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From Hannon Hill's experience, companies issuing RFPs, RFQs, and RFIs are getting much better at asking about SEO, and the last half-dozen RFPs that have come through included questions about SEO. This paper addresses the role of SEO in a CMS from the high-level technical angle.

SEO Recommendations

There are an endless number of sites online offering resources to improve search engine ranking. Some of the most common recommendations include:

• Making descriptive page titles


• Including important keywords in the URL


• Use targeting keywords in the page content


• Ensuring that the page is accessible by the search engines


• Maintaining ALT attributes for images


• Requesting links to the site from other related sites

Some of the more advanced techniques for SEO include:

• Making a comprehensive site map with direct page links and short titles


• Maintaining a ratio of the keyword phrase to eight other words in the page content


• Providing a doorway or gateway page that has a targeted keyword phrase


• Keeping page file timestamps current and give a last modified time in the page

KEY REQUIREMENTS

Search Engine Index Friendly URLs

One of the first questions to ask potential vendors is if the CMS produces search engine index friendly URLs. The term search engine index friendly means that the web page address produced by the CMS can be spidered or cached in their database. For example, a URL produced by a search engine index friendly CMS looks like http://www.site.com/company/about.asp.
Alternatively, a URL produced by a CMS that is not search engine friendly may look like http://www.site.com/default.asp?ID=123.

The key problem with the unfriendly search engine index CMS URL is that search engines have a more difficult time following links with variables in them. Many, but not all, search engines ignore everything after the "?" in the URL and thus do not index all the pages on the site, leaving valuable content hidden to the would-be search engine robot.

In addition to being more difficult to index, the URLs with the question marks in them do not take advantage of search engine algorithms that give points for search terms found in the actual URL. A URL like http://www.bookstore.com/books/legal_thriller/john_grisham/best_seller.html will receive extra points over a generic URL like http://www.bookstore.com/book.asp?ID=54321 when searching for "John Grisham books" as the keywords searched for are included in the URL.

The CMS should be evaluated to make sure it easily produces search engine index friendly URLs by default, and does not require extra work. Many CMS vendors claim search engine friendly URLs, but a closer examination reveals that they provide work-arounds in their software, adding complexity to the system. A quick test to see if the CMS products being evaluated are search engine index friendly comes from looking at the CMS vendor's existing website. It tells the truth every time.

The search engine index friendly URLs are also important when using site analysis and click-through software like Web Trends®. With a search engine index friendly CMS, Web Trends works without any additional configuration. With unfriendly URLs, integrating a program like Web Trends to work with dynamic URLs can be difficult, if at all possible.

Metadata

Most CMS products have adequate metadata support from a SEO point of view. The most important metadata item is the title field. The value of the title metadata field is given significant weight by the search engines in determining a page's ranking. In addition, the title appears in the top bar of the web browser as the default value when someone bookmarks a page or adds it to their favorites, and is the value in bold on the results page from the search engine. The title is given tremendous importance by the search engines and should be carefully crafted for each page on a site.

After the title field, two other commonly used fields are "description" and "keywords." These two metadata fields were much more important several years ago before people started putting irrelevant content in these fields in an effort to bolster their search engine rankings. It is widely regarded that Google does not even take these two fields into account anymore. These two fields are very important for internal or site specific search engines such as Verity Ultraseek and Microsoft Index Server. (Site specific search engines take into account the description and keywords values under the assumption that the pages were built by reliable sources.) Metadata about system assets is critically important for SEO.

Site Maps

More advanced CMS products automatically generate site maps based on system assets. There is usually a metadata field entitled "display name" or "short name" which represents a concise name for the page. This value is especially useful for the link generation in the site map. Important for SEO purposes, a site map and automatic generation of navigation menus ensures that whenever new content is created, a link will be created to it. As long as a link is available and the content is publicly accessible, the search engines will be able to find it.

A complete site map is almost more important to search engines than to people. Search engines, when indexing a site, crawl each and every page, storing the page content and creating a queue of the page link. The queue of page links is then traversed, first checking if the page has already been visited and, if not, going out to that page and repeating the process. The site map is important in that a comprehensive list of links on a site will be provided directly to the search engine.

SEO ENHANCEMENTS

Recurring Publish

A CMS should be able to have content published on a recurring schedule. When indexing a site, search engines check the file timestamp on the web server in addition to the metadata date/time stamp optionally placed in a page. Search engines always look for the most pertinent and current content and give credence to sites more recently updated. Therefore, if the content of a site is updated on a regular basis, search engines will frequently revisit the timestamp of that site.

One tip to improve SEO performance with a CMS is to have the site published out nightly (e.g. at 1 AM, publish of the most important pages regardless if they've changed). When the content is re-published make sure the metadata date/time stamp is current and that the files are overridden on the remote server(s). Now, when a search engine visits the site, it will find files modified within the last 24 hours and it will find current timestamps in the metadata.

Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are identical copies of standard pages on the site with a specific search phrase reiterated throughout the page content (note: Google discourages the use of doorway pages). Other aspects of the page are modified to this specific search phrase including title and resulting file name. So, for example, the original page might be about the company's weed killer product. The URL for the product overview page is http://www.site.com/weedkiller/index.html. Now create a copy of the page and everywhere that was written "weed killer" and other related terms replace with the search phrase "lawn weed removal." The URL of the doorway page is http://www.site.com/weedkiller/lawn-weed-removal.html.

This new doorway page is linked to a hidden link from the original page and is not found in the site map or other system navigation structures. With the targeted keyword search phrase reiterated throughout the page in the file name, the title, and numerous times in the actual page content, the page will receive a higher ranking for the specific search term when compared to the original page. Doorway pages are extremely effective for key search phrases and are easily produced and maintained with a CMS. The target search phrase can even be automatically substituted by the CMS.

CONCLUSION

Search engines are the most important avenue for directing visitors to the site. By understanding how search engines operate and taking advantage of known tips, tricks, and techniques higher rankings can be achieved. Common best practices include:

• search engine optimized URLs - include the key search terms, separated by hyphens, in the resulting file name


• content metadata - enforce metadata standards throughout all the site pages
• content quality - empower subject matter experts to contribute quality content


• site maps - provide a complete list of pages on the site

Each of these items provide an infrastructure for a search engine to completely index a site and promote the site's content. Taking the SEO to the next level by implementing a recurring publishing process and effective doorway pages will drive additional visitors to the site. A CMS should enhance SEO and help achieve the goal of more traffic to the website.