Many users like the popular how to shorten iWeb URL video. This video takes it one step further by showing how to get rid of the initial page redirect in iWeb. Check it out! Make sure to download iWeb SEO Tool to follow along.

Learn how to get your iWeb website to rank high in search engines with the iWeb SEO video tutorial.

If you are receiving an error that reads “no such table”  or another type of message, please do the following;

1)Quit iWeb SEO Tool

2)Delete the file located at username/Library/Application Support/iWeb SEO Tool/

3)Relaunch iWeb SEO Tool.

Many iWeb users face a common problem when trying to verify their site with Google’s Webmaster Tools. When at the Verify ownership stage, after pressing the Verify button, this error you see here is returned.

I am going to show you why this error is occurring, and how you can fix the issue so that your site can be verified with Webmaster Tools.

The first thing I want you to do, is type your website’s URL in the address field and hit return. When your browser takes you to your website, you will notice how your site is forwarded to a URL that looks like this. This URL has the domain name, followed by the SiteName, followed by the page name. Some URL’s will only have the domain name followed by the page name.  Alternatively, if you do not have a custom domain name and you use MobileMe , you should see web.me.com followed by your username, followed by your sitename, followed by the page name.

Now what I want you to do, is to test that your sitemap has been correctly published. To do this, I want you to delete the page name in the URL, and type in sitemap.xml as I am doing here. An alternative way of seeing if your sitemap has been published correctly is to press the Test Sitemap button in Sitemap Automator.

If you are taken to a page that has the XML Sitemap, then this means you have published it correctly. If you do not see the sitemap, then what I want you to do now, is delete the Sitename as well, so that the URL looks like your domain followed by sitemap.xml

So in my case, I’ve deleted the sitename, and replaced the page name with sitemap.xml. If this works, then you’ve uploaded your sitemap correctly as well. If this doesn’t work, then this means you probably have not published your sitemap, and you should go back into Sitemap Automator and try it again. Remember to view the video tutorial that walks you through this process.

For those of you who can see your XML sitemap, we are ready to move on to the next step. So as a reminder, I will go back to where my sitemap actually was located. So you can see the location of my sitemap is www.anotherbigdeal.com/apptorial/sitemap.xml. I want you to keep this in mind. My sitemap works when it is my domain followed by my sitename followed by the page name which in this case is sitemap.xml. This should be the case for most of you.

First, I am going to explain why our initial attempt at verification failed. This will make it much easier for you to understand how to do the process properly when you attempt it again.

If you take a look at step 3 in the verification method, it will tell you the exact location where Webmaster Tools is looking for your verification file. You will see in my case, it is looking for the file at www.anotherbigdeal.com/ the file name for the verification file. Here is where the mistake usually occurs. We all can see that my sitemap is located at anotherbigdeal.com/apptorial/sitemap.xml. This is most likely the same situation for my verification file. If I wanted to see my verification file, I could just replace sitemap.xml with the verification file name and it would show up in my browser. This page actually shows this. If you look in the URL you will see that the only difference is that sitemap.xml has been replaced by the verification file name.

But if we look back at step 3, notice where Webmaster Tools is trying to find my verification file. Something is missing from this URL. By now you’ve probably figured out that its missing my SiteName, which in this case is apptorial. This is the reason that it was unable to verify my site. The verification file it is looking for is not located in the location where it is trying to find it.

So what I’m going to do is, hit this Back to Home button, and then I will press the Add A Site button. Now, when I type in my site’s URL, I will enter a /apptorial at the end of the URL. Now if we look at step 3, you will notice that the URL now reads the correct URL for where my verification file is actually located. Now all I have to do is click on the Verify button, and my website will be correctly verified.

When iWeb users create and publish their site, there are so many SEO elements that have been ignored, making it almost impossible for anyone to find their site via search engines. This is not the iWeb users fault. Out of the box, yes iWeb is not very helpful for SEO. This is because things such as title tags, header tags, alternative text, and even basic content on a page is not a dominant on an iWeb site as opposed to a site made in a regular HTML editor.

But the problem is easy to fix! But just like you had to learn how to use iWeb, you are going to need to learn a few things about SEO.

First off, let me quickly explain what SEO is for those of you who might not be entirely sure. SEO is basically a process we do, and continue to perform, in order to get our sites ranking higher in search engines. Google has over 2 billion searches performed each day. We all want a piece of that pie.

Continuing with the explanation of what SEO is leads me to explaining the different types of optimizations that people can make to their site. The first optimization is the on-page optimizations. This consists of things we CAN control on our own. These are the actual changes we make to our sites so that our keywords can be better read by search engines, and even our website visitors. The second optimization is off-page optimizations. This consists of the promotion we do for our site in order to attract visitors, and gain reputation for our website. The better our site’s reputations, the higher we’ll be placed in search engines.

Now let’s head back to you guys. How can you accomplish this for your iWeb sites. Well, the first thing you need to address is your on-page optimizations. iWeb makes it a bit tricky to optimize a few things, such as title tags, alternative text, and meta information such as keywords, and description (note: meta keywords and description don’t influence our rankings, but are still very important for other reasons.)

Luckily for iWeb users, as most my website visitors already know, you can easily add those optimizations mentioned above via a free third-party tool called iWeb SEO Tool by RAGE Software.  This tool will help you easily implement your title tags, meta tags, alt text, and analytics codes. Be sure to watch my tutorial on how to use iWeb SEO Tool.

There are a few more things you can do to your site in order to make it more search engine friendly. Both on-page and off-page, there are so many things to learn about that can help your rankings. A search on Google will help you find what you are looking for, or if you are the type that prefers to have direct instructions in front of you, then I would suggest watching RAGE’s SEO Video which will show you a couple dozen things you can do to your iWeb sites, on-page and off-page to better help your SEO efforts.

So to sum up, iWeb is not bad for SEO – it’s just a bit trickier. Don’t be discouraged by people who tell you not to bother with iWeb because no one will be able to find your site. All you need is knowledge on the matter and you will see that in no time, your site will start soaring above others.

This tutorial will show you how to properly publish your iWeb site, so that you can avoid having your website URL be longer than necessary.

If you use iWeb, you already know that when you type in your website’s URL, once you are taken to your page, the URL in the address bar will forward to your domain name, followed by the site name that you gave in iWeb while publishing, followed by your page’s file name.  This URL you see here is just an example of what this might look like.

What we are going to be doing in this video, is reduce the length of the URL by getting rid of the site name so that the URL goes from looking like this, to looking like this. I will not be teaching you how to have the domain read just www.yourdomain.com. The reason for this is because the easiest way of actually doing this to an iWeb site would be to turn on what is called domain masking.

I will quickly tell you what domain masking is, and why you don’t want to use it for your website. Domain Masking is basically hiding the name of your site and replacing it with something else. As an example, notice how when I click to various pages on this site, the URL in the address bar stays the same. The reason why domain masking is not recommended, is because it makes other pages on your website unrecognizable by search engines and it makes it impossible for your users to bookmark an individual page on your site.

Now that we have a good understanding of the URL structure with iWeb sites, let’s get right into reducing the length of our URL’s. The first thing I want you to know is that you will be required to have a third-party FTP tool to publish your site. This means that we will no longer be publishing our websites directly from iWeb.

I recommend using Cyberduck or iWeb SEO Tool which are both available for free. Cyberduck is a basic FTP client which allows you to transfer files from your local hard drive to your web-space and vice cersa. iWeb SEO Tool is a great application for iWeb users to optimize their sites for search engines, AND it also includes a built in FTP client.  I’m going to be using iWeb SEO Tool in this demonstration, because I want to show how this method of reducing the length of our URL’s applies to people who use iWeb SEO Tool as well.

So the first thing we are going to do, is publish our website to a local folder in iWeb. It will be easiest for you if you create a new folder and publish your site to this new folder. You will need to remember where you created this new folder on your hard drive. I am going to call my new folder My iWeb SIte. While the site is publishing, I want you to take note of my Site Name, Photos By Matt which can be seen here…and here. Keep this in mind for later in the tutorial.

When our sites have finished publishing, go ahead and open the folder where you just published your site to. You should notice that there are three things inside this folder. There is an index.html file, a file with a long name that has the word ‘assets’ at the front, and finally a folder with your Site Name on it. Inside this folder, is where all of our website files are. The reason we get long URL’s is because we publish all three of these files.

Here is how we will fix this. In iWeb SEO Tool, when I press the Open Website button, I will first locate the folder that I just created. Many people will select this folder and choose to load the entire folder. This is how we end up with those long URLs. Instead, I will select this folder, and then locate the folder inside of it that contains the Site Name for my website, which is Photos By Matt which, we took note of earlier.

When we publish this to our FTP account, our site will now not have the site name in the URL.

If you wanted to publish to an FTP client such as Cyberduck,  make sure that you do not just upload the folder with your Site Name on it, but that you select all of the contents of the folder and upload them directly to your FTP.

Don’t forget to check out the iWeb SEO video walkthrough tutorial to learn how to get your site ranked higher in search engines.

This video is for those of you who publish your iWeb site using MobileMe, have a blog on your site, and want to optimize your site using iWeb SEO Tool. I will repeat that once more… if you publish your iWeb site to MobileMe, have a blog, and wish to use iWeb SEO Tool,  you must follow these simples instructions so that the commenting feature on your blog does not become disabled.

The first thing you must remember to do, is publish your site to your iDisk directly from iWeb.

Once your site is published, you are ready to begin your optimization using iWeb SEO Tool.

Make sure you load your site using the Load iDisk Sites button.

The preferences in iWeb SEO Tool are set to not allow a page file that contains the word ‘blog’ to be optimized. The reason for this is that if a file of this kind is optimized, it will compromise the file and cause the blog commenting feature to not function. In some cases, the blog files may not contain the word ‘blog’ in them. This would be due to the user naming these files something different. If that is the case, you can change the preferences so that the tool does not optimize the files for your blog. So let’s say for example that you change the name of this file here from Blog to Journal. When optimizing your site in iWeb SEO Tool, you must change the preferences so that the tool is set to not optimize files that contain the word Journal.

Once you have optimized all of your pages, you do not need to publish your site to your MobileMe account within the tool. Since you are logged in, and have loaded your site directly from your iDisk, the changes you make in iWeb SEO Tool will be reflected immediately after you press the apply button.

If you haven’t yet, watch the SEO For iWeb Walkthrough Video Tutorial to learn how to make your iWeb site rank higher in search engines. Learn how to add a Statcounter.com AND Google Analytics code to your website.

To install a Statcounter code on all pages of your iWeb website, we are going to be using RAGE Software’s iWeb SEO Tool. This application can be downloaded for free at www.ragesw.com

After you’ve downloaded and installed iWeb SEO Tool, open up your web browser to www.statcounter.com. If you don’t have an account with Statcounter, click on the register button on the top left part of the navigation menu. Fill out all the required information and register your account. After you have registered, login with your username and password.

Once you are logged in, you will need to create a new project in order to get your code. Click on the “Add New Project” button.

In the following form, you will need to enter a title for your website followed by  your website’s URL. Then you will need to select a category for your website, and your time zone. You also have the option of having the statcounter not count your visits to the site by blocking your IP. If you don’t care for this feature, just leave it blank.

When you are done filling out the form, click the Next button. Now, you will  need to click on the “Configure and Install Code” button. You have a few options for which type of statcounter you want. Choose whichever option you like best, and then click on the next button.

In the drop down menu that says “default installation guide select iWeb. Then press the “Next” button. We are then given our Statcounter code. We must highlight this code and copy it.

Now open up iWeb SEO Tool. Load your iWeb site by clicking on the “Open Website” button. Your iWeb site must be saved to a folder on your hard drive in order to do this. If you wish, you can also load your site directly from your iDisk.

On the left hand side, all of the files from your site will appear. Under the Site Settings tab, paste the code we just copied into the Analytics code box.

Then press the “Apply to Entire Site” button.

Finally, you must publish the changes so that the Statcounter code can begin tracking visits to your site. The Publish button is located in the top right corner of the application. Here you will have the option of publishing to FTP or to MobileMe. Make sure you have your FTP or MobileMe information handy.

Once you publish your site, you can then go back to statcounter.com and view your site’s statistics as they appear.

In this video tutorial, I am going to show you how to use Sitemap Automator to help get your site listed in Google. Recently, Google has made a change to how you need to verify your site through its Webmaster Tools. Because of this change, Sitemap Automator has been updated and now makes it easier for people, especially iWeb users, to get their sites indexed by Google.

Just a quick note before I begin, for those of you who are using domain forwarding, you should make sure that your domain is not masked. You can email your host to find out if it is masked. A masked domain will always prevent your site from being fully indexed by search engines.

To create your sitemap, first click on the New Sitemap button, and then type in your website URL. Next, you’ll need to click on the Create Sitemap button. Depending on how big your website is, this scanning process can take up to a few minutes. I will fast forward through this process.

When your site has been fully scanned, you can now click the Generate Sitemap button to proceed to the next step. The next thing we have to do, is upload our sitemap. To do this, we have two options. We can upload it to our FTP, or we can upload it to our iDisk if we are an iWeb user using MobileMe.

If you are publishing to iDisk, you have two options for publishing. The first option is to publish to your root folder. The second option is to publish to a selected folder. This second option is for users who have more than one site on their MobileMe server.

If you are publishing to a selected folder, it is important to remember the name of this folder as you will need to use it later. I am going to remember the folder Photos_By_Matt. Pay attention to how I use it later on in the video.

After the sitemap has been published, we must then go to our Google Webmaster Tools account. If you do not have an account, you can create a free one by going to http://www.google.com/webmastertools.

To add a site, click on the Add a site button. Then type in your website URL. Here is where I will type in the Photos_By_Matt folder name. Remember, this is for iWeb users who do not publish to their root folder. Again, you only publish to your root folder if you have only one site on your MobileMe server.

After you’ve typed in your URL and clicked on the continue button, the next page will show us the verification method. The first thing you want to do, is select Upload an HTML file as your verification method. Then click on the download link to download the verification file. You must know where this file is being saved in order to use it in our next step.

After you have downloaded the file, back in Sitemap Automator, click on file in the menubar and select Publish Verification File. Then click on the Select Verification File and find the file that you just downloaded. The next step is to publish the file by either publishing to FTP or publishing to iDisk. Again, if you do publish to a selected folder, make sure that you select that folder when publishing the verification file.

Your next step is to head back to Google Webmaster Tools and click the verify button. Once verified, you must not tell Google Webmaster Tools where it can find your sitemap. Click on your site URL,  then click the plus sign next to Site Configuration. and then click on Sitemaps. Next, click the Submit a Sitemap button, and in the text box, type in sitemap.xml as you see here. Then click Submit Sitemap.

Finally, our last step, back in Sitemap Automator, click on the notify search engines button, and your sitemap will be submitted Google, Yahoo, Ask, and Bing.

And that is how you get your site listed in all major search engines. To see more Mac Software video tutorials, visit www.apptorial.com

In this video I’m going to show you how to use RAGE Software’s Sitemap Automator. I will also be showing iWeb and iDisk users how to avoid the scenario in which your sitemap does not get properly created because of domain forwarding.

So how do you know if you are using domain forwarding? The first thing you should do is go to your web browser and type in your URL. Pay attention to the address field. When I hit the enter key, you will notice that the URL changes. This is due to domain forwarding. If this happens to you, highlight the URL, and copy it.

Open up Sitemap Automator and click on the New Sitemap button. Then paste the URL that you just copied. Next, click on the Create Sitemap button. Depending on how many pages your site has, this could take a few minutes. After the sitemap is completed, you can click on the Generate Sitemap button.

The next thing we have to do, is publish our sitemap. You can do this within RAGE Sitemap Automator. The program has the option of publishing to FTP or Publishing to iDisk. If you are publishing to your iDisk, you will need to enter in your MobileMe username and password, as well as your Site Name. If you are unsure of what your sitename is, open up your site in iWeb, and your Site Name will be located above the rest of the files within your site. In this case, this site’s name is Photos By Matt.

After you’ve published your sitemap, clicking on the Notify Search Engines button will prompt you to verify your site with Google Webmaster Tools. If you do not already have a Google Webmaster Tools account, click on the create account button.

After you create your account and sign in, you will be taken to a page similar to this one. To add your site, click on the Add A Site button, and type in your URL and hit Continue. Next, you will be taken to a page that says that your site is Not Verified. It will give you two methods for verification. Uploading an HTML File is the easiest method so select that option. Then highlight the HTML file name, and then copy it.

Go back to Sitemap Automator and click on the File Menu and select Publish Verification File. In the box that appears, paste the file name that you just copied. Afterwards, you can publish the file to FTP or to iDisk. If you are publishing to FTP, you must have all of your FTP details inputted. After you publish, you can press the verify button in your web browser, and if you did everything correctly, your verification status should show as verified.

All that is left is then going back to Sitemap Automator, and selecting Notify Search Engines, and then click on Already Added to Account, and Sitemap Automator will submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.

In this video tutorial, I will be showing you how to use RAGE Software’s SERank. SERank is a simple tool, used to check the rankings of any website for any keyword. First, I will show you the simple way of using this software, and then I will go into greater details on other features in the program.

Before I begin, I just want to mention that in the version I am using, you may notice that there is an option to search MSN. You most likely will not see that in your version as MSN is now Bing and RAGE Software has update this program to reflect that change. I also have the option to use Bing in my version here.

The first thing I’m going to do is add a website. So I’m going to use apple.com.Then, I’ll want to add a keyword to search for, using this URL. I can put in as many keywords as I choose. Next, I’ll hit the Check Rankings button. I have Google, Yahoo, and Bing checked off. I’ll click the Check now button.

Within just a few seconds my results show up. So now we can see here where www.apple.com ranks for the keyword iWeb.

So that’s a simple way of using this program. Now I’m going to show you what else you can do with it. So I’m just gonna fast forward a bit here. Now I have bluenile.com under websites, and 4 different keywords related to the site. I’m going to check the rankings for all 4 of these keywords, and see where bluenile ranks for all 4 of them. Depending on your connection speed, how many keywords, and how many results you want the program to sift through, this could take up to a few minutes. I will fast forward again so that we can move on with this demonstration.

So here we are with the results, and now you can see that there are a lot more results than last time because this time we used 4 keywords instead of just one. A really cool feature of this program is that I can make a report based on these findings. So you can see here exactly what the report will look like. You can even export it as a PDF, so it is really a nice tool to have if you have clients that may be interested in knowing how their site is ranking on a month-to-month basis for example.

The next thing I want to show you is another feature for SERank. The program allows you to compare multiple websites to each other, so that you can see how you rank against your competitors.  So I’ve now added jamesallen.com and I have used the exact same keywords as I used with BlueNile. I have already obtained the rankings for each, so now all I have to do it press the Competitor Analysis button. Once this screen pops up, I will check off the keywords for the first site, and then check off the second site and the keywords for it as well. The placements for the keywords appear on this chart. If I want to change between search engines, I can just use the drop down menu at the bottom of the screen.

The last thing I want to show you is just a small adjustment that can be made within the preferences. If we go to RAGE SERank on the menu bar and then select preferences, we can choose how many results we want the program to check up to. So if we want it to search through the first 200 results, we can select that, and if we want it to search through the first 1000 results, we can also select that. If you choose not to touch this preference, the default number will be 50.

So that’s how you use SERank. If you want to view more video tutorials, visit www.apptorial.com