Post on 25-Dec-2015
transcript
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CA 272 - Professional Web Site Development
Class 26 - Search Engine Optimization, Next Steps
and Web Trends
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Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO):making your Web site appear and rank highly in search engines for search terms that are relevant to your content
interestingly, many accessibility tips also help with SEO
Searchbot is a special needs user — e.g., searchbot cannot ‘see’ graphics
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Metadata: Page Titles
Meaningful page titles are important for accessibility and search engines
Google displays ~ 65 characters Use different page titles for EACH page Instead of ‘Welcome to Widget World’ …
Widget World - Widget Parts for Commercial and Industrial Grommets’ … or …
Widget World | Industrial - Grommet and Gasket Applications’ (60 chars with spaces)
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Metadata: Keywords
Keywords used to be considered very important
Laundry list of relevant key phrases for page/site: widgets, grommets, gaskets, commercial parts …
Most search engines ignore now Your Web page content should contain
keywords and phrases Keyword density
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Metadata: Page Description
Description is important for search engines - Google uses as entry for search listing Should be no more than 250 chars Plain English Work in keywords/phrases Ideally, should be different for each page
Author - good idea to include
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Exercise: Insert Metadata
In Dreamweaver: Insert > HTML > Head Tags >
Keywords Description Meta - for other metadata, e.g., author:
Attribute: Name Value: author Content: [name of author]
Syntax: <meta name=“” content=“” />
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Search Indexes vs. Directories
Search index: giant database of Web page that uses ‘spiders’ / ‘robots’ (searchbots) to automatically comb Web and store Web page info (using algorithms) Info from Web pages Google, Yahoo!, MSN
Search directory: manually categorized list of Web pages Info about Web pages Open Directory Project, Yahoo! Directory (pay for inclusion)
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Popular Search Engines*
Google - 49.2% Yahoo - 23.8% MSN - 9.6% AOL - 6.3% Ask - 2.6% Others - 8.5%
* as of July 2006
Source: NetRatings for SearchEngineWatch.com
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Important Search Providers
Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, Open Directory Project
ODP - volunteer-run, feeds data to search engines
Other search engines draw data from other indexes (e.g., AOL uses Google data)
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Search Ranking Criteria
Ultimately: relevance of content and user’s reliance on your information
Does your content contain key phrases that users are searching? Keyword density
Do other sites link to your content PageRank (Google)
Many other criteria (e.g., how long your site has been around)
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Getting Your Site Listed
Search engines will typically find your site eventually Can submit your site to index
E.g., Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/ Create a Google sitemap Don’t get banned Advertise: Google AdWords, Yahoo Search
Marketing Get others to link to your site Keep generating good content; rework existing
content to improve keyword density, etc. Be patient
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Google Webmaster Tools
Vital tool if you care about search engine ranking (and Google in particular)
See how Google sees your site: Crawl info - last indexed, any problems Robots.txt validation (instructions for searchbot)
Site performance: Top queries and ranking for various search terms Index inclusion
Upload sitemap (XML format) Specify preferred domain, other options
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Google Analytics
Great, free tool for tracking visitors to your site How to sign up:
Go to http://www.google.com/analytics/index.html Click ‘Sign Up Now’ Create a Google account (if you need to)
Gmail users already have Google account Follow directions for creating Google Analytics account Add Web Site Profile (site to be tracked) Will need to add special <script> before closing </body>
tag on EVERY page to be tracked Confirm you have added code Google will begin tracking in few minutes after confirming
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What’s Next?
Register a domain name E.g., GoDaddy.com or Network Solutions
Sign up for cheap Web hosting Learn how to administer a Web site using the
control panel Maintain a personal (or small company) Web
site using DW templates Get comfortable being the go-to Web gal/guy
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Things to Learn
Advanced XHTML Learn ALL the HTML elements Understand frames & iframes in case you run into them Advanced tables and forms Inserting multimedia
Semantic Web Microformats Structured blogging Other semantic models
HTML 5, XHMTL 2, Xforms - coming soon?
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Things to Learn
More CSS! More CSS image replacement - including custom
bullets and borders Learn CSS positioning backwards & forwards Get comfortable with advanced selectors Styling tables and forms Complex CSS layouts
Browser bugs - and hacks/filters to fix them Look ahead to CSS 3
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Things to Learn
XML/XSL RSS/Atom - syndicating content JavaScript/DOM scripting
Unobtrusive JavaScript AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript and
XMLHttpRequest C++ or another programming language
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Things to Learn
Server-side programming language PHP - open-source, free, widely used by individuals and
smaller orgs ColdFusion ASP.net - wide corporate use JSP - enterprise-level
Relational database development MS Access (desktop) MySQL, MS SQL Server
SQL query language
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Things to Learn
Graphic Design Applications: Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator Topics:
Fundamentals of design, color, typography Page layout Interface design
Other 3-D modeling Animation and video effects
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Things to Learn
Flash Designing animations ActionScript programming Inserting multimedia on Web sites Working with external XML data
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Things to Learn
Content Management Blogging (WordPress, Moveable Type) True CMS systems
Open-source systems like Joomla, Mambo, Drupal, etc. Enterprise CMS systems (if your company has one)
Web application development E-commerce Search engine optimization Accessibility
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Other Skills to Develop
Communication skills Overall writing skills Web writing Proposal writing Speaking and presentation
Project management Marketing - yourself and company/client Subject area independent of Web
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Ways to Learn More
MC classes (e.g., ColdFusion, PHP, JavaScript, ASP, graphics apps, database development, etc.)
Books (see site for some recommended titles) Conferences, networking events E-mail lists (e.g., DC Web Women, CSS-Discuss,
ColdFusion Users Group) Building sites for friends/family On-the-job training! Partnerships/internships
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Web 2.0 Breaking out of traditional ‘Web broadcasting’ model –
content is provided by many content providers (e.g., blogs, social networking sites, wikis, Flickr, etc.) Collaboration/collective intelligence - Wikipedia is
perfect example Folksonomies – user-generated classification systems for
tagging, categorizing content Modularity/mash-ups – combining content from multiple
sources Syndication – RSS Podcasting, YouTube, and other avenues for individuals to
create and post content outside typical Web publishing structure
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Web 2.0
Web services – allowing Web sites to talk with each other in background (go fetch data autonomously)
Web as platform – Web-based software used through Internet
‘The Long Tail’ – idea that it is now economically viable to serve users in very specialized niche markets instead of lumping customer together into small groups for marketing
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Web 2.0 Technology
XHTML/CSS, microformats, Semantic Web Unobtrusive JavaScript AJAX Open-source Multiple output formats Web services Blogging and Content Management Web applications
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Web 2.0 design
Glassy look Reflections – glass floor Bright colors (or conversely, muted color schemes) Gradients Patterns (often subtle, much more sophisticated
than old checkers and stripes) Rounded corners – breaking out of the box Big fonts – custom fonts (e.g., sIFR)