Mac SEO Blog

As most of us know, iWeb was intended for personal use, but its extremely friendly user interface and vast template selection has led many small-medium businesses to use it as their in-house solution for web design.

In this quick start guide, I am going to give users some great suggestions on the best ways to use iWeb for business purposes, and how our products and services can help you.

1) First and foremost, having a professional business domain name with a professional hosting company is a must. We still see many iWeb business sites have a me.com address. While this may be good for a personal website, it can be a big mistake for a business site. Visit our hosting page and see how we can assist users with iWeb web hosting.

2) Getting listed in search engines often troubles many iWeb users. If you have an iWeb business site, this is certainly not going to help you get any new customers. The best way to get your site indexed in search engines is by creating an XML Sitemap. Think of an XML Sitemap as a blueprint of your website, designed specifically for search engines. It will list all of the pages on your site in an XML file. You can then publish this file and notify search engines of its existence. Some users have reported being indexed in search results within 24 hours of submitting their Sitemap. Sitemap Automator will allow you to quickly and easily do this. There is also an easy video tutorial to follow along with.

3) As mentioned earlier, iWeb was designed for personal use. So when using iWeb for business purposes, there are a few obstacles that we must overcome. One of which is the website’s search engine friendliness. This obstacle is pretty simple to overcome with our tool called iWeb SEO Tool. This tool will allow you to add many important items to your site, such as Title Tags, Page Descriptions, Alt Text for images, and analytical codes.

4) The speed at which your site loads can have an impact on where you rank in search results, as well as if your website visitors decide to hit the back button or not. If you notice that your site is loading at a slow rate, try out WebCrusher and see if it helps speed up your site. The simple drag and drop method will cut out the fat and make your site load much faster in user’s browsers.

5) Some users who visit a website buy a product or contact the business owner to conduct business. Some do, but most don’t. Stay in touch with the ones who don’t make a purchase by having a newsletter signup form on your site. You can build up your list and send out e-mails about new product launches, or sales, or whatever you want. MailShoot will allow you to easily embed a signup form by simply copying and pasting some code.

6) Using PayPal to sell your products is an easy way to launch your site quickly. You can follow this popular tutorial to see a step-by-step method for adding PayPal to an iWeb business site.

7) Everyone using iWeb for business purposes should do a complete search engine optimization makeover to their site. This includes everything from making the navigation menu search engine friendly, to creating great content, to adding headers and titles. You can learn everything you need to know about SEO For an iWeb site from the SEO For iWeb Walkthrough Video Tutorial.

This video tutorial will show you how you can easily add a Google Plus One (+1) button to your website in iWeb. For more SEO tips for your iWeb site, check out our SEO for iWeb Walkthrough Video Tutorial.

Video Transcript:

You might have noticed these +1 buttons next to your search results when in searching in Google. These buttons can tell Google that you like this link and essentially recommend it to all friends connected to you through Google’s new social networking service, Google+. When you plus one a link, and when someone connected to you does a similar search, any website you have +1’ed will appear at the top of the results for your friends. Your goal is to get as many people to +1 your website. In this video I am going to show you how you can add this button to your website in iWeb.

So to add a Google Plus One, first visit the Google Plus One page. You can pause this video to type in the URL you see here, or you can do a search for Google Plus One and click on the Google +1 button result.

Next, you will see a link on this page that says Get The Code. Click on that link.

On the next page, the first thing you will do is choose the size of the plus one button that you like best.  You can then select your language. Next, click on the Advanced Options button, and type in your URL, in the URL to +1 field. I have noticed that it is best to include http:// and www in this field.

Now we can highlight all of the code and copy it.

Open up your site in iWeb, and drag and drop an HTML Snippet onto the page. Paste the code that you just copied. You should now be able to see your Google Plus One button.  If you want to put the button on another page or pages of your website, then paste the code in another an HTML snippet on that page. If you want to leave the URL to your home page, you can do so, otherwise, you can add the page extension to the URL that is already typed in there.

If you paste the code and you don’t see anything at all, first, make sure you typed your URL in with http:// and www. You can also try publishing your site to the web to see if it becomes live once the site is published.

I just want to show you what happens when you either leave the URL field blank, or do not include http:// and www.

You will notice that the HTML Snippet shows up as this huge box which I am not dragging along with my mouse. I could minimize this box until it is the size of the the Plus One button, however, that can take me a while.  So just take note of these things if the button is not showing up for you.

Otherwise, that is how you add a Google Plus One button to an iWeb website. Be sure to check out our other helpful iWeb tips and tricks videos which are located in the SEO For iWeb Walkthrough Video Tutorial or our iWeb SEO blog.

Earlier in 2011, we made a post/video about publishing a website to FTP in iWeb SEO Tool. We have recently updated that video to clear up some confusion that some users were having. The updated video is listed below for your viewing pleasure.

Video Transcript

This tutorial is going to strictly cover publishing a website to FTP using iWeb SEO Tool. We will cover all of the main points involved with publishing, and then we will discuss the biggest issue users have when publishing their website. That issue is the directory path.

I also want to quickly mention that there is a video tutorial that shows you how to check to see if your site has been published correctly using iWeb SEO Tool. This video can be found on our website, or our YouTube account.

So the first thing you will need to do is press the publish button, and then make sure Publish to FTP is selected, and then press the next button.

In the FTP field, here is where you will put your server address. Sometimes the server address may look like the one I have here, but more often than not, it will just be your domain. So if my domain were publishingtoiweb.com then that is what I would put in this field.

Do not include http, www, or ftp in this field. Just put your domain.com or .net or whatever the extension may be.

Your username and password must be accurate otherwise logging in will not work, and you will not be able to publish.

Next, I want everyone to check to see if you have all of your FTP login details entered in correctly. To do so, press the Browse button. If you are able to see files and folders like we see here, then you have logged in correctly. If you get an error similar to this, then your FTP information is incorrect. You must get the correct FTP information before proceeding to the next step.

Now we’re going to discuss the Directory Path field. This is the area where most users experience the most difficulty. Chances are, if you are watching this video, you need to enter something in this field.

Firstly, If you use RAGE Web Hosting, you should type in /public_html. For everyone else, please refer to the following method;

The first thing I want you to try to do, is publish your site in from iWeb SEO Tool by typing a forward slash in the Directory Path field. If that still doesn’t publish your site, refer to the next step.

What you want to do is open up iWeb, and go to the publish page of the website you want to publish in iWeb SEO Tool. Take a look at the current FTP information you already have. In the directory/path field, there may or may not be some text. If there is some text, I want you to copy it. If there is no text in there, don’t worry, just bear with me for a moment.

Go back to iWeb SEO Tool, and in the directory path field, paste the text you just copied. Make sure there is a forward slash at the beginning of this text.

This next step applies to everyone, even the users who did not have anything typed into the Directory Path field. Go back to the Publish page, and now copy the text that is in the Site Name field. Then go back to iWeb SEO Tool and paste this text beside the text we pasted earlier. If you didn’t paste any text earlier, then this will be the first time you are pasting anything into the Directory Path field. If you have multiple words in your site name, you will need to add underscores to separate each word. Underscores are the default word separator that iWeb adds to your site name.

Your site should publish properly now.

I want to make a note that this method should work for 95-99% of users. Since there are so many variations when it comes to publishing, some users may not achieve success using this method. For example, if you host multiple domains on one hosting account, or if you use our method for shortening your iWeb URL, this method might not work for you.

If this method does not work for you, submit a support ticket at ragesw.com/support and we will be happy to assist you. Be sure to include your FTP login details which includes your server address, username, and password, to help speed up the process.

You can check to see if you published your website correctly from iWeb SEO Tool by visiting your website in your web browser, and going to View in the menu bar, and then selecting view source.

Then press Command and F to bring up the search feature, and type in the following:

head_code_set

If you see this code here, then it means you have published your site correctly from iWeb SEO Tool and all of your optimizations should be present.

If you do not see that code, then I want you to quit your browser, and re-launch it and visit your site and follow the previous steps again. If you still do not see that code, it means your site was not properly published from iWeb SEO Tool and you must try it again.

When you update your site in iWeb, you will essentially be overwriting the optimizations you made in iWeb SEO Tool. In order to correct this, you must publish your site to a local folder again, and then load it back in iWeb SEO Tool. You must then press the Re-Apply Saved Tags button in order to apply your old tags again, and then publish the site from iWeb SEO Tool.

Video Transcript:

After you optimize your website in iWeb SEO Tool for the first time, you are going to eventually want to update your site in iWeb. When you update your site in iWeb, the optimizations you made in iWeb SEO Tool previously, and the newly updated site in iWeb will be two separate items. This means that if you add a new photo to your site in iWeb for example, you will need to follow these steps in order to have the newly updated site also contain your optimizations made in iWeb SEO Tool.

Simply load your website back in iWeb SEO Tool. You will do this by using the exact same method outlined in the how to load your site in iWeb SEO Tool video.

When your site is loaded, just press the Re-Apply Saved Tags button, and all of your tags will re-appear. You can make any alterations if you want, and then you can now publish your site. Remember to publish the site from iWeb SEO Tool if you publish it to FTP.

Also, if you see your optimizations before you press the Re-Apply Saved Tags button, just know that that is normal, but you still must press the Re-Apply Saved Tags button in order for the optimizations to actually be applied.

This video is an update to an earlier video in which we show you the proper way of loading your site in iWeb SEO Tool. This video is specific to users who publish their sites to MobileMe. There is a recommended method for a MobileMe site and using iWeb SEO Tool and we encourage all MobileMe users to follow along.

Video Transcript:

It is very important to learn about the proper ways of loading your website into iWeb SEO Tool.

If you are watching this video, it means you publish your website to MobileMe. We have specific instructions on how to load your site in iWeb SEO Tool if you publish to MobileMe.

First, you must have iWeb open to the publish page. You can get to the publish page by clicking on the Site Name in the menu here on the left hand side. If you have multiple websites, each of your websites will have its own Site Name. So click on the Site Name to be taken to the publish page. Now, everyone who publishes to MobileMe, will publish their website to MobileMe right from within iWeb. This is the way you normally publish your site, so there is nothing different at this point. Every time you update your website in iWeb, you are going to publish it to MobileMe in iWeb.

Now that our sites have been published to MobileMe, let’s open up iWeb SEO Tool so we can load our site in it.

To load our sites, click on the Load iDisk Sites button. All of your websites will show up on the left hand side. Find the site that you want to optimize and click on the arrow to view the website files.

When you make your optimizations, clicking the Apply, or Apply To Entire Site button, depending on which tab you are on, will publish the changes to your site. This means you do not need to press this Publish button in the top right corner here. The changes will be published automatically when you click the Apply, or Apply To Entire Site buttons. Remember, do not go back into iWeb and publish your site from iWeb after do ing this. This will overwrite everything and you will be left without your optimizations.

The process should just be this

1) Create Site in iWeb
2) Publish site to MobileMe in iWeb
3) Load site in iWeb SEO Tool via Load iDisk Sites button
4) Make optimizations and click Apply or Apply To Entire Site buttons

Now one note I want to make here, is that if you do publish to MobileMe and load your website into iWeb SEO Tool this way, you will not be able to add a favicon to your site.

Lastly, as everyone should be aware by now, MobileMe is being discontinued. This means you will need to find another hosting company. I encourage everyone to sign up to our hosting. We will make sure we do what we can to make your transition easy. You can also take comfort in knowing that we are the only hosting company who can provide support for iWeb users.

You can visit us at ragesw.com/hosting.php or by clicking on Hosting in our navigation menu.

This video is an update to an older video that showed you how to load your site into iWeb SEO Tool. This video should only be watched by users who publish their iWeb sites to FTP and NOT to MobileMe.

Video Transcript:

It is very important to learn about the proper ways of loading your website into iWeb SEO Tool.

If you are watching this video, it means you publish your website to an FTP account. I am going to show you the proper way to load your website in iWeb SEO Tool. We also have another video that demonstrates the proper way to publish your site to FTP. I encourage everyone to take a look at that. You can find these videos on the iWeb SEO Tool page by clicking on the Video Tutorials Tab.

So to load your site in iWeb SEO Tool, you must first publish your site to a local folder. To do so, go to your site’s publish page. You can get to the publish page by clicking on the Site Name in the menu here on the left hand side. If you have multiple websites, each of your websites will have its own Site Name. So click on the Site Name to be taken to the publish page.

Make sure that Publish to Local Folder is selected from the drop down menu. Select a location on your hard drive to publish the folder to. Take note of this location as you will need to know it when loading your folder in iWeb SEO Tool. Also note that I said hard drive and not network drive. It is important that you publish the folder to your hard drive otherwise you will have trouble publishing the site.

Next, click on File in the menu bar, and select Publish Entire Site. This ensures that all of your website files will be publish to your folder.

Now it’s time to load the folder into iWeb SEO Tool. Simply click on the Open Website button and locate the folder that you just published to your hard drive. Select the folder and press the Choose button. Your website is now loaded in iWeb SEO Tool.

Some of you are going to try to load a file with a .html extension for example, or a file that has a .sites extension. You will notice that these files are greyed out and you cannot select them. That is because you must load your website folder into iWeb SEO Tool and not any other file.

There are two different ways to load your website in iWeb SEO Tool. If you publish your site to MobileMe, we recommend first publishing the site to MobileMe in iWeb, and then opening it up in iWeb SEO Tool via the Load iDisk Sites button. If you publish your site to FTP, you will need to publish the site to a local folder in iWeb, and then open it up in iWeb SEO Tool using the Open Website button. Both of these processes are demonstrated in the following video tutorials. Remember to view our iWeb SEO Video Course to learn how to optimize your website for search engines.

Video Transcript

To open up your website in iWeb SEO Tool, open up the Publish page in iWeb by selecting the Site Title on the left hand side of the application. In case you are unclear about what the Site Title is, this here is the site title called Jeremy’s Golf Shop. Everything underneath it are just the individual pages that are associated with this one web site.

If you publish your site to MobileMe, select MobileMe from the Publish To: dropdown menu. Make sure you fill in your information, just as you normally would, and then publish your site.

If you publish your site to FTP, you will need to select Local folder from the drop down menu. Go down to the Folder Location option, and press the Choose button. Select a location on your hard drive where you want to save your site. I have a folder on my Desktop called My Website. This is where I am going to save this site to.

Once our sites have been published, either to MobileMe, or to a local folder on our hard drives, we’re going to open up iWeb SEO Tool, and load our sites.

If you publish to MobileMe, all you need to do is press the Load iDisk Sites button, and select the your site.

If you publish to FTP and you just published your site to a local folder in iWeb, you are going to press the Open Website button. Next, you will find your website folder, highlight it, and press choose.

Your site will now be open in iWeb SEO Tool, and you will be able to make your optimizations.

There is one very important tip that I want to share with everyone. Anytime you go back into iWeb and make updates to your website, you will need to follow this process again. Once you have your site loaded in iWeb SEO Tool, you will need to press this Re-Apply Saved Tags button.

The reason we do this is because the updates we make to our site in iWeb will overwrite the optimizations made here in iWeb SEO Tool. All this means is that to get the optimizations back, we must just follow this simple process again, and then press the Re-Apply Saved Tags button.

In our effort to make things as easy as possible for our software users, we have created this quick tutorial that will demonstrate how a user should properly publish their iWeb website to FTP using iWeb SEO Tool. The tutorial will identify common mistakes users make, and how to determine if your FTP login information has been entered correctly. To learn how to make your iWeb site rank higher in search engines, be sure to check out the iWeb SEO Walkthrough Video.

Video Transcript

There were many people asking me publishing related questions with iWeb SEO Tool. This tutorial is going to strictly cover publishing a website to FTP using iWeb SEO Tool. We will cover all of the main points involved with publishing, and then we will discuss the biggest issue users have when publishing their website. That issue is the directory path.

The first thing you will need to do is press the publish button, and then make sure Publish to FTP is selected and then press the next button.

In the FTP field, here is where you will put your server address. Sometimes the server address may look like the one I have here (an IP address,) but more often than not, it will just be your domain. So if my domain were publishingtoiweb.com then that is what I would put in this field.

Do not include http, www, or ftp in this field. Just put your domain.com or .net or whatever the extension may be.

Your username and password must be accurate otherwise logging in will not work, and you will not be able to publish.

To check to see if you have all of your FTP login details entered in correctly, press the Browse button. If you are able to see files and folders like we see here, then you have logged in correctly. If you get an error similar to this, then your FTP information is incorrect. You must get the correct FTP information before proceeding to the next step.

I’m now going to discuss the Directory Path field. This is the area where most users experience the most difficulty. Chances are, if you are watching this video, you need to enter something in this field.

We are going to focus on one method for finding out what the directory path should be. I think this will be the easiest way for you to do it, and it will work out well for most people.

If you use RAGE hosting, you should type in /public_html. For everyone else, please refer to the following method;

What you want to do is open up iWeb, and go to the publish page of the website you want to publish in iWeb SEO Tool. The first thing I want you to do is have a look at the current FTP information you already have. In the directory/path field, there may or may not be some text. If there is some text, I want you to copy it. If there is no text in there, don’t worry, just bear with me for a moment.

Go back to iWeb SEO Tool, and in the directory path field, paste the text you just copied. Make sure there is a forward slash at the beginning of this text.

Your site should publish properly now.

I want to make a note that this method should work for 95-99% of users. Since there are so many variations when it comes to publishing, some users may not achieve success using this method. If you are in that 5%, submit a support ticket at ragesw..com/support and we will be happy to assist you.

Reports of a new version of iLife have been circulating for a few months now. It was first speculated that iLife ’11 would be released in August, then September and now November with a book listing on Amazon.com according to 9to5mac.com.

Whether or not iLife ’11 gets released next month with a new version of iWeb is yet to be known. What we do know is that all of our software will be 100% compatible with the new version of iWeb. The only product that may need an update is iWeb SEO Tool, but it is very unlikely that the new version of iWeb will cause conflicts with it. All of our other software will be fully functional in their current versions when iWeb ’11 is eventually released.

Our speculation for what will come with iWeb ’11 is new templates, twitter integration, updated blogging features and possibly some creative HTML 5 only features. 64-bit versions of all applications is also very likely. An iOS version is also very possible.