Web Things I learned Today

1. Rather than use an online Google Site map Generator, it's better to download a Generator tool and edit your sitemap locally. Having taken the time to review my first sitemap.xml file, I now see that half the pages I was giving google to crawl were not the pages I wanted listed in the Search Engine!
2. I'm getting into taking my meta-tags seriously, and now make sure that every new html page I create has a descriptive, keyword dense title, which is great. Only one thing I forgot to do.... update my old pages! I'm sitting here thinking that some google conspiracy is over looking my webpages and all the while all my webpages have the same generic title "msoy online://web projects for people of color." I'm smacking myself as I go through webpages thinking, why didn't I include a more specific description of the content in the title! Oh how slowly we learn.
3. It's going to take alot more that hope to get people to visit my search engine. Equally important to making my site accesible to African American online viewers, is making my site crawlable for google, yahoo, and all search engines galore. It's slowly starting to sink in that I have to take the time to analyze my stats, formulate relevant keywords, and master Search Engine Optimization - a term I didn't even know existed till a few months ago.
4. Reading really IS fundamental. Had I took the time to better understand web development five years ago, my online visibility would be infinitely better than it is today. Creating a great site is more than just designing a great site. One must understand what it takes to be at the top of search engines. There is no sense is laboring over a site than your ideal audience will never find.