CSU EXTENSION WEBPAGE TEMPLATE, PART 2 Defining the site, Directory Structure, Meta-tags

Defining the site  Always your first step when working with Dreamweaver  Telling DW where the Root folder is  EVERYTHING on your site must be inside this folder – images, documents, pages  Your home page - index.shtml - is a file in this folder (NOT in a folder inside this folder)

Setting local information 3  Site menu> New Site> Advanced tab  Category>Local info  Site name (for your use only)  Select root folder  Select Default images folder  All.jpegs,.gifs,.pngs are copied into this folder  Link checker – actual URL  Useful for absolute links that refer to pages/docs within your site  Enable cache – “yes”

Setting local information (con’t) 4  Select Default images folder  All.jpegs,.gifs,.pngs are copied into this folder  Link checker – actual URL – useful for absolute links to refer to pages/objects within your site  Enable cache – “yes”

Setting remote information 5  Remote info you will need:  Ftp host – (e.g. – yuma. colostate.edu)  Host directory (blank, or “WWW/”)  Login – your unique login  Password – your unique login  If you choose “Save” you will forget your password, so…  When you get from ACNS – save a paper copy, not just the !  Test button will test connection  Use “Firewall Settings” to work way around a firewall

Directory Structure 6  We’ve given you 1 home page and 7 second level pages  Home page: index.shtml  Second level pages NOT within folders:  About Us (about.shtml)  Contact Us (contact.shtml)  Second level pages within folders  4H (4h/4h.shtml)  Agriculture (agri/agri.shtml)  Family/Consumer (fami/fami.shtml)  Horticulture (hort/hort.shtml)  Master Gardeners (mast/mast.shtml)

The home page 7  The main page of your website  Don’t assume folks will always enter site from here  Slightly more likely to enter from an interior page after a search  Show site structure in Navigation bar  Index.shtml  shtml means interaction w/server needed .shtm works as well

Site structure and Directory structure 8  Figure out where to put your files  Logical flow to pages, logical flow to files and folders They will be similar to each other  Each second level page (topic area) has own folder  All pictures in one place (images folder)  All documents in one place (docs folder) Each topic area has its own doc folder You might break it down further – e.g. by year 4h_docs09, 4h_docs10, etc.

Sample Site Structure 9 Home page (index.shtml) 4HFamily/ConsumerHorticultureAgriculture About UsContact Us 2nd level pages with little upkeep 2 nd level pages requiring own folders Master Gardener From here, pages link to documents, calendars, other pages (remember the 3 click rule!)

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Changing names of files and folders 11 You are NOT expected to have this specific set of secondary pages Copy and rename existing folders to make your own Example: you need a PYN page – Right-click the “4H” folder, choose copy – Right-click, choose paste – Right-click new folder, choose rename, then rename it “pyn” – Right-click “4h.shtml“, rename it “pyn.shtml” – Right-click “4h_docs” folder, rename it “pyn_docs” Make sure to add the new page onto your left navbar

Metatags  Metatags contain information about the webpage  Title, descriptions, keywords that tell end-users and search engines about the site  In Dreamweaver, the icon is in Insert Panel  Dreamweaver CS4 is good at many things, but not Metatags, so we’ll do descriptions, keywords in the code

Title  ALL pages need a title  Shows up in title bar at very top of browser window  Stay under 64 characters or it may be truncated  They can all share one title (Wapello County Extension) or have a specific one for each page (Wapello County Extension Horticulture page)  Between and tags Colorado State University Extension

Description 14  Often returned to someone using a search engine  A concise, accurate and inclusive description of your site  Under 50 words. Multiple sentences fine.  Feel free to steal from existing CSU Extension pages  Bring up page in browser, View menu, Source, then cut-and- paste into your own code  Between and tags

Keywords 15  Used to help search engine “spiders”define and categorize your site  Under 50 words, phrases are fine  Needs to be specific to your page – fine tune these to accurately describe your site  Use words already plentiful in the text  Separate words and phrases with commas  Between and tags

More about keywords  Keywords frequently used in text, headers and links increases Google Juice  Phrases  “pruning fruit trees”  Long tailed keywords  “printing excel 07 spreadsheets”  Misspellings  “Exention” and “Extension”  Colloquial terms is addition to academic terms  “Laminitis” and “lameness”

Google Adwords   Put in either keywords or actual URL  URL is more encompassing  Allows you to look at actual data from Google searches  Get keyword ideas  Sort by Advertiser Competition column  Find “long tailed” keywords that have low competition on the web

Google Adsense (con’t)  “Batch resize images” is a good keyword phrase for my site – describes content, less competition

Registering Your Site 19  Search engines will eventually find your site on their own  To speed the process, register your site with Google and Yahoo (biggest 2)  Google: Homepage>About Google (at bottom)>Submit your content to Google> Add your URL to Google  Yahoo: Homepage>Suggest a Site(at bottom)>Submit Your Site for Free