Creating Reusable Assets and Forms - New Perspectives on Adobe Dreamweaver CS5, Comprehensive - page 324

sites that use the keywords within the page content, page titles, navigation system, text
links, and image names, so make sure that the Web site contains the keywords many
times. For example, because the NextBest Fest site uses the words “tribute” and “music”
many times within the text of the pages, its pages may be ranked higher in value under
these keywords than the pages of a site that use these same keywords but page content
does not actually include these words. Another example is if you use the word “hippo-
potamus” in the keywords list for the pages in the NextBest Fest. The pages may receive
a lower ranking under that keyword because the word “hippopotamus” never appears
in the page content. Conversely, using the keywords excessively in the page content of a
site may lead to penalties, including decreased ranking of the site or complete removal
of the site from the index because many search engines see this as an attempt at spam-
ming or artifi cially attempting to infl ate the site's listing position.
Researching Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) standards are constantly changing. It is a good idea
to review current trends before choosing the keywords for a site. You can find current
information by using your favorite search engine to search on the following keywords:
“current search engine optimization trends” or “seo trends” or “optimization guide-
lines.” The search results will also include placement companies that have used these
keywords to attract new clients.
Some placement techniques are considered unethical (referred to as “black hat”) and
usually work only until the search engines discover them. The search engines then disal-
low these techniques and decrease the ranking of pages that use them. Ethical place-
ment techniques are often referred to as “white hat” techniques.
In recent years, meta keywords have become less important to search engine rank-
ing than page content. You should still include meta keywords when you create a site
because they might still be important to some search engines and they won't hurt the
site's ranking.
Adding Keywords and Examining the HTML Code
Although you can type the meta keywords tag directly in Code view, it is simpler to use
a dialog box to add keywords to a page and let Dreamweaver create the code. When
entering keywords, you should use all lowercase letters because in most search engines,
lowercase letters represent both uppercase and lowercase letters, whereas uppercase
letters make an item case specifi c. You should also separate each word or phrase with a
comma. When you add keywords to a page, the following code is inserted into the head
of the page:
<metaƒname=”keywords”ƒcontent=”keyword1,ƒkeyword2,ƒkeyword3”ƒ/>
Meta tags are unpaired tags, which means that each tag stands alone and not as part
of a set of opening and closing tags. Like all tags, the meta tag starts with an opening
bracket followed by the name of the tag, meta. The tag name is followed by a series of
tag attributes and values. The fi rst attribute in the keywords meta tag is name and its
value is the type of meta tag, “keywords” . The second attribute is content and its value
is the content of the tag, or the list of keywords. The tag ends with a forward slash and a
closing bracket.
You'll insert the list of keywords into the NextBest Fest home page.