Search Engine Guide Blog

4 Tips to Making Your Proprietary CMS Search Friendly

July 3, 2008 Comments (4)

Manoj Jasra

Manoj Jasra

Articles

AddThis Feed Button
AddThis Social Bookmark Button

There are often cases where a business will choose to develop a custom content management system (CMS) rather than buying something off the shelf. I have some first hand experience building my own content management system and can testify that if it's implemented corrrectly it will rank as well as any commercial CMS powered website. The key to a developing a good CMS is to first understand the purpose of your website (requirements) and secondly to design the framework (database, business logic, GUI) to support it. There are also some fundamental SEO related guidelines you should build into your proprietary CMS if you hope to rank well in the search engines.

 
  • Unique Meta Tags: Each page on your website should allow for unique meta tags. This will keep your site away from any supplemental index issues and allow you to rank for a broader range of keywords.
  • URL Rewriter: Stay away from dynamic URLs/querystring variables to load content, static URLs are the only way to go. Keywords in the URL are an important ranking factor so make sure to use relevant kewyords in your static URLs. Creating static URLs often requires parsing your URL for keywords so that you can query your database for the correct content.
  • Links: To help search spiders easily crawl throughout the site, add the ability to have unique links within the body content and footer. Implementing a strategy such as bread crumb navigation (with keyword rich anchor text) is both useful for crawlability and search engine rankings.
  • Content/Keyword Insertion: Not only should your content be unique for each page, you should also allow for your CMS to dynamically insert relevant keywords into your content for image alt tags, links, page copy, and meta tags.

Manoj Jasra is currently a Sr. Analyst at Shaw Communications Inc. Prior to Shaw, Manoj was the Director of Technology and Sr. Strategist at Enquiro Search Solutions. He has been in the Search Marketing Industry since 2002, since then, his learning in marketing and business strategies as they relate to online has led him to become an expert in Search Marketing/Web Analytics, providing consultation and implementation strategies for clients. Manoj frequently writes in his blog about the latest in the Web Analytics and SEM Industry.

Related Entries

Comments (4)

Solid, well-proven points - thanks. I hadn't heard of number 4 before though. Well, I've known that img alt tags can help with SEO. However, I had never thought about inserting those dynamically. Can you expand on what you mean by that? How do you determine which copy to dynamically use as the alt source?

Thanks!

Posted by: Jon Heller on July 3, 2008

Some good points.
Thanks.

Also some other critical ones:

Make sure the CMS handles missing pages correctly with 404 HTTP headers else you can have all sorts of problems with google indexing existing pages and finding 404 errors and marking it down as 'gone' and finding missing pages as present etc None of which helps your cause or the user experience.

In a similar vein don't forward using 302 redirects - bad news for your ranking with google and chums.

My understanding is that these days keywords in the url isn't really a huge SEO benefit but is certainly better for human users and won't harm . Also google etc al, are a lot better at handling dynamic url query strings these days so if you have a few then don't worry but once again, the advice is good. If you can use url rewriting then do it.

Hope these help

Posted by: Paul Burdon on July 3, 2008

Hi Jon,

What I meant by keyword insertion was based around how your database was setup. For example if you had a Texas real estate site and each of your website's pages were unique to a city (i.e. Houston, Dallas, etc...) then you would want to dynamically insert the names of those cities into the meta tags, page copy, links, etc...

- Manoj

Posted by: Manoj on July 3, 2008

Paul,

Great additional points on 404 error pages and 302 redirects.

I agree that Google is now smarter at indexing dynamic URLs, however I believe that having keywords in the URL are still the optimum way to go (especially if the URLs match the search queries of users).

- Manoj

Posted by: Manoj on July 3, 2008

Leave a comment

 


If you'd prefer, you can also subscribe without commenting by submitting your email address here:

Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference Sponsor



Get Updates

weekly newsletter



SEO Courses Online
Tutor-supervised or self-study options

Best of the Web Directory
Submit your Site Today! Best of the Web Directory

Discover Real Success
Earn $1000/week income working at home.

Zero Click Fraud PPC
Target your ads locally, fraud protected


Web Analytics World

Blogger Profile

Manoj Jasra has been in the search marketing industry since 2002 with Enquiro Search Solutions, where his technical background in programming and software made him a key member in the development of several proprietary industry tools.

Since then, his learning in marketing and business strategies as they relate to online has led him to become a resident expert on Search Marketing/Web Analytics.

Manoj also authors the blog, Web Analytics World, which features Manoj's insight on the Search Marketing and Web Analytics Industry.

Enquiro


Enquiro offers a complete solution for your business needs - everything from Organic SEM & SEO to managing your Sponsored SEM strategies (PPC). Enquiro also provides in-house research to help you build stronger Search Engine Marketing relationships through usability resolutions with your target market - leveraging technology to bridge the disconnect between intent and lead.

However, more than anything else, Enquiro knows the value of having a robust analytics solution to track and measure success.

Video Cast

Sage Lewis Video

Video blogger Sage Lewis keeps you up to date with what's hot in the world of search engine marketing.




Review Posts by Category
Review Posts by Author
www.flickr.com
Search Engine Guide > Manoj Jasra > 4 Tips to Making Your Proprietary CMS Search Friendly

Manoj Jasra is currently a Sr. Analyst at Shaw Communications Inc. Prior to Shaw, Manoj was the Director of Technology and Sr. Strategist at Enquiro Search Solutions. He has been in the Search Marketing Industry since 2002, since then, his learning in marketing and business strategies as they relate to online has led him to become an expert in Search Marketing/Web Analytics, providing consultation and implementation strategies for clients. Manoj frequently writes in his blog about the latest in the Web Analytics and SEM Industry.

LinksGiving Web Directory

Search Engine Guide

Search marketing information for small business owners.

Small Business Brief

Fetching the best small business news.

Small Business Ideas Forum

A friendly place to share small business ideas and knowledge.

Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference

A different kind of small business marketing conference.

Small Business Answers

Home of our network.

Copyright © 1998 - 2008 K. Clough, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy