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iWeb Search Engine Optimization

Scott Rose — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:11:51 -0500

I created a beautiful website for my business with iWeb. Now, how do I move my site up in Google‘s search results?

One of our biggest disappointments with iWeb is that it doesn’t include the necessary tools to help your site climb up Google’s search results. iWeb lacks the ability to create meta tags, create alternate image text, and to easily change title tags--three of the criteria that Google looks for when indexing and ranking a page.

RAGE Software's free iWeb SEO Tool lets you add image tags, meta tags, and title tags to your iWeb site, so search engines can find your site and move it up in the rankings.

Fortunately, a utility called iWeb SEO Tool (free, www.ragesw.com) lets you add all three of the aforementioned items into your iWeb site. Developer RAGE Software also has tools to help you get your website listed in all the major search engines, monitor your rankings in those search engines, and discover your website’s most profitable keywords.

Even better, the RAGE Software blog (www.ragesw.com/blog/) has dozens of articles that will help you move your website to the top of the pack on Google and other search engines. For example, did you know that when linking to your website from other websites, your hyperlinked words should actually be the keywords that people are searching for, instead of your company’s name? Neither did we.

iWeb '09

Ray Aguilera — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:30:41 -0500

All that a seasoned HTML jockey really needs to build a website is a simple text editor. But for anyone new to website creation, iWeb ’09 represents a happy medium between power and ease of use.

iWeb’s paned interface lets you manage sites, created new pages, and add content to existing pages. And--finally!--iWeb '09 has added a few key features that make managing multiple sites easier than before. While previous incarnations of iWeb have only allowed publishing directly to .Mac/MobileMe accounts, iWeb '09 now sports basic FTP functionality, allowing users to publish sites on their own servers, without the cumbersome export-then-FTP application-juggling forced on us in iWeb '08. The new FTP capabilities are managed on a per-site basis, so each site can have its own server settings. Apple slightly biffs the FTP publishing by creating your sites inside a second folder, so instead of “myradwebsite.com," your new site will be at "myradwebsite.com/radsite." Kind of a bummer. MobileMe publishing remains baked in.

As in previous versions of iWeb, '09 starts you off at the Theme chooser, where you can select the basic style of your new site. There are 28 options available. Unfortunately, there are only two new themes this time around, so here’s hoping Apple's designers come through with an update that adds more themes sometime soon. The themes are tasteful and well-designed, if a bit "canned." Cutting-edge designs they are not, but all feature a cohesive style that carries through the eight distinct page layouts for each theme. Users who need to build pro-level websites might need to look elsewhere, but for personal sites, small businesses, or online photo albums, the designs work well.

Add music, movies, photos, and Web widgets in iWeb ’09 in typical Apple style--simply and elegantly.

The Widgets pane offers several new options for adding content to your site, such as RSS feeds, Countdown, and YouTube widgets.

The iWeb interface is clean and surprisingly powerful, although Apple hasn't included any features that would allow you to modify--or even see--the underlying HTML. While most iWeb users aren’t looking to do any serious coding, the ability to manually edit page titles and keywords--or styles via custom CSS--would be welcome additions for future versions.

Like the new version of iPhoto, iWeb '09 also offers Facebook integration. When setting up your publishing options, there’s now a checkbox to ping Facebook whenever you update your website. A quick authentication with Facebook is all it takes.

20 Helpful iLife '09 Tips and Tricks

Roberto Baldwin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:07:14 -0600

Every year Apple rolls out another version of iLife. While iPhoto and GarageBand got major updates, some apps, like iWeb and iDVD, ended up being nearly forgotten about. Still, with updates come new features to figure out and a navigation that's changed ever so slightly.

We dived right into the new suite and came up with 20 tips and tricks that we hope will help you enjoy all the features the new iLife '09 has to offer.

iPhoto

1. Add geo-tagging info to your uploaded photos - By default, iPhoto doesn't upload photos with location information to online sites. To share your location with the world, open the iPhoto preferences, choose Web and click on "include location information for published photos."

2. See only photos that haven't been imported - If you store images on your iPhone, but want them to be imported into iPhoto, you can show only the photos that need to be imported by checking the "Hide photos already imported box."

3. The more you tag, the smarter iPhoto gets - Find a group of images with a certain person. As you tag the images, iPhoto will learn their face and will eventually ask if if they are the person you're looking for. No word if iPhoto will help you find the droids you are looking for.

4. Multiple people in Faces - You can tag multiple people in a photo. Click on Faces and iPhoto will attempt to find all the faces. You can tag faces already found, then click on "add missing face" to create new face boxes. Adjust the size of the box, click done and add the name.

5. Hide photos - Got photos you want to keep, but they might be NSFW, or you have photos are just cluttering up an event. Use the Hide feature to make those photos disappear without deleting them. Select a photo you want to hide and cick on the red X Hide button. You can show all your hidden photos, select View>Hidden Photos in the menu bar.

6. Zoom in and out - Double left clicking zooms in to the map in iPhoto. Double right clicking zooms out. You can also use the slider in the lower right-hand corner.

7. Use Faces for animals - While not an official feature in iPhoto, we were able to get iPhoto to recognize the differences between two cats and train the app to recognize their faces.

8. Moving Faces on the Corkboard -Be careful when moving faces around on the Corkboard. You can accidentally drop a person onto another person. It will erase your tags you've added to that person. A quick cmd-z will reverse the problem.

9. Change a person's Faces Key Photo - Open a person's images in Faces. Right click on the image you want to be the key photo and choose "Make Key Photo" An easier method, drag your mouse over the key photo in the corkboard view and while the photos are changing, tap the space bar on the photo you would like to be the key photo, violá!

10. Empty the trash - The trash is usually filled with photos you don't want, empty it for more space. Right click and delete those lame photos.

Tips for GarageBand, iMove and iWeb are waiting for you on the next page.

GarageBand

1. Make sure your Mac can hear your Guitar -By default, GarageBand is setup for a guitar to be connected to the program. If you're taking a lesson and need to tune your acoustic guitar, click on Setup>My Input Device> and choose Internal Mic.

2. Screensaver? No problem - If you're concerned about your Screen Saver or Energy Saver preferences messing with your guitar lesson, don't be. GarageBand takes that into account and disables both when you are taking a lesson.

3. Artists got bills to pay - If you plan on purchasing GarageBand so you can be taught by Sting how to play Roxanne, be warned. Artist Lessons will set you back $4.99. It's still cheaper than having Ben Folds show up at your house with a grand piano.

4. Easier Ringtones - GarageBand has ringtone template now. To make a ringtone from an MP3, or unprotected AAC file, choose the oddly named "Example Ringtone" from the iPhone Ringtone selections in the GarageBand splash screen. Delete the jingle Apple has in the time line, click on the media browser and drag your song of choice to the timeline. Adjust the cycle region to your liking, choose Share>Send Ringtone to iTunes from the menu bar and you're ready to rock out with each incoming call.

5. Scoring notes - To write a score with real notes, instead of fumbling around with the keyboard to play virtual instrument, can be a bit confusing at first. Select a virtual instrument track, in the time line cmd-click where you would like to place your notes. Double click on the box you've created an the drawer with the Score Option should appear. Now cmd-click on the score to add notes.

6. Better search - When looking for the perfect song in your iTunes library, the Media Browser helps you narrow you choices down. By clicking on the magnifying glass in the search field you can search by, Artist, Song, Composer, and album.

iMovie

1. Image stabilization takes a long time - Stabilize all your clips when you're done with everything else. That way you can go for a walk or grab quick lunch.

2. Media in other places - Right click the in the Event Library to find videos stored on other drives, or in other parts of your Macs drive.

3. 500 miles and counting - When using the travel globes, try and make the minimum distance at least 500 miles. Anything less looks really lame.

iWeb

1. Facebook notification - Keep your friends in the loop with Facebook notifications that your site has been updated. When you publish your site for the first time after upgrading, you get the option to link your Facebook account.

8 Easy Ways to Publish Online without iWeb or MobileMe

Johnathon Williams — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:14:02 -0500

For the creation of multi-page, graphics-intensive websites, iWeb is an obvious choice for most beginners. But not all Web projects need an entire site to back them. As intuitive as iWeb is, using it still requires learning yet another desktop application. And although Apple has worked out most of the kinks in MobileMe, iWeb's preferred hosting service, we understand if you're shy about getting started with it.

Enter our favorite Web-based publishing services. These eight options offer both greater simplicity for posting single pages or files and more powerful features for data collection and collaborating. The only technical knowledge required is the ability to fill out Web forms and copy and paste URLs. And best of all, most of these services are free (at least in part).

1. BackPack

BackPack is our preferred utility knife in the world of online publishing. Each page accepts a huge range of content (photos and files, lists and paragraphs) and offers a full range of access controls (private, shared with collaborators, or public). Our favorite features include the ability to email text and photo updates to your pages from your iPhone or other mobile device and the ability to subscribe to all changes made to a page via RSS. (The latter is particularly useful on shared pages.)

But BackPack's killer feature is its combined ability to serve as a personal or group knowledge base, with the option of making any page public. The free version limits you to two users and five pages; a paid plan raises those limits and adds storage space for file uploads, among other extras. Our sole criticism: We wish some of the plans were a little less expensive.

2. Google Sites

Google Sites offers the closest comparison to the range of features offered by iWeb; the service aims to provide users with everything they need for full-powered websites. Pages are created, edited, and designed through the Web browser, with 100MB of free storage for file uploads. The default designs aren't as attractive or as varied as those in iWeb, but they are clean and navigable.

One of the service's most useful features is its integration with other Google services: Inserting documents created in Google Docs or videos posted to YouTube, for example, is a two- or three-click process. For wiki-style collaboration, you can invite other users to add and edit pages and files.

3. Google Docs

Google Docs is best known as the online equivalent to Microsoft's Office Suite, but its usefulness goes far beyond simple text documents and spreadsheets. Users can easily can share documents and publish them online. For publishing single documents, the free service is hard to beat.

Our favorite power tip: plug your spreadsheet into a web form to quickly collect information from visitors. To get started, log in to your Google Docs account, and click New > Form. Add a title and description for the form, and choose a title and field type for the first question. You can choose between text fields, paragraph fields, multiple choice items, and drop-down menus. File uploads are noticeably absent, but there are more than enough options to conduct a robust survey.

The next time you need your friends to RSVP for a party, send them a link to a Web form in Google Docs.

4. PBWiki

Thanks to Wikipedia, most Web users are familiar with how useful wikis can be. PBWiki offers a more user friendly (and access-controlled) option for individuals and organizations to create their own knowledge repositories. Editing pages is done through a standard WYSIWYG editor (which is much less intimidating than the bracket-heavy wiki code used at Wikipedia.) Access can be limited to authorized users or opened to the public, making it appropriate for school and business use. Accounts with 10MB of storage and unlimited users are free for personal and educational use.

5. Wufoo

If the online forms in Google Docs don't have enough muscle for you, try one of the paid plans at Wufoo. This online form generator includes every conceivable type of form field, from text fields to multiple-choice check boxes--as well as file uploads. You design forms by dragging-and-dropping the desired fields from the list. (Bonus: Common text fields like first and last name, and email address are predefined.)

Paid plans differ in the amount of storage space and the number of responses accepted each month. Back when we were walking uphill to school both ways, Web forms had to be hand coded, so we're slightly bitter that Wufoo has made it so much easier now. Damn kids!

6. Tumblr

iWeb's blogging capability suffers from several drawbacks, not the least of which is its dependence on a single computer. A Tumblr weblog, on the other hand, can be updated from any computer with an Internet connection and a Web browser. Other advantages include single-button republishing of Web content from quotes to photos, seamless integration with Vimeo (see below), and the creation of multi-author blogs.

There are those who would argue that Tumblr produces "tumblelogs" rather than weblogs, but it's not an argument that interests us. The fact is, Tumblr offers the most powerful and painless publishing of any hosted blogging service, and one of the best user experiences of any Web application we've tried. Period.

7. Flickr

We like iWeb's photo galleries, as well as those you can publish from iPhoto to MobileMe, but photographs are best enjoyed when shared, and photo-sharing is where Flickr excels. Flickr contains one of the largest communities anywhere on the Web, and that community is subdivided into groups for every conceivable photographic genre and interest. Photos can be added through a Web browser or emailed to your account from your Mac or mobile device, and access restricted to your friends and family. Free accounts are limited to 100 megabytes of uploads per month.

Oh, and if you think everyone's already heard of Flickr, go talk to anyone who lives in Arkansas. You'd be surprised.

8. Vimeo

We're late to the Vimeo party, but the site's combination of focused community and quality content has quickly made it our favorite site for posting video. Vimeo distinguishes itself from YouTube by enforcing a few simple restrictions on what can be uploaded--most notably, that any upload must be the original creation of the uploader. That requirement gives Vimeo's content and community a completely different feel than YouTube, where problems with copyright infringement are infamous and ongoing. And unlike iWeb, Vimeo converts all uploaded video to Flash format before posting. As much as we love QuickTime, the default format for most Mac-made video, Flash support is much more common among Windows PCs. And we're told that Windows is the leading operating system--at least for now.