Expression Web Extras Toolbar
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About the SEO Tools
This article looks at the SEO tools included with the Expression Web Extras Toolbar and how they relate to your search engine optimization work.
by Dennis DeRobertis
Last updated: 07/08/2007
The Expression Web Extras Toolbar contains several tools to help you with your search engine optimization (SEO) work. Together, these tools provide an integrated approach to getting ready for the Internet's varied search eninges.
About Sitemap Files
The Sitemap Builder Window generates industry standard Sitemap files. A Sitemap* is an XML file that lets search engines know what pages in your site are available for crawling. It can also provide additional information about your pages, like when they were last updated, their priority (relative to other pages in your site), and how often they’re updated. All this information helps search engines do a better job of crawling your site.
Supported and created by Google, the Sitemap format is also backed by Yahoo, Microsoft, IBM, Ask.com, and other search providers.
Contents of a typical sitemap.xml file
You inform search engines about your Sitemap in one of two ways. The first way is by using a Web application provided by the search provider. Currently, only Google (Google's Webmaster Tools) and Yahoo (Yahoo's Site Explorer) offer such tools. The benefit to these tools is that they also provide additional information about your site. The drawback is that you have to log into each one separately to make any updates. The other way is to include your Sitemap URL in your robots.txt file. I’ll explain this method in the next section. The benefit to this method is that almost every search provider downloads and reads your robots.txt file on a regular basis. So if the search engine supports the Sitemap directive, like Google, Yahoo, Live.com, and Ask.com, it'll automatically download your sitemap.xml file. Excellent.
Links to Know
- Sign-up to use Google’s Webmaster Tools and let Google know about your Sitemap (plus, get other useful information about your site).
- Sign-up to use Yahoo’s Site Explorer and let Yahoo know about your Sitemap.
- Visit the official sitemap.org site.
- About adding your Sitemap URL to your robots.txt file
* A sitemap also refers to an HTML page used as a navigation aid. Whereas an HTML sitemap is for your visitors, an XML Sitemap is for search engine robots.
About Robots.txt Files
Some pages shouldn’t be crawled, like your custom error pages or your dynamic web templates. Sometimes you may even want an entire folder blocked. A robots.txt file, which is a standard text file with one or more commands in it, tells Web crawlers what to stay away from. Using the Robots.txt Builder you can create this file quickly and effortlessly.
Contents of a typical robots.txt file
The commands in a robots.txt file are called directives. The main directive is Disallow, which identifies the page or folder you want to keep away from prying robot eyes. Another directive is the recently announced Sitemap. As you can probably guess, this directive allows you to specify your Sitemap file URL. When search engines download your robots.txt file, the Sitemap directive tells the robot to also look at your Sitemap.
Using a Sitemap file and a robots.txt file is a one-two punch in helping you inform and control search engine crawlers.
Links to Know
About Property Counts
Don’t make the mistake of not spending time crafting excellent titles and descriptions for your pages. Not only do search engines place high importance on your title and description tags (and, to a lesser extent, your keywords tag), they use it in their result listings. Go to Google or Yahoo or Microsoft Live and do a domain-specific search (i.e. site:www.mysite.com). See the results? The title is probably a direct copy of your page title. The description? Most likely a combination of your description and page content.
A typical search engine result listing
Looking at the results and you’ll see there’s only so much room for a title and description. Here’s where the Property Count Window comes in handy. It keeps you from saying too much. When you’re over the limit for a particular tag, the count turns red. Click the Edit link, make your changes and then check your count again. And since the Property Count Window is modeless (meaning you can keep it on the screen while you jump from page to page), you can make sure you’re delivering a consistent message across your site.
Not only does the Property Count Window keep you from going overboard, it keeps you focused on writing tight, relevant copy, something the pro Web author strives to do (and something appreciated by all search engines).
About Image Text
Don’t forget your image text. It’s the little things that make a big difference and adding alternative (alt) and title text is one of them.
For starters, alt text helps visitors who are visually impaired. Most screen readers - software programs that read Web pages – rely on the alt text of an image to describe the picture. Alt text is also used by search engines. Lastly, alt and title text provide visitors with additional information. Hover your cursor over an image and you’ll get a tooltip with either the image’s alt or title text (it’s one or the other depending on the browser and what text is available).
Image alt text displayed as a tooltip