?

This will bring up a page with all the html code on it. You do not need to be an expert with html to understand what we are looking for. We need to see if our competitor?s web site is properly optimized. We look to see if they are using their keywords in the header tags, the title tags, and the image alt tags. These should all be located near the top of the source code.

If you cannot find these then go to the toolbar and chose ?edit? and select ?find? and type in h1 or title, etc. to see if there are being used for the keywords. If these do not exist or are not being used to hold keywords, you have found an easily beaten page. This means that with some proper optimization you will be able to outrank this page. The last thing you want to look at is the body content and to see if the keyword is used a few times in the body content. A site lacking in keywords in the body context is a poorly optimized page. You should always make sure your web page is keyword rich with relevant content.

4) Keyword Placement After you have selected a few keywords to use we want to combine the ones that have like terms. For example if you have selected three keywords: Weight loss story; Weight loss picture; Safe weight loss As you can see that all three keywords contain the words ?weight loss?, therefore we can combine the words to better optimize your page.

For the title tag the fewer the keywords used, the better the search engines will rank your page.

When we create the page it should NEVER have ?Welcome to our website!? in the Title Tags.

It should NEVER have ?weight loss story and weight loss picture and safe weight loss? in the Title Tags either.

The way the title tags should look is: ?Weight Loss Story | Safe Weight Loss Picture? (Note: You can add this character | by holding the shift key on your keyboard and pressing the backslash key above the enter key.)

You should always remove prepositions such as ?and? as this will only hurt your search engine optimization. The fewer, more relevant the words are the higher your search engine ranking will be.

Header 1 tags should be placed above your body content. This should contain your most relevant keyword in this tag. Ex) ?Weight Loss Story? This main keyword placed in the H1 tag will substantially increase your page ranking! The Header 2 tag should contain your second most important keyword. The header 3 tag will have your least important keyword placed in it. These header tags are often overlooked, but make a significant difference in your on page search engine optimization.

The body content of your webpage should be rich with keywords and relevant content. You should have each keyword appear at least once for every 1-2 paragraphs. Do not stuff your body with keywords, as this will only hurt you. You want to give your body a clean natural look, meaning do not over or under use keywords!

Image tags alt tags should also be keyword rich. Search engines often look at the alt tags of images on your web site to get a feel of what your web site is about. If the alt tags do not have your keywords then you will be ranked lower than if you had keywords in your alt tags.   5) Homepage Organization We want the search engines to notice your keywords and index you according to those keywords. In order to do this you should start your body and end your body with your keywords. This gives the search engine spider information that your page is highly relevant to your keywords.

When the spider looks through your web site it reads through your content from top left to bottom right. Below is an example of how the search engine reads your page starting with 1 then 2 then 3.

Rather than creating a table that looks like this: navigational links You body text... You should create a table that looks like this: You body text... navigational links

Now search engines will view your body content before it views your navigational menu. The search engine will see the top of your page then see a blank area and skip to your body content then move onto your navigational menu. 6) Search Engine Submission The best way to achieve high search engine rankings for new web sites may not be what you expected. You should not submit your site directly to the search engines as this process can take weeks or even months to get your site listed. Instead you need to get listed on top ranking pages that are relevant to your web sites content. These high ranking pages are often optimized on a weekly or even daily basis. Every time the site is indexed your link will appear and the search engines will automatically list your site in its index. It is as simple as that to get listed on top search engines in only a few days!

To do this we need to search for web sites that that are indexed by search engines and get them to link to us. This can be difficult to do unless you give the site some incentive to do so. The incentive you need to give them is to write some sort of article that is relevant to your line of business. At the bottom of the article you include your web page URL to get picked up by the search engines. You submit the article to popular article directories on the web and you will be indexed by the search engines in a matter of days rather than months! Here's a list of the most popular article directories you can submit your website to 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

The other option is to perform a search of the most generic term that is related to your business. Click through these web sites looking at the Page Ranks. Contact the web site and by sending them an email asking them to link to your site and in return for you linking back to their web site. Always contact sites that are relevant to your line of work and always offer them something their visitors can benefit from once they add your link.

You can purchase a link in top Page Rank sites through link builders. A few of the good web sites that can do this for you are:  or  or .

Remember that you only need to purchase a link for one month, since it will take less than one month to get you indexed by the major search engines. Continuing to pay for the link after a month is a waste of your money. Basically you are paying a one time fee to instantly get indexed in the major search engines.

7) Off page Optimization This is just as important, if not more important than on page optimization. To do this we need to study the linking strategies of the top 10 websites for your keyword. We want to copy their model, but do things slightly better to achieve the top rankings. First open up a spread sheet in Excel and list the following columns: Linking Website, Anchor Text, Page Rank, Link Popularity Page Title, and Number of Outbound Links. Then we search your keyword on Google and fill in the information for the top 10 websites.

To discover the linking websites go to Google and type in the websites URL ?link:? Then count the number of sites that are listed to get the link popularity.

Anchor text is whatever follows the .com or .org of a website URL.

Page Rank is the rank Google gives to websites. You can download it for free at Google?s web site.

Page Title is the title of the page that appears on the top left of the screen. If the title does not contain the keywords then the site is not well optimized and easy to surpass in rankings.

Number of Outbound Links is the number of links located on the webpage linking to the site you?re checking.

Once all this information has been collected you can see what needs to be done to your site to beat the top ranking sites.

8) Search Engines and Capitalization vps seo tools Capitalizing different letters in keywords brings up different results in search engines. Search engines are case-sensitive so it is important how you use capitalization. The problem with listing every variation of a word results in the search engines thinking that you are spam and deleting your URL. This gets worse with singular and plural words!

The solution is to stick with lowercase listings rather than trying different variations. Studies have shown that most people search in all lowercase and this has the most relevant listings. Not using every other variation means you lose out on 18% of traffic. This is not worth the risk of being banned from the search engines.

Lowercase searching has dominated all the search engines ranging from 85 percent to 90 percent of the total terms used. Now most search engines are not case sensitive anymore.

9) Search Engine Spamming Spamming does not take well with current search engines. Search engines have discovered ways to fight keyword stuffing and other search engine tricks. Search engines can detect your spam and will act accordingly by penalizing or banning you from their listings. Search engine spamming is attempting to achieve top ranks for extremely popular keywords. You can attempt to fight that battle against other sites, but you ought to be ready to fight a long and hard battle defending your ranking. All that wasted effort can be better spent for finding other ways for internet marketing. There is no need for search engine spamming if your website has been optimized correctly using the above methods. The risks are not worth the temporary rewards. Search engine spam should be considered the same as email spam. Nobody likes or wants spam! We want spammers removed from the internet, so why would customers want to work with you, a spammer.

10) Hire a Professional SEO Hiring a professional search engine optimizer is a great idea if your business relies on internet sales. Search engine optimization is something that is time consuming and requires lots of research. Most businesses do not have time to optimize their web sites. They have better things to take care of, like making sure their products are selling and keeping good customer relations. At SEO Optimizers we make sure everything is inline at your site and fix any problems that may be holding you back from reaching the top ranks. If you really want to be at the top of any searches you need professionals to come in and help solve the problem.

[gamebazu]

SEO and Accessibility: Content [Series Part 2]

As SEOs, our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access, which means that content isn’t just available to search engines, but also to people of all abilities. In the second installment of his three-part accessibility series, Cooper shows you how to ensure that your amazing content is accessible by bots AND people.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to the latest edition of Whiteboard Friday. I'm Cooper Hollmaier. I started doing SEO in 2016, and today I worked at a large outdoor specialty retailer helping make our strategies for technical SEO come alive. Thank you for attending this Session 2 of 3 of our SEO and accessibility series. 

It all starts with accessibility

If you've taken the intro to SEO course here at Moz, you're probably familiar with the concept called Mozlow's hierarchy of SEO needs. If you're not, the basic idea is that we have to have some foundational elements that are needed to make us rank in search engine results, and then we can layer some things on top to make us more competitive in those results.

But it all starts with crawl accessibility, and in the same way it starts with basic human accessibility as well. Our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access. So this means my content is not only available to search engines but people of all abilities as well. Let's look at an example.

Making assumptions about your audience

Let's say I'm a restaurant. Commonly you'll see restaurants post their menu in the windows of their stores or shops. Well, the problem with this idea, while it seems easy because anyone can walk by, they don't have to look at my Facebook or my website, and they can look at the menu, see what they like or don't like, and then choose to engage with my business and enjoy my food.

What's bad about this is that we've made some assumptions about our ideal audience. We've assumed that they're the average height and that they're tall enough to be able to see the menu that I posted in my window. We've assumed that they have great vision, that they on a rainy day can see the menu items and still make the decision to come inside. We've also assumed that by not including any pictures on our menu people know what we're talking about.

They're familiar with the cuisine that I'm making or the flowery culinary, eloquent culinary language that I'm using to describe my dishes. But I think what you'll find is that these assumptions are exclusive versus inclusive, and we want to be inclusive of all of our audience members. So for example, assume maybe my person is not an average height. How do I account for that?

If they're not the average height, seeing the menu might be impossible. Assume that maybe they have low vision or blindness and ask yourself, "Is this available digitally or in a Braille compatible format that they can access, too?" Or maybe add some pictures, add some different language to your menu to help people understand the culinary language that you're using, because without that they might not understand and they might choose to avoid your restaurant versus come in and see it.

Ask "What if?"

So these are things you can do to assume the best and provide a diverse group of people a better experience. 

Let's do some math. If you have 1,000 people in your restaurant every month, we know from last time that 1 in 5 people on average have a disability in the United States. That means 200 of those 1,000 people have a disability, and you're excluding them by not including some information or other mediums to consume your menu.

That compounded as 200 people times let's say an average of $15 a meal, that's $3,000 a month you're leaving on the table quite literally. So think about that. It's not just about providing equitable access, but it will cost your business money too, and $3,000 a month is very expensive, especially for a small business. I'm sure you're saying, "Cooper, what if I'm not a small business? What if I want people to buy my product or give me a lead or come sign up for my service?"

That's okay. These rules apply to you too. It's the mindset. If you have a podcast, an email newsletter, a blog, a website, I would implore you to ask the question, "As a person with __________, can I __________?" Fill in that first blank with things like as a person with colorblindness, ADHD, dyslexia, hard of hearing, Down syndrome, can I and fill in that second blank with whatever you want people to do at your business.

Can I buy a product? Can I read this newsletter? Can I enjoy this podcast? If the answer to that question, that string of questioning, is no, you have a little bit of a problem. You have some work to do, right? 

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

What I'm talking about is following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and these are commonly called WCAG or "Wikag." These guidelines are set up to make sure that our content on the web is accessible.

I think you'll find that as you make your content accessible for people of diverse abilities, you're going to have your content accessible for search engines of diverse abilities too. So following the four principles of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they are POUR or "Pour": Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, or Robust, I think you'll find that your content resonates better with your audience, you exclude less audience members, and your search engine optimization will ultimately only be that much better.

Perceivable

So what do I mean by perceivable? What I mean by perceivable is we all don't want to look at a brick of text. I think that's pretty clear. We tend to include things like images, video, and audio on our pages. What I want you to do is consider any time you're using those rich media elements to include a text alternative. So this means images, include alt text. Videos, include captions and transcripts.

Audio, same thing, include the transcript so if I can't hear that audio with my speakers, I'm able to either convert it into something I can use or I'm able to enjoy it in some other way. Then when we're talking about video, including an ASL interpreter or converting your presentation into American Sign Language can also be a little bit more inclusive for the audience you're trying to reach and save you a little bit of that money we talked about earlier.

Operable

Operable, what I mean by this is: Are your links saying "Click Here" or "Learn More," or are they really telling me where I'm going as a user? Think about your users here. We know we love anchor text. We know that search engines love to see where we're going too. So "Click Here" and "Learn More" aren't as descriptive as they could be. They're not as operable. It's hard for me as a user to operate your website or your email newsletter or your podcast.

Understandable

Is my content understandable? So this is something I have a hard time doing too sometimes, but considering is the content that I'm writing at a reading level that my audience is going to enjoy that. Have I described it in a language that my customers understand? Oftentimes I think we get stuck in SEO and we start to use a lot of SEO language, especially if you're working at like an agency with clients.

Taking the time to break it down into language that's more understandable will allow you to resonate with a larger set of audience members, but also it will allow you generally to capture those search terms too, right? People aren't looking up PhD level things in Google search. They're looking up language that we can all understand, so consider that. 

Robust

Then robust, this kind of touches things like: Is my website mobile friendly? Is it responsive? Are the things that I'm producing compatible with a lot of technologies and these technologies include assistive technologies? So POUR, remember those things when producing web content. You shouldn't need a monocle to read what you're producing. You shouldn't need a PhD to read what you're producing. It should be really, really easy for a diverse group of people to access the stuff that you produce.

If you want some more information about WCAG, there's a link right here, and it will be linked in the bottom of this post as well. 

What can content SEOs do?

So what can you do as a content SEO? 

You can write informative and unique page titles. Those page titles matter for not just search engines but people as well and assistive technologies. 

You can use headings correctly. Commonly I'll see people use those H tags. You're probably familiar with the H1, but H2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 matter too to style the page in a certain way and make the text bolder or brighter or larger, and that will be great. But as someone who's using assistive technology or someone who's trying to understand the parent-child relationships between things on a page, it's going to be a lot harder for me to do that if I'm not using those headings correctly.

Links are for users. One thing I always ask myself is, "Is this link on the page for SEO, or is it for my customer?" If the answer is it's just on the page for SEO, come back to the table, figure out a way to make an SEO friendly approach to a customer problem, and put a link on the page that's going to resonate with customers and also help your SEO. Not just one or the other.

Plan for a text alternative. No matter what you're building, I'm sure it's going to involve some rich media. Plan to include captions, transcripts, ASL interpretation in your presentation from day one. 

Over-describe what's happening. We know that descriptions are going to help pick up additional synonyms and additional talking points for search engines as well. We know that being more comprehensive and honest and ethical will ultimately lead to a better SEO outcome. It also helps people, normal people with diverse abilities get that same outcome as well. Let them enjoy it. Make this about customers and not just search engines, and I think you'll find that both parties win. 

Provide clear instructions, so what you want people to do. Don't make it hard to convert. 

Number 7 is write content that you want to read.

I would ask you to close your eyes and listen to the content that you've written on the page and ask yourself, "Is this SEO optimized, or is this built in a way that a customer would want to engage with it?" What I want you to try to do is try to figure out, "How can I write this piece of content in a way that is just seamless? It's invisible, and I've even optimized this for SEO. It just feels like it's a normal piece of content that resonates with me."

That's what you're looking for. The best SEO is invisible. Help people and bots. Not just bots or not just people. So focus on the Web Accessibility Guidelines. If you want some more information about WCAG, it's right there. Next time, we're going to talk about technical SEO and some behind-the-scenes code that will make your website more accessible for all.

Thanks for watching.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

[paulineberry]

SEO and Accessibility: Content [Series Part 2]

As SEOs, our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access, which means that content isn’t just available to search engines, but also to people of all abilities. In the second installment of his three-part accessibility series, Cooper shows you how to ensure that your amazing content is accessible by bots AND people.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to the latest edition of Whiteboard Friday. I'm Cooper Hollmaier. I started doing SEO in 2016, and today I worked at a large outdoor specialty retailer helping make our strategies for technical SEO come alive. Thank you for attending this Session 2 of 3 of our SEO and accessibility series. 

It all starts with accessibility

If you've taken the intro to SEO course here at Moz, you're probably familiar with the concept called Mozlow's hierarchy of SEO needs. If you're not, the basic idea is that we have to have some foundational elements that are needed to make us rank in search engine results, and then we can layer some things on top to make us more competitive in those results.

But it all starts with crawl accessibility, and in the same way it starts with basic human accessibility as well. Our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access. So this means my content is not only available to search engines but people of all abilities as well. Let's look at an example.

Making assumptions about your audience

Let's say I'm a restaurant. Commonly you'll see restaurants post their menu in the windows of their stores or shops. Well, the problem with this idea, while it seems easy because anyone can walk by, they don't have to look at my Facebook or my website, and they can look at the menu, see what they like or don't like, and then choose to engage with my business and enjoy my food.

What's bad about this is that we've made some assumptions about our ideal audience. We've assumed that they're the average height and that they're tall enough to be able to see the menu that I posted in my window. We've assumed that they have great vision, that they on a rainy day can see the menu items and still make the decision to come inside. We've also assumed that by not including any pictures on our menu people know what we're talking about.

They're familiar with the cuisine that I'm making or the flowery culinary, eloquent culinary language that I'm using to describe my dishes. But I think what you'll find is that these assumptions are exclusive versus inclusive, and we want to be inclusive of all of our audience members. So for example, assume maybe my person is not an average height. How do I account for that?

If they're not the average height, seeing the menu might be impossible. Assume that maybe they have low vision or blindness and ask yourself, "Is this available digitally or in a Braille compatible format that they can access, too?" Or maybe add some pictures, add some different language to your menu to help people understand the culinary language that you're using, because without that they might not understand and they might choose to avoid your restaurant versus come in and see it.

Ask "What if?"

So these are things you can do to assume the best and provide a diverse group of people a better experience. 

Let's do some math. If you have 1,000 people in your restaurant every month, we know from last time that 1 in 5 people on average have a disability in the United States. That means 200 of those 1,000 people have a disability, and you're excluding them by not including some information or other mediums to consume your menu.

That compounded as 200 people times let's say an average of $15 a meal, that's $3,000 a month you're leaving on the table quite literally. So think about that. It's not just about providing equitable access, but it will cost your business money too, and $3,000 a month is very expensive, especially for a small business. I'm sure you're saying, "Cooper, what if I'm not a small business? What if I want people to buy my product or give me a lead or come sign up for my service?"

That's okay. These rules apply to you too. It's the mindset. If you have a podcast, an email newsletter, a blog, a website, I would implore you to ask the question, "As a person with __________, can I __________?" Fill in that first blank with things like as a person with colorblindness, ADHD, dyslexia, hard of hearing, Down syndrome, can I and fill in that second blank with whatever you want people to do at your business.

Can I buy a product? Can I read this newsletter? Can I enjoy this podcast? If the answer to that question, that string of questioning, is no, you have a little bit of a problem. You have some work to do, right? 

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

What I'm talking about is following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and these are commonly called WCAG or "Wikag." These guidelines are set up to make sure that our content on the web is accessible.

I think you'll find that as you make your content accessible for people of diverse abilities, you're going to have your content accessible for search engines of diverse abilities too. So following the four principles of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they are POUR or "Pour": Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, or Robust, I think you'll find that your content resonates better with your audience, you exclude less audience members, and your search engine optimization will ultimately only be that much better.

Perceivable

So what do I mean by perceivable? What I mean by perceivable is we all don't want to look at a brick of text. I think that's pretty clear. We tend to include things like images, video, and audio on our pages. What I want you to do is consider any time you're using those rich media elements to include a text alternative. So this means images, include alt text. Videos, include captions and transcripts.

Audio, same thing, include the transcript so if I can't hear that audio with my speakers, I'm able to either convert it into something I can use or I'm able to enjoy it in some other way. Then when we're talking about video, including an ASL interpreter or converting your presentation into American Sign Language can also be a little bit more inclusive for the audience you're trying to reach and save you a little bit of that money we talked about earlier.

Operable

Operable, what I mean by this is: Are your links saying "Click Here" or "Learn More," or are they really telling me where I'm going as a user? Think about your users here. We know we love anchor text. We know that search engines love to see where we're going too. So "Click Here" and "Learn More" aren't as descriptive as they could be. They're not as operable. It's hard for me as a user to operate your website or your email newsletter or your podcast.

Understandable

Is my content understandable? So this is something I have a hard time doing too sometimes, but considering is the content that I'm writing at a reading level that my audience is going to enjoy that. Have I described it in a language that my customers understand? Oftentimes I think we get stuck in SEO and we start to use a lot of SEO language, especially if you're working at like an agency with clients.

Taking the time to break it down into language that's more understandable will allow you to resonate with a larger set of audience members, but also it will allow you generally to capture those search terms too, right? People aren't looking up PhD level things in Google search. They're looking up language that we can all understand, so consider that. 

Robust

Then robust, this kind of touches things like: Is my website mobile friendly? Is it responsive? Are the things that I'm producing compatible with a lot of technologies and these technologies include assistive technologies? So POUR, remember those things when producing web content. You shouldn't need a monocle to read what you're producing. You shouldn't need a PhD to read what you're producing. It should be really, really easy for a diverse group of people to access the stuff that you produce.

If you want some more information about WCAG, there's a link right here, and it will be linked in the bottom of this post as well. 

What can content SEOs do?

So what can you do as a content SEO? 

You can write informative and unique page titles. Those page titles matter for not just search engines but people as well and assistive technologies. 

You can use headings correctly. Commonly I'll see people use those H tags. You're probably familiar with the H1, but H2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 matter too to style the page in a certain way and make the text bolder or brighter or larger, and that will be great. But as someone who's using assistive technology or someone who's trying to understand the parent-child relationships between things on a page, it's going to be a lot harder for me to do that if I'm not using those headings correctly.

Links are for users. One thing I always ask myself is, "Is this link on the page for SEO, or is it for my customer?" If the answer is it's just on the page for SEO, come back to the table, figure out a way to make an SEO friendly approach to a customer problem, and put a link on the page that's going to resonate with customers and also help your SEO. Not just one or the other.

Plan for a text alternative. No matter what you're building, I'm sure it's going to involve some rich media. Plan to include captions, transcripts, ASL interpretation in your presentation from day one. 

Over-describe what's happening. We know that descriptions are going to help pick up additional synonyms and additional talking points for search engines as well. We know that being more comprehensive and honest and ethical will ultimately lead to a better SEO outcome. It also helps people, normal people with diverse abilities get that same outcome as well. Let them enjoy it. Make this about customers and not just search engines, and I think you'll find that both parties win. 

Provide clear instructions, so what you want people to do. Don't make it hard to convert. 

Number 7 is write content that you want to read.

I would ask you to close your eyes and listen to the content that you've written on the page and ask yourself, "Is this SEO optimized, or is this built in a way that a customer would want to engage with it?" What I want you to try to do is try to figure out, "How can I write this piece of content in a way that is just seamless? It's invisible, and I've even optimized this for SEO. It just feels like it's a normal piece of content that resonates with me."

That's what you're looking for. The best SEO is invisible. Help people and bots. Not just bots or not just people. So focus on the Web Accessibility Guidelines. If you want some more information about WCAG, it's right there. Next time, we're going to talk about technical SEO and some behind-the-scenes code that will make your website more accessible for all.

Thanks for watching.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

[noithatotoaz]

SEO and Accessibility: Content [Series Part 2]

As SEOs, our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access, which means that content isn’t just available to search engines, but also to people of all abilities. In the second installment of his three-part accessibility series, Cooper shows you how to ensure that your amazing content is accessible by bots AND people.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to the latest edition of Whiteboard Friday. I'm Cooper Hollmaier. I started doing SEO in 2016, and today I worked at a large outdoor specialty retailer helping make our strategies for technical SEO come alive. Thank you for attending this Session 2 of 3 of our SEO and accessibility series. 

It all starts with accessibility

If you've taken the intro to SEO course here at Moz, you're probably familiar with the concept called Mozlow's hierarchy of SEO needs. If you're not, the basic idea is that we have to have some foundational elements that are needed to make us rank in search engine results, and then we can layer some things on top to make us more competitive in those results.

But it all starts with crawl accessibility, and in the same way it starts with basic human accessibility as well. Our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access. So this means my content is not only available to search engines but people of all abilities as well. Let's look at an example.

Making assumptions about your audience

Let's say I'm a restaurant. Commonly you'll see restaurants post their menu in the windows of their stores or shops. Well, the problem with this idea, while it seems easy because anyone can walk by, they don't have to look at my Facebook or my website, and they can look at the menu, see what they like or don't like, and then choose to engage with my business and enjoy my food.

What's bad about this is that we've made some assumptions about our ideal audience. We've assumed that they're the average height and that they're tall enough to be able to see the menu that I posted in my window. We've assumed that they have great vision, that they on a rainy day can see the menu items and still make the decision to come inside. We've also assumed that by not including any pictures on our menu people know what we're talking about.

They're familiar with the cuisine that I'm making or the flowery culinary, eloquent culinary language that I'm using to describe my dishes. But I think what you'll find is that these assumptions are exclusive versus inclusive, and we want to be inclusive of all of our audience members. So for example, assume maybe my person is not an average height. How do I account for that?

If they're not the average height, seeing the menu might be impossible. Assume that maybe they have low vision or blindness and ask yourself, "Is this available digitally or in a Braille compatible format that they can access, too?" Or maybe add some pictures, add some different language to your menu to help people understand the culinary language that you're using, because without that they might not understand and they might choose to avoid your restaurant versus come in and see it.

Ask "What if?"

So these are things you can do to assume the best and provide a diverse group of people a better experience. 

Let's do some math. If you have 1,000 people in your restaurant every month, we know from last time that 1 in 5 people on average have a disability in the United States. That means 200 of those 1,000 people have a disability, and you're excluding them by not including some information or other mediums to consume your menu.

That compounded as 200 people times let's say an average of $15 a meal, that's $3,000 a month you're leaving on the table quite literally. So think about that. It's not just about providing equitable access, but it will cost your business money too, and $3,000 a month is very expensive, especially for a small business. I'm sure you're saying, "Cooper, what if I'm not a small business? What if I want people to buy my product or give me a lead or come sign up for my service?"

That's okay. These rules apply to you too. It's the mindset. If you have a podcast, an email newsletter, a blog, a website, I would implore you to ask the question, "As a person with __________, can I __________?" Fill in that first blank with things like as a person with colorblindness, ADHD, dyslexia, hard of hearing, Down syndrome, can I and fill in that second blank with whatever you want people to do at your business.

Can I buy a product? Can I read this newsletter? Can I enjoy this podcast? If the answer to that question, that string of questioning, is no, you have a little bit of a problem. You have some work to do, right? 

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

What I'm talking about is following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and these are commonly called WCAG or "Wikag." These guidelines are set up to make sure that our content on the web is accessible.

I think you'll find that as you make your content accessible for people of diverse abilities, you're going to have your content accessible for search engines of diverse abilities too. So following the four principles of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they are POUR or "Pour": Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, or Robust, I think you'll find that your content resonates better with your audience, you exclude less audience members, and your search engine optimization will ultimately only be that much better.

Perceivable

So what do I mean by perceivable? What I mean by perceivable is we all don't want to look at a brick of text. I think that's pretty clear. We tend to include things like images, video, and audio on our pages. What I want you to do is consider any time you're using those rich media elements to include a text alternative. So this means images, include alt text. Videos, include captions and transcripts.

Audio, same thing, include the transcript so if I can't hear that audio with my speakers, I'm able to either convert it into something I can use or I'm able to enjoy it in some other way. Then when we're talking about video, including an ASL interpreter or converting your presentation into American Sign Language can also be a little bit more inclusive for the audience you're trying to reach and save you a little bit of that money we talked about earlier.

Operable

Operable, what I mean by this is: Are your links saying "Click Here" or "Learn More," or are they really telling me where I'm going as a user? Think about your users here. We know we love anchor text. We know that search engines love to see where we're going too. So "Click Here" and "Learn More" aren't as descriptive as they could be. They're not as operable. It's hard for me as a user to operate your website or your email newsletter or your podcast.

Understandable

Is my content understandable? So this is something I have a hard time doing too sometimes, but considering is the content that I'm writing at a reading level that my audience is going to enjoy that. Have I described it in a language that my customers understand? Oftentimes I think we get stuck in SEO and we start to use a lot of SEO language, especially if you're working at like an agency with clients.

Taking the time to break it down into language that's more understandable will allow you to resonate with a larger set of audience members, but also it will allow you generally to capture those search terms too, right? People aren't looking up PhD level things in Google search. They're looking up language that we can all understand, so consider that. 

Robust

Then robust, this kind of touches things like: Is my website mobile friendly? Is it responsive? Are the things that I'm producing compatible with a lot of technologies and these technologies include assistive technologies? So POUR, remember those things when producing web content. You shouldn't need a monocle to read what you're producing. You shouldn't need a PhD to read what you're producing. It should be really, really easy for a diverse group of people to access the stuff that you produce.

If you want some more information about WCAG, there's a link right here, and it will be linked in the bottom of this post as well. 

What can content SEOs do?

So what can you do as a content SEO? 

You can write informative and unique page titles. Those page titles matter for not just search engines but people as well and assistive technologies. 

You can use headings correctly. Commonly I'll see people use those H tags. You're probably familiar with the H1, but H2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 matter too to style the page in a certain way and make the text bolder or brighter or larger, and that will be great. But as someone who's using assistive technology or someone who's trying to understand the parent-child relationships between things on a page, it's going to be a lot harder for me to do that if I'm not using those headings correctly.

Links are for users. One thing I always ask myself is, "Is this link on the page for SEO, or is it for my customer?" If the answer is it's just on the page for SEO, come back to the table, figure out a way to make an SEO friendly approach to a customer problem, and put a link on the page that's going to resonate with customers and also help your SEO. Not just one or the other.

Plan for a text alternative. No matter what you're building, I'm sure it's going to involve some rich media. Plan to include captions, transcripts, ASL interpretation in your presentation from day one. 

Over-describe what's happening. We know that descriptions are going to help pick up additional synonyms and additional talking points for search engines as well. We know that being more comprehensive and honest and ethical will ultimately lead to a better SEO outcome. It also helps people, normal people with diverse abilities get that same outcome as well. Let them enjoy it. Make this about customers and not just search engines, and I think you'll find that both parties win. 

Provide clear instructions, so what you want people to do. Don't make it hard to convert. 

Number 7 is write content that you want to read.

I would ask you to close your eyes and listen to the content that you've written on the page and ask yourself, "Is this SEO optimized, or is this built in a way that a customer would want to engage with it?" What I want you to try to do is try to figure out, "How can I write this piece of content in a way that is just seamless? It's invisible, and I've even optimized this for SEO. It just feels like it's a normal piece of content that resonates with me."

That's what you're looking for. The best SEO is invisible. Help people and bots. Not just bots or not just people. So focus on the Web Accessibility Guidelines. If you want some more information about WCAG, it's right there. Next time, we're going to talk about technical SEO and some behind-the-scenes code that will make your website more accessible for all.

Thanks for watching.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

[thanhtuandoan89]

SEO and Accessibility: Content [Series Part 2]

As SEOs, our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access, which means that content isn’t just available to search engines, but also to people of all abilities. In the second installment of his three-part accessibility series, Cooper shows you how to ensure that your amazing content is accessible by bots AND people.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to the latest edition of Whiteboard Friday. I'm Cooper Hollmaier. I started doing SEO in 2016, and today I worked at a large outdoor specialty retailer helping make our strategies for technical SEO come alive. Thank you for attending this Session 2 of 3 of our SEO and accessibility series. 

It all starts with accessibility

If you've taken the intro to SEO course here at Moz, you're probably familiar with the concept called Mozlow's hierarchy of SEO needs. If you're not, the basic idea is that we have to have some foundational elements that are needed to make us rank in search engine results, and then we can layer some things on top to make us more competitive in those results.

But it all starts with crawl accessibility, and in the same way it starts with basic human accessibility as well. Our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access. So this means my content is not only available to search engines but people of all abilities as well. Let's look at an example.

Making assumptions about your audience

Let's say I'm a restaurant. Commonly you'll see restaurants post their menu in the windows of their stores or shops. Well, the problem with this idea, while it seems easy because anyone can walk by, they don't have to look at my Facebook or my website, and they can look at the menu, see what they like or don't like, and then choose to engage with my business and enjoy my food.

What's bad about this is that we've made some assumptions about our ideal audience. We've assumed that they're the average height and that they're tall enough to be able to see the menu that I posted in my window. We've assumed that they have great vision, that they on a rainy day can see the menu items and still make the decision to come inside. We've also assumed that by not including any pictures on our menu people know what we're talking about.

They're familiar with the cuisine that I'm making or the flowery culinary, eloquent culinary language that I'm using to describe my dishes. But I think what you'll find is that these assumptions are exclusive versus inclusive, and we want to be inclusive of all of our audience members. So for example, assume maybe my person is not an average height. How do I account for that?

If they're not the average height, seeing the menu might be impossible. Assume that maybe they have low vision or blindness and ask yourself, "Is this available digitally or in a Braille compatible format that they can access, too?" Or maybe add some pictures, add some different language to your menu to help people understand the culinary language that you're using, because without that they might not understand and they might choose to avoid your restaurant versus come in and see it.

Ask "What if?"

So these are things you can do to assume the best and provide a diverse group of people a better experience. 

Let's do some math. If you have 1,000 people in your restaurant every month, we know from last time that 1 in 5 people on average have a disability in the United States. That means 200 of those 1,000 people have a disability, and you're excluding them by not including some information or other mediums to consume your menu.

That compounded as 200 people times let's say an average of $15 a meal, that's $3,000 a month you're leaving on the table quite literally. So think about that. It's not just about providing equitable access, but it will cost your business money too, and $3,000 a month is very expensive, especially for a small business. I'm sure you're saying, "Cooper, what if I'm not a small business? What if I want people to buy my product or give me a lead or come sign up for my service?"

That's okay. These rules apply to you too. It's the mindset. If you have a podcast, an email newsletter, a blog, a website, I would implore you to ask the question, "As a person with __________, can I __________?" Fill in that first blank with things like as a person with colorblindness, ADHD, dyslexia, hard of hearing, Down syndrome, can I and fill in that second blank with whatever you want people to do at your business.

Can I buy a product? Can I read this newsletter? Can I enjoy this podcast? If the answer to that question, that string of questioning, is no, you have a little bit of a problem. You have some work to do, right? 

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

What I'm talking about is following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and these are commonly called WCAG or "Wikag." These guidelines are set up to make sure that our content on the web is accessible.

I think you'll find that as you make your content accessible for people of diverse abilities, you're going to have your content accessible for search engines of diverse abilities too. So following the four principles of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they are POUR or "Pour": Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, or Robust, I think you'll find that your content resonates better with your audience, you exclude less audience members, and your search engine optimization will ultimately only be that much better.

Perceivable

So what do I mean by perceivable? What I mean by perceivable is we all don't want to look at a brick of text. I think that's pretty clear. We tend to include things like images, video, and audio on our pages. What I want you to do is consider any time you're using those rich media elements to include a text alternative. So this means images, include alt text. Videos, include captions and transcripts.

Audio, same thing, include the transcript so if I can't hear that audio with my speakers, I'm able to either convert it into something I can use or I'm able to enjoy it in some other way. Then when we're talking about video, including an ASL interpreter or converting your presentation into American Sign Language can also be a little bit more inclusive for the audience you're trying to reach and save you a little bit of that money we talked about earlier.

Operable

Operable, what I mean by this is: Are your links saying "Click Here" or "Learn More," or are they really telling me where I'm going as a user? Think about your users here. We know we love anchor text. We know that search engines love to see where we're going too. So "Click Here" and "Learn More" aren't as descriptive as they could be. They're not as operable. It's hard for me as a user to operate your website or your email newsletter or your podcast.

Understandable

Is my content understandable? So this is something I have a hard time doing too sometimes, but considering is the content that I'm writing at a reading level that my audience is going to enjoy that. Have I described it in a language that my customers understand? Oftentimes I think we get stuck in SEO and we start to use a lot of SEO language, especially if you're working at like an agency with clients.

Taking the time to break it down into language that's more understandable will allow you to resonate with a larger set of audience members, but also it will allow you generally to capture those search terms too, right? People aren't looking up PhD level things in Google search. They're looking up language that we can all understand, so consider that. 

Robust

Then robust, this kind of touches things like: Is my website mobile friendly? Is it responsive? Are the things that I'm producing compatible with a lot of technologies and these technologies include assistive technologies? So POUR, remember those things when producing web content. You shouldn't need a monocle to read what you're producing. You shouldn't need a PhD to read what you're producing. It should be really, really easy for a diverse group of people to access the stuff that you produce.

If you want some more information about WCAG, there's a link right here, and it will be linked in the bottom of this post as well. 

What can content SEOs do?

So what can you do as a content SEO? 

You can write informative and unique page titles. Those page titles matter for not just search engines but people as well and assistive technologies. 

You can use headings correctly. Commonly I'll see people use those H tags. You're probably familiar with the H1, but H2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 matter too to style the page in a certain way and make the text bolder or brighter or larger, and that will be great. But as someone who's using assistive technology or someone who's trying to understand the parent-child relationships between things on a page, it's going to be a lot harder for me to do that if I'm not using those headings correctly.

Links are for users. One thing I always ask myself is, "Is this link on the page for SEO, or is it for my customer?" If the answer is it's just on the page for SEO, come back to the table, figure out a way to make an SEO friendly approach to a customer problem, and put a link on the page that's going to resonate with customers and also help your SEO. Not just one or the other.

Plan for a text alternative. No matter what you're building, I'm sure it's going to involve some rich media. Plan to include captions, transcripts, ASL interpretation in your presentation from day one. 

Over-describe what's happening. We know that descriptions are going to help pick up additional synonyms and additional talking points for search engines as well. We know that being more comprehensive and honest and ethical will ultimately lead to a better SEO outcome. It also helps people, normal people with diverse abilities get that same outcome as well. Let them enjoy it. Make this about customers and not just search engines, and I think you'll find that both parties win. 

Provide clear instructions, so what you want people to do. Don't make it hard to convert. 

Number 7 is write content that you want to read.

I would ask you to close your eyes and listen to the content that you've written on the page and ask yourself, "Is this SEO optimized, or is this built in a way that a customer would want to engage with it?" What I want you to try to do is try to figure out, "How can I write this piece of content in a way that is just seamless? It's invisible, and I've even optimized this for SEO. It just feels like it's a normal piece of content that resonates with me."

That's what you're looking for. The best SEO is invisible. Help people and bots. Not just bots or not just people. So focus on the Web Accessibility Guidelines. If you want some more information about WCAG, it's right there. Next time, we're going to talk about technical SEO and some behind-the-scenes code that will make your website more accessible for all.

Thanks for watching.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

[drummcarpentry]

SEO and Accessibility: Content [Series Part 2]

As SEOs, our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access, which means that content isn’t just available to search engines, but also to people of all abilities. In the second installment of his three-part accessibility series, Cooper shows you how to ensure that your amazing content is accessible by bots AND people.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to the latest edition of Whiteboard Friday. I'm Cooper Hollmaier. I started doing SEO in 2016, and today I worked at a large outdoor specialty retailer helping make our strategies for technical SEO come alive. Thank you for attending this Session 2 of 3 of our SEO and accessibility series. 

It all starts with accessibility

If you've taken the intro to SEO course here at Moz, you're probably familiar with the concept called Mozlow's hierarchy of SEO needs. If you're not, the basic idea is that we have to have some foundational elements that are needed to make us rank in search engine results, and then we can layer some things on top to make us more competitive in those results.

But it all starts with crawl accessibility, and in the same way it starts with basic human accessibility as well. Our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access. So this means my content is not only available to search engines but people of all abilities as well. Let's look at an example.

Making assumptions about your audience

Let's say I'm a restaurant. Commonly you'll see restaurants post their menu in the windows of their stores or shops. Well, the problem with this idea, while it seems easy because anyone can walk by, they don't have to look at my Facebook or my website, and they can look at the menu, see what they like or don't like, and then choose to engage with my business and enjoy my food.

What's bad about this is that we've made some assumptions about our ideal audience. We've assumed that they're the average height and that they're tall enough to be able to see the menu that I posted in my window. We've assumed that they have great vision, that they on a rainy day can see the menu items and still make the decision to come inside. We've also assumed that by not including any pictures on our menu people know what we're talking about.

They're familiar with the cuisine that I'm making or the flowery culinary, eloquent culinary language that I'm using to describe my dishes. But I think what you'll find is that these assumptions are exclusive versus inclusive, and we want to be inclusive of all of our audience members. So for example, assume maybe my person is not an average height. How do I account for that?

If they're not the average height, seeing the menu might be impossible. Assume that maybe they have low vision or blindness and ask yourself, "Is this available digitally or in a Braille compatible format that they can access, too?" Or maybe add some pictures, add some different language to your menu to help people understand the culinary language that you're using, because without that they might not understand and they might choose to avoid your restaurant versus come in and see it.

Ask "What if?"

So these are things you can do to assume the best and provide a diverse group of people a better experience. 

Let's do some math. If you have 1,000 people in your restaurant every month, we know from last time that 1 in 5 people on average have a disability in the United States. That means 200 of those 1,000 people have a disability, and you're excluding them by not including some information or other mediums to consume your menu.

That compounded as 200 people times let's say an average of $15 a meal, that's $3,000 a month you're leaving on the table quite literally. So think about that. It's not just about providing equitable access, but it will cost your business money too, and $3,000 a month is very expensive, especially for a small business. I'm sure you're saying, "Cooper, what if I'm not a small business? What if I want people to buy my product or give me a lead or come sign up for my service?"

That's okay. These rules apply to you too. It's the mindset. If you have a podcast, an email newsletter, a blog, a website, I would implore you to ask the question, "As a person with __________, can I __________?" Fill in that first blank with things like as a person with colorblindness, ADHD, dyslexia, hard of hearing, Down syndrome, can I and fill in that second blank with whatever you want people to do at your business.

Can I buy a product? Can I read this newsletter? Can I enjoy this podcast? If the answer to that question, that string of questioning, is no, you have a little bit of a problem. You have some work to do, right? 

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

What I'm talking about is following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and these are commonly called WCAG or "Wikag." These guidelines are set up to make sure that our content on the web is accessible.

I think you'll find that as you make your content accessible for people of diverse abilities, you're going to have your content accessible for search engines of diverse abilities too. So following the four principles of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they are POUR or "Pour": Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, or Robust, I think you'll find that your content resonates better with your audience, you exclude less audience members, and your search engine optimization will ultimately only be that much better.

Perceivable

So what do I mean by perceivable? What I mean by perceivable is we all don't want to look at a brick of text. I think that's pretty clear. We tend to include things like images, video, and audio on our pages. What I want you to do is consider any time you're using those rich media elements to include a text alternative. So this means images, include alt text. Videos, include captions and transcripts.

Audio, same thing, include the transcript so if I can't hear that audio with my speakers, I'm able to either convert it into something I can use or I'm able to enjoy it in some other way. Then when we're talking about video, including an ASL interpreter or converting your presentation into American Sign Language can also be a little bit more inclusive for the audience you're trying to reach and save you a little bit of that money we talked about earlier.

Operable

Operable, what I mean by this is: Are your links saying "Click Here" or "Learn More," or are they really telling me where I'm going as a user? Think about your users here. We know we love anchor text. We know that search engines love to see where we're going too. So "Click Here" and "Learn More" aren't as descriptive as they could be. They're not as operable. It's hard for me as a user to operate your website or your email newsletter or your podcast.

Understandable

Is my content understandable? So this is something I have a hard time doing too sometimes, but considering is the content that I'm writing at a reading level that my audience is going to enjoy that. Have I described it in a language that my customers understand? Oftentimes I think we get stuck in SEO and we start to use a lot of SEO language, especially if you're working at like an agency with clients.

Taking the time to break it down into language that's more understandable will allow you to resonate with a larger set of audience members, but also it will allow you generally to capture those search terms too, right? People aren't looking up PhD level things in Google search. They're looking up language that we can all understand, so consider that. 

Robust

Then robust, this kind of touches things like: Is my website mobile friendly? Is it responsive? Are the things that I'm producing compatible with a lot of technologies and these technologies include assistive technologies? So POUR, remember those things when producing web content. You shouldn't need a monocle to read what you're producing. You shouldn't need a PhD to read what you're producing. It should be really, really easy for a diverse group of people to access the stuff that you produce.

If you want some more information about WCAG, there's a link right here, and it will be linked in the bottom of this post as well. 

What can content SEOs do?

So what can you do as a content SEO? 

You can write informative and unique page titles. Those page titles matter for not just search engines but people as well and assistive technologies. 

You can use headings correctly. Commonly I'll see people use those H tags. You're probably familiar with the H1, but H2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 matter too to style the page in a certain way and make the text bolder or brighter or larger, and that will be great. But as someone who's using assistive technology or someone who's trying to understand the parent-child relationships between things on a page, it's going to be a lot harder for me to do that if I'm not using those headings correctly.

Links are for users. One thing I always ask myself is, "Is this link on the page for SEO, or is it for my customer?" If the answer is it's just on the page for SEO, come back to the table, figure out a way to make an SEO friendly approach to a customer problem, and put a link on the page that's going to resonate with customers and also help your SEO. Not just one or the other.

Plan for a text alternative. No matter what you're building, I'm sure it's going to involve some rich media. Plan to include captions, transcripts, ASL interpretation in your presentation from day one. 

Over-describe what's happening. We know that descriptions are going to help pick up additional synonyms and additional talking points for search engines as well. We know that being more comprehensive and honest and ethical will ultimately lead to a better SEO outcome. It also helps people, normal people with diverse abilities get that same outcome as well. Let them enjoy it. Make this about customers and not just search engines, and I think you'll find that both parties win. 

Provide clear instructions, so what you want people to do. Don't make it hard to convert. 

Number 7 is write content that you want to read.

I would ask you to close your eyes and listen to the content that you've written on the page and ask yourself, "Is this SEO optimized, or is this built in a way that a customer would want to engage with it?" What I want you to try to do is try to figure out, "How can I write this piece of content in a way that is just seamless? It's invisible, and I've even optimized this for SEO. It just feels like it's a normal piece of content that resonates with me."

That's what you're looking for. The best SEO is invisible. Help people and bots. Not just bots or not just people. So focus on the Web Accessibility Guidelines. If you want some more information about WCAG, it's right there. Next time, we're going to talk about technical SEO and some behind-the-scenes code that will make your website more accessible for all.

Thanks for watching.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

[lakelandseo]

SEO and Accessibility: Content [Series Part 2]

As SEOs, our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access, which means that content isn’t just available to search engines, but also to people of all abilities. In the second installment of his three-part accessibility series, Cooper shows you how to ensure that your amazing content is accessible by bots AND people.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to the latest edition of Whiteboard Friday. I'm Cooper Hollmaier. I started doing SEO in 2016, and today I worked at a large outdoor specialty retailer helping make our strategies for technical SEO come alive. Thank you for attending this Session 2 of 3 of our SEO and accessibility series. 

It all starts with accessibility

If you've taken the intro to SEO course here at Moz, you're probably familiar with the concept called Mozlow's hierarchy of SEO needs. If you're not, the basic idea is that we have to have some foundational elements that are needed to make us rank in search engine results, and then we can layer some things on top to make us more competitive in those results.

But it all starts with crawl accessibility, and in the same way it starts with basic human accessibility as well. Our goal when we're creating content is to provide equitable access. So this means my content is not only available to search engines but people of all abilities as well. Let's look at an example.

Making assumptions about your audience

Let's say I'm a restaurant. Commonly you'll see restaurants post their menu in the windows of their stores or shops. Well, the problem with this idea, while it seems easy because anyone can walk by, they don't have to look at my Facebook or my website, and they can look at the menu, see what they like or don't like, and then choose to engage with my business and enjoy my food.

What's bad about this is that we've made some assumptions about our ideal audience. We've assumed that they're the average height and that they're tall enough to be able to see the menu that I posted in my window. We've assumed that they have great vision, that they on a rainy day can see the menu items and still make the decision to come inside. We've also assumed that by not including any pictures on our menu people know what we're talking about.

They're familiar with the cuisine that I'm making or the flowery culinary, eloquent culinary language that I'm using to describe my dishes. But I think what you'll find is that these assumptions are exclusive versus inclusive, and we want to be inclusive of all of our audience members. So for example, assume maybe my person is not an average height. How do I account for that?

If they're not the average height, seeing the menu might be impossible. Assume that maybe they have low vision or blindness and ask yourself, "Is this available digitally or in a Braille compatible format that they can access, too?" Or maybe add some pictures, add some different language to your menu to help people understand the culinary language that you're using, because without that they might not understand and they might choose to avoid your restaurant versus come in and see it.

Ask "What if?"

So these are things you can do to assume the best and provide a diverse group of people a better experience. 

Let's do some math. If you have 1,000 people in your restaurant every month, we know from last time that 1 in 5 people on average have a disability in the United States. That means 200 of those 1,000 people have a disability, and you're excluding them by not including some information or other mediums to consume your menu.

That compounded as 200 people times let's say an average of $15 a meal, that's $3,000 a month you're leaving on the table quite literally. So think about that. It's not just about providing equitable access, but it will cost your business money too, and $3,000 a month is very expensive, especially for a small business. I'm sure you're saying, "Cooper, what if I'm not a small business? What if I want people to buy my product or give me a lead or come sign up for my service?"

That's okay. These rules apply to you too. It's the mindset. If you have a podcast, an email newsletter, a blog, a website, I would implore you to ask the question, "As a person with __________, can I __________?" Fill in that first blank with things like as a person with colorblindness, ADHD, dyslexia, hard of hearing, Down syndrome, can I and fill in that second blank with whatever you want people to do at your business.

Can I buy a product? Can I read this newsletter? Can I enjoy this podcast? If the answer to that question, that string of questioning, is no, you have a little bit of a problem. You have some work to do, right? 

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

What I'm talking about is following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and these are commonly called WCAG or "Wikag." These guidelines are set up to make sure that our content on the web is accessible.

I think you'll find that as you make your content accessible for people of diverse abilities, you're going to have your content accessible for search engines of diverse abilities too. So following the four principles of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they are POUR or "Pour": Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, or Robust, I think you'll find that your content resonates better with your audience, you exclude less audience members, and your search engine optimization will ultimately only be that much better.

Perceivable

So what do I mean by perceivable? What I mean by perceivable is we all don't want to look at a brick of text. I think that's pretty clear. We tend to include things like images, video, and audio on our pages. What I want you to do is consider any time you're using those rich media elements to include a text alternative. So this means images, include alt text. Videos, include captions and transcripts.

Audio, same thing, include the transcript so if I can't hear that audio with my speakers, I'm able to either convert it into something I can use or I'm able to enjoy it in some other way. Then when we're talking about video, including an ASL interpreter or converting your presentation into American Sign Language can also be a little bit more inclusive for the audience you're trying to reach and save you a little bit of that money we talked about earlier.

Operable

Operable, what I mean by this is: Are your links saying "Click Here" or "Learn More," or are they really telling me where I'm going as a user? Think about your users here. We know we love anchor text. We know that search engines love to see where we're going too. So "Click Here" and "Learn More" aren't as descriptive as they could be. They're not as operable. It's hard for me as a user to operate your website or your email newsletter or your podcast.

Understandable

Is my content understandable? So this is something I have a hard time doing too sometimes, but considering is the content that I'm writing at a reading level that my audience is going to enjoy that. Have I described it in a language that my customers understand? Oftentimes I think we get stuck in SEO and we start to use a lot of SEO language, especially if you're working at like an agency with clients.

Taking the time to break it down into language that's more understandable will allow you to resonate with a larger set of audience members, but also it will allow you generally to capture those search terms too, right? People aren't looking up PhD level things in Google search. They're looking up language that we can all understand, so consider that. 

Robust

Then robust, this kind of touches things like: Is my website mobile friendly? Is it responsive? Are the things that I'm producing compatible with a lot of technologies and these technologies include assistive technologies? So POUR, remember those things when producing web content. You shouldn't need a monocle to read what you're producing. You shouldn't need a PhD to read what you're producing. It should be really, really easy for a diverse group of people to access the stuff that you produce.

If you want some more information about WCAG, there's a link right here, and it will be linked in the bottom of this post as well. 

What can content SEOs do?

So what can you do as a content SEO? 

You can write informative and unique page titles. Those page titles matter for not just search engines but people as well and assistive technologies. 

You can use headings correctly. Commonly I'll see people use those H tags. You're probably familiar with the H1, but H2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 matter too to style the page in a certain way and make the text bolder or brighter or larger, and that will be great. But as someone who's using assistive technology or someone who's trying to understand the parent-child relationships between things on a page, it's going to be a lot harder for me to do that if I'm not using those headings correctly.

Links are for users. One thing I always ask myself is, "Is this link on the page for SEO, or is it for my customer?" If the answer is it's just on the page for SEO, come back to the table, figure out a way to make an SEO friendly approach to a customer problem, and put a link on the page that's going to resonate with customers and also help your SEO. Not just one or the other.

Plan for a text alternative. No matter what you're building, I'm sure it's going to involve some rich media. Plan to include captions, transcripts, ASL interpretation in your presentation from day one. 

Over-describe what's happening. We know that descriptions are going to help pick up additional synonyms and additional talking points for search engines as well. We know that being more comprehensive and honest and ethical will ultimately lead to a better SEO outcome. It also helps people, normal people with diverse abilities get that same outcome as well. Let them enjoy it. Make this about customers and not just search engines, and I think you'll find that both parties win. 

Provide clear instructions, so what you want people to do. Don't make it hard to convert. 

Number 7 is write content that you want to read.

I would ask you to close your eyes and listen to the content that you've written on the page and ask yourself, "Is this SEO optimized, or is this built in a way that a customer would want to engage with it?" What I want you to try to do is try to figure out, "How can I write this piece of content in a way that is just seamless? It's invisible, and I've even optimized this for SEO. It just feels like it's a normal piece of content that resonates with me."

That's what you're looking for. The best SEO is invisible. Help people and bots. Not just bots or not just people. So focus on the Web Accessibility Guidelines. If you want some more information about WCAG, it's right there. Next time, we're going to talk about technical SEO and some behind-the-scenes code that will make your website more accessible for all.

Thanks for watching.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com