Site-wide Metadata Management for Visual Studio 2005
Why Metadata is Important:
One important aspect of search engine optimization is metadata management. This
consists of things like page titles, meta keywords, and meta descriptions. Page
titles are the most important of the three because they have the most weight in
the eyes of the search engines. Even though meta keywords are ignored by some search
engines, meta descriptions continue to be important. Since both your page title
and meta description are displayed to users in search engine listings, they are
also important from a marketing standpoint.
Edit page titles, meta descriptions, and meta keywords without writing code or editing
HTML
How SEO Informer solves Metadata Management challenges presented by VS 2005:
Visual Studio 2005 presents unique challenges for metadata management due to the
introduction of Master Pages. When used, we are no longer able to simply embed meta
tags directly into our page. SEO Informer resolves this challenge by providing convenient
access to edit page titles, meta descriptions, and meta keywords, all without writing
any code. This can be done one of two ways:
- Simply select an ASP.NET (.aspx) page and you will have direct access to change
page titles (and other metadata) through the SEO Informer tool window. This is made
possible by a special control that is referenced using your Web.Config file.
- You can also edit meta data across your entire site with the full screen Meta Manager.
The data is presented in a grid-like fashion allowing you to easily see the optimization
strategy being used across your entire site, and the ability to edit it from one
location. For your convenience the Meta Manager appears just like a standard .aspx
page, allowing you to remain within your Visual Studio IDE.
How and where is the Metadata saved?
The metadata is stored in an xml file (located in the root folder of your ASP.NET
web site). Since it’s in XML, you can choose to edit the file manually (if desired),
or send it to a fellow developer who takes part in the optimization process. Since
the Meta Manager interface provides you will full access to the file, there is no
need to edit the XML manually unless you prefer to.