What do you do when you want to change META tags throughout all of the web pages on
your site? Some folks store a duplicate of their site on their local hard drive, edit and
update them locally, and then republish them back up to their server through an FTP
utility. Depending upon your connection and tools, this can be a long process.
I've always done my editing and publishing at the server level. I like being able to
change things on-the-fly without having to worry about republishing pages everyday. My
sites are fairly dynamic; I make changes and additions all day long. And I manage multiple
sites for various lines of business as well as multiple sites for clients. So changing and
updating META tags has always been a real headache for me. Until now.
TagGen -- The Meta Data Composer manages the whole world of HTML META tags real well.
First of all, it is integrated into Microsoft FrontPage. Second of all, it is
wizard-driven, making it easy for even a novice. Now I have never claimed to truly
understand all of the META tags available to a webmaster. In fact, for years I just used
the Title, Keyword and Description tags because that's what most online META tag creation
tools claim are important. But there are a lot more, and without them, you are greatly
minimizing your chances at higher level search engine rankings.
TagGen
allows you to import existing tags, or create all new ones and update the page
you are working on. If you don't understand a particular tag's relevance, TagGen's
help
system explains it all in plain English. Then, once you think you are done with all tags,
TagGen
analyzes your selections and data, and reports on whether you are using each tag
correctly and in the best way possible. If you need to make corrections, you simply step
back through the wizard, make your changes, and then analyze your work again. When you're
done, you just click the Update button and the page is completed.
But the most important feature is the Batch feature. With it you can update all the
folders and files in your web site. Once you have created the right tags for one page, you
can use them as a template to update the rest of the pages on your site. Now if you have
several hundred pages to update, this is no problem. TagGen
quietly works in the
background with the FrontPage Editor. When all the pages are completely updated, you
simply Save All and close all the pages (with FrontPage 2000 you can Save All and Close
simultaneously).
TagGen
has a few other features which are real helpful to the webmaster. First, it
comes with a spell checker and thesaurus so you can search for keywords (this is a
separate download from their site, but well worth the time). Second, the help system is
quite well written and quite extensive. It covers full explanations for the various META
tags in question, and it even offers tips on web site promotion and how to enhance your
search engine rankings.
TagGen
may be purchased stand-alone or bundled with three other products from Hiawatha
Island Software Company including Hi-Visibility, Hi-Verify, and
Hi-Position. With the three of these additional tools you can and will improve
your search engine rankings through carefully crafted use of META tags.
A nice feature in the Hi-Verify tool is
the ability to build a keyword list based upon the page content. You can then
check off the words that should be added to your keywords and the meta tags
are instantly updated. This is real handy when you consider all the talk about
context, position, and use of keywords. Before Hi-Verify, you pretty
much had to rewrite the content to reflect the keywords you already chose.
With Hi-Verify you can select the keywords directly from your own
content -- making them more relevant this way, I think.
Hi-Visibility is also pretty darn slick.
After you have fine-tuned the meta tags and keywords of your pages, you can
select the search engines you want to submit your pages to and then submit
them -- all from within FrontPage. This is a time-saver to say the least, and
makes page submission a breeze.
Hi-Position enables you to check the
ranking of your web page compared to other sites' pages (for instance,
competitors' sites) using the same keywords. Again, you can do this all from
within FrontPage. Doing so, we were able to discover that this very page
ranked #3 on the Direct Hit search engine for the word "Tag Gen."
Not bad, indeed.
Hi-Stats is a new addition to the suite
and it is a top-notch web log statistics analyzer. I've looked at quite a few
of these products, Hi-Stats is about as good as they come. You simply
tell the tool where to download your log file, click a button and it FTPs the
file down and performs the analysis. Unlike many other products out there, Hi-Stats
does not require you to do anything special with your log files. It reads it
and creates an intuitive series of colorful reports within seconds. The
presentation of the data is also very clear and neatly laid out. I like this
tool a lot.
Before TagGen
came into my life, I had to manually update each and every page,
cutting and pasting META tags from a template file. And there was always the question
about whether I was properly using META tags. And then there were the times I failed to
create META tags entirely because I was too busy trying to get new pages online.
TagGen
also replaces about a dozen individual tools I used to manage by sites and
their positions in the search engines. At $159.00, this package is as complete
as they can get, and can save you both time and money.
TagGen
vastly simplifies and improves the web page creation process by insuring your
META tags are being used properly. It's always there, and you can update your site
frequently while you go for a cup of coffee. TagGen
and its related products are very cool
products for the professional or amateur webmaster, and I highly recommend them. Click
here for more information.
Review updated on November 20, 2001.
TagGen
