Download class 26 slides - CDF Web Solutions

CA 272 - Professional
Web Site Development
Class 26 - Search Engine
Optimization, Next Steps
and Web Trends
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Search Engine Optimization
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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
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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’ …
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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
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Keywords used to be considered very
important
Laundry list of relevant key phrases for
page/site:
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widgets, grommets, gaskets, commercial parts …
Most search engines ignore now
Your Web page content should contain
keywords and phrases
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Keyword density
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Metadata: Page Description
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Description is important for search engines Google uses as entry for search listing
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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
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In Dreamweaver:
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Insert > HTML > Head Tags >
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Keywords
Description
Meta - for other metadata, e.g., author:
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Attribute: Name
Value: author
Content: [name of author]
Syntax: <meta name=“” content=“” />
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Search Indexes vs. Directories
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Search index: giant database of Web page that uses
‘spiders’ / ‘robots’ (searchbots) to automatically
comb Web and store Web page info (using
algorithms)
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Info from Web pages
Google, Yahoo!, MSN
Search directory: manually categorized list of Web
pages
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Info about Web pages
Open Directory Project, Yahoo! Directory (pay for inclusion)
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Popular Search Engines*
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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
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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
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Ultimately: relevance of content and user’s
reliance on your information
Does your content contain key phrases that
users are searching?
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Do other sites link to your content
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Keyword density
PageRank (Google)
Many other criteria (e.g., how long your site
has been around)
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Getting Your Site Listed
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Search engines will typically find your site eventually
Can submit your site to index
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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
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Vital tool if you care about search engine ranking
(and Google in particular)
See how Google sees your site:
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Site performance:
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Crawl info - last indexed, any problems
Robots.txt validation (instructions for searchbot)
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
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Great, free tool for tracking visitors to your site
How to sign up:
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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?
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Register a domain name
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Sign up for cheap Web hosting
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E.g., GoDaddy.com or Network Solutions
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
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Advanced XHTML
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Semantic Web
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Learn ALL the HTML elements
Understand frames & iframes in case you run into them
Advanced tables and forms
Inserting multimedia
Microformats
Structured blogging
Other semantic models
HTML 5, XHMTL 2, Xforms - coming soon?
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Things to Learn
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More CSS!
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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
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XML/XSL
RSS/Atom - syndicating content
JavaScript/DOM scripting
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Unobtrusive JavaScript
AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript and
XMLHttpRequest
C++ or another programming language
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Things to Learn
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Server-side programming language
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Relational database development
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PHP - open-source, free, widely used by individuals and
smaller orgs
ColdFusion
ASP.net - wide corporate use
JSP - enterprise-level
MS Access (desktop)
MySQL, MS SQL Server
SQL query language
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Things to Learn
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Graphic Design
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Applications: Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator
Topics:
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Fundamentals of design, color, typography
Page layout
Interface design
Other
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3-D modeling
Animation and video effects
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Things to Learn
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Flash
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Designing animations
ActionScript programming
Inserting multimedia on Web sites
Working with external XML data
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Things to Learn
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Content Management
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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
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Communication skills
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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)
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Questions?
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Float layout
CSS nav menus
Etc.
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Homework
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Complete a draft of your final project Web
site (at least some pages)
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