Jack @ ASP.NET

Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a development toolkit for building and optimizing complex browser-based applications. Its goal is to enable productive development of high-performance web applications without the developer having to be an expert in browser quirks, XMLHttpRequest, and JavaScript. GWT is used by many products at Google, including Google Wave and the new version of AdWords. It’s open source, completely free, and used by thousands of developers around the world.

The GWT SDK provides a set of core Java APIs and Widgets. These allow you to write AJAX applications in Java and then compile the source to highly optimized JavaScript that runs across all browsers, including mobile browsers for Android and the iPhone.

Constructing AJAX applications in this manner is more productive thanks to a higher level of abstraction on top of common concepts like DOM manipulation and XHR communication.

You aren’t limited to pre-canned widgets either. Anything you can do with the browser’s DOM and JavaScript can be done in GWT, including interacting with hand-written JavaScript.

Why SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important for any publically facing web-site.  A large percentage of traffic to sites now comes from search engines, and improving the search relevancy of your site will lead to more user traffic to your site from search engine queries (which can directly or indirectly increase the revenue you make through your site).

IIS SEO Toolkit (Search Engine Optimization Toolkit)

The SEO Toolkit helps you improve your Website’s relevance in search results by recommending how to make your new or existing site content and structure more search engine-friendly. It works on any Website on the Web. Best of all – it’s a small, lightweight free download!

ASP.NET 4 SEO Improvements

ASP.NET 4 includes a bunch of new runtime features that can help you to further optimize your site for SEO.  Some of these new features include:

• New Page.MetaKeywords and Page.MetaDescription properties
• New Response.RedirectPermanent() method
• New URL Routing support for ASP.NET Web Forms

You can use the above routes and methods for both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC based URLs.

ASP.NET 4 includes a bunch of feature improvements that make it easier to build public facing sites that have great SEO.  When combined with the SEO Toolkit, you should be able to use these features to increase user traffic to your site – and hopefully increase the direct or indirect revenue you make from them.