So to my real question. When I deleted the template items on my home page, by lucky chance I must have moved the text box which is usually the page title down to be a main paragraph on the page. So now a big long sentence appears (The Jazzberries are a fantastic swing, latin and jazz band… etc) in the bar at the top of the browser (above the http box). This sentence is also what comes up as the underlined header in Google. For the other pages which do not currently have this special box, what comes up in Google is the page title. I’m thinking I should replicate this on my other pages – do you know if this is a simple matter of copy and paste from the home page? I’ve read elsewhere that this box is what search engines will actually look at, not the page title, so I’m wondering how this links in with your advice in this post….
Thanks!
RoosterDooster

“I’m trying to figure out the best way around iweb’s limitations when it comes to the title tags on a page for SEO. I know iweb is not intended for businesses and therefore, is not the best option in terms of SEO, but I didn’t know this until I was done with the site and I like the program otherwise. So far I’ve encountered three different ways and would like to see some of you voting on your favorite to help me decide which one I should use.

Just so you know, I use a third party host and cyberduck as FTP client.

1. Whatever you type on the text box reserved for the headline of your page, is going to be your page title. Right now, almost every page on my site has a single Spanish word for title, on the page and on top of the browser. That’s what I want on the page, but not on the top of the browser. There, I want a description with keywords in it.
The text box for the headline is unique. I don’t think you can reproduce it. So I could write such keyword-rich description of my services in the headline textbox using a smaller font and place it as some kind of subtitle. I can just insert a new ordinary textbox for the single-word in Spanish title that I do want as title on the page. But on the browser, I’ll have the key word-rich subtitle as the actual title.

2. Get rid of the headline textbox, in which case, iweb uses the name of the file for each page as page title. The thing is, the file names are also the options on the navegation menu. They are supposed to be very short. But I could write a nice description as the file name using the inspector and select “do not display the navigation menu” on each page. Then I would replace such menu using hyperlinks. Since the file name is a description, that’s how it will be shown on the top of the browser.

3. Use iweb tool SEO by Rage.

I like #1 because it seems like a more natural way to work with the program as it was intended, but it is the one option that is intrusive in terms of design and even content.

Number 2 leaves the current design untouched but I would have to make mayor changes to how the site works. This would be OK but I’ve experienced some difficulties to make the text on the published website have the same space between lines as it looks on iweb. So the less changing and moving stuff around the better.

Number 3 is free and seems easy. Plus, it is an application made exactly for what I want. But it’s new and it’s difficult to find any good reviews about it or bad, for that matter. It’s posted on the Apple site, but I can totally picture it not working or messing up the site and me not knowing what to do.

What do y’all think? ” -That was the post on the Apple forum.

Ok, Since 2 people replied and voted for number 2, I went ahead and gave it try.
It didn’t work. It didn’t upload any pages and I had to re-name every page with a single word (about, services, etc) as it was before, to be able to upload it. Now, I even have other issues with the bar I created in one of the pages and my first blog entry won’t upload.
I think number 1 is kind of what you recommend in this post, is it?
I also read somewhere that the only way to really modify what appears on the top bar of the browser is to use an HTML editor like text wrangler.
What should I do?
Sorry for the long post and thanks a lot for your help.

Christian

With regards spelling it is personal choice. I have been reading a lot of articles on this very subject of late and they all recommend checking with your stats and then pleasing your biggest audience. I have the same problem myself, the amount of times I write colour instead of color is amazing and as my biggest audience by far is from the USA I really should make sure that my spelling is tailored for the other side of the Atlantic. To be honest I don’t think it makes much difference, people know what I am on about if I write customisation rather than customization they just know that, unfortunately for me, I am English not American.

One more question – hope that’s OK. As you can see, I sell jewelry but I sell alot in Europe as well as the US where it is “jewellery”. How can I put both spellings in my keywords and page titles etc but it not look silly? Or will one spelling be enough?

Thanks again for all your help.

Happy New Year to you. In response to your questions, punctuation doesn’t matter too much between the title tags, just don’t start using bizarre symbols etc.. Spaces are fine as are hyphens and underscores.

The reason some of your page names appear twice in the ‘Address Bar’ is the due to iWeb creating folders for all of the photos that are contained within those pages. Basically to keep the folder structure of your web-site neat and tidy iWeb creates a folder of the same name as the page and puts all the files relevant to that page within that folder. Therefore the first time your page-name appears it is referring to the folder, not the page itself.

Hope that helps!!

Tim