Keyword optimization tool

Conventional wisdom is that to get your site ranking well on Google, you need to (among other things) optimize your web site or at least a page for a particular keyword or keyword phrase.  But how do you decide which is the best keyword to go for? Let’s say you sell jewellery, would it be best to name your page and optimize for “custom jewellery”, “handmade jewellery” or “unique jewellery”? which of those phrases is searched for most and how do you find out? Guru Creations has a freeware tool that will do the research for you.

Enter your main keyword phrase as well as secondary keywords if you’d like, and the GC keyword analyser will analyse the keywords and give you a report on how often people search for them on Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Link

Add reflections to your images

Create automatic reflections of your images using Javascript (the example to the left was done on a grey page so it doesn’t blend quite as well here, on white,  as it would on a grey page)

There are versions of reflections.js for Blogger, Lifetype, Typo, Ruby on Rails, Typo3, Textpattern CMS, phpBBB, and more.

Link

Google sitemap generator

Sitempa-sz is a useful piece of freeware that scans your site (or any site really) and builds a Google sitemap of your site. It crawled my site and built a map of about 3500 pages in about 5 minutes.

Once it’s crawled your site it allows you to configure and tweak your sitemap. Before you start a crawl, go to the settings panel and set the default frequency and priority settings as it’s a pain to have to change a lot of pages frequencies after the fact. I had a bit of trouble getting the default frequency to change and I ended up doing a search and replace.

Once you have your sitemap online it’s a good idea to submit it to Google via it’s webmaster tools site.

Some Features (from the site)

• Creation of the Google Sitemap XML file
• Removal of query string variables
• Selection of file types to parse
• Default “frequency”
• Changing “frequency” for special URLs
• Default “priority”
• Changing “priority” for special URLs
• Usage of the server’s Last-Update date (if available)
• Saving an error log

Link

Rename multiple files

Although it’s not a task restricted to Webmasters, renaming large numbers of files or folders is a common and tedious chore. Lupas Rename is a free utility that makes renaming even hundreds of files, simple and does it quickly. You can replace characters, change cases or add and subtract characters at any position in the filename. You can pay $30 or more similar software, but I have yet to find a renaming task that the freeware Lupas Rename cannot handle. One of it’s best features is that you can see a preview of what the filename will be before you apply the changes. As always, be careful! Even if you are not, you can undo the previous batch renaming you did. Fantastic and all for free.

Just some of it’s feature (from the site)

• Rename files and folders
• Rename files in recursive subdirectories
• Shell Integration (right click on a folder in the explorer to start LupasRename on these folder)
• Instant Preview (Optional)
• Undo the last rename operation
• Make a Batch file to rename from a DOS Console
• Make a Batch file for UNDO operation from a DOS Console
• Save and Load your options into an INI File
• Filter by any masks: *.mp3;*.mp2 or ???a*.txt…
• Load/Edit a Text Files in a Small Editor to help renaming files
• Sort Ascendent/Descendent by any column (name, path, size…)
• It display the next columns:
  • Name
  • Path
  • Size
  • Type
  • Ext
  • Creation Date
  • Modification Date
  • Accessed Date
  • Attributes
• Replace a substring by other with Matchcase Optional
• Crop n Chars (Left and/or Right)
• Replace the name by any text
• Insert any string before and/or after the Filename
• Convert to Upper Case (filename)
• Convert to Lower Case (filename)
• Convert to Upper only the First Letter Of Any Word (filename)
• Convert to Lower oNLY tHE fIRST lLETTER (filename)
• Replace the extension by any text
• Replace a substring by other with Matchcase Optional in Extension
• Crop n Chars in Extension (Left and/or Right)
• Insert any string before/after the extension
  Link

Lightbox Gallery picture viewer script

Want to recreate that popular effect where you click on a thumbnail and the image is overlaid over a dimmed version of the web page? Lokesh Dhakar has kindly provided all you need to copy and paste his lightbox script to use on your own website. You can use it as is or customize the look using CSS.
Link

Introduction to CSS

This blog generally assumes that you are an intermediary or expert level web designer. If you aren’t, and are wondering what all these CSS posts are about, you might want to read one of the following introductions to css.

Brainjar – Using CSS

CSS 101

Dave Raggett’s Introduction to CSS

Track your keyword ranking in excel

There are many ways to check and monitor your keyword ranking for a particular site or a webpage in Google. But some of them restrict the number of keywords you can check. If you are a Microsoft Excel user you can download the Keyword Ranker macro for Excel here.  You will need to have macros enabled in your security preferences. But if you feel comfortable with that, this simple macro makes it really easy to keep track of any number of keywords and we are your site ranks for that keyword in Google.

Simply enter the URL you wish to check and then one key word or phrase per line. Click on the word update, and like magic.  Your rank previous rank change and page found as well as last rank appear in the columns to the right. Save the spreadsheet and open it next time you want to check your progress
Link

Create thumbnail link previews

This page gives you detailed instructions on how to create thumbnail popups for links on your page using javascript and CSS. You can download all the necessary files and modifiy it to suit your needs.
Link

Check your Blog’s Required reading level

This tool also works on myspace profiles, livejournals, facebook, and most websites
Link