Two years ago, I wrote an article entitled "Content Management
Systems Equal Business Suicide." The basic premise was that at
that time, CMS applications were inherently devoid of basic SEO
functionality. Building a new site, or converting an existing
site to the existing CMS versions of 2 years ago was a rapid way
of consigning those sites to the oblivion of Google's
supplementary index. Lacking inbuilt search engine friendly
URL's, outputting duplicate titles, descriptions and keywords,
no ability to have customised Titles that differed from Headings
- all those things were extraordinarily bad elements.
Since then, things have changed markedly. These days, there are
still deficiencies in evidence, but for the CMS applications
that have survived the intervening 2 years, and those that have
evolved since, most have addressed the basic SEO issues.
My personal favourite CMS is WordPress. Especially since version
2.5 there's been a wealth of feature expansion in the core
application, the availability of plugins that expand on the core
functionality, and the advent of professionally designed Themes
that have taken WordPress to new heights. All of this has
allowed WordPress to blossom into a fully-matured CMS with
exceptional Search Engine Optimisation features.
Lets take a closer look at the SEO functionality. As Google et
al are attempting to analyse and categorise a web site, there
are an estimated 200 individual elements that are calculated in
the SE relevancy ranking algorithms. Every one of these you can
get right improves your chances of attaining your full ranking
potential. Individually, each element offers incremental albeit
small gains, but collectively, they can add up to the winning
difference in the ranking stakes for competitive search terms.
Duplicate content is Google's pet hate, and its vital to every
site's standing that every single page be accurately described
and categorised. Here are 10 of the most prominent among the
many opportunities to achieve this individualisation of pages:
1: SEF URLS: Search engine friendly URL's are important,
because inclusion of keywords in page URL's are taken into
account, and have a bearing on rankings - particularly on Yahoo.
Being able to exercise total control over page URL's is
important, and WordPress allows this with Permalink mod_rewrite
functionality, coupled with manual URL control on every page or
post!
Meta-Tags: There are several WordPress plugin tools to provide
total control of title, descriptions and keywords, and these are
easily installed and configured.
2: Titles: Being able to control the off-page Title separately
from the on-page heading is very important. The title's 70
character limitation needs to be exploited to maximum effect.
It's the single most important on-site page SEO element! Page
Headings are usually space-constrained, and in systems where the
Heading automatically becomes the Title, you are deprived of a
significant advantage.
3: Description: The off-page Description (meta-tag) is a vital
element in accurately describing the page contents. If each page
has accurate, custom-written Description content, it's used
verbatim in the search engine results pages (SERP's). In
contrast, if you are forced to use a generic Description, then
Google will helpfully do its level best to generate an 'ad
lib' Description of the page based on content. The result of
that can either be not so bad, or truly awful. Regardless, its
essential that YOU have control of the Description, and that you
use it to maximum effect!
4: Keywords: Erroneously dismissed by some people as of no
account these days, the Keyword (meta-tag) still has a part to
play. Stuff it full of vaguely relevant garbage unrelated to
page content and it will be ignored. Use it wisely, with
specific / relevant long-tailed keyword search phrases and it
can give you a little bit of SE traction - even on Google!
5: Image File Names: Accurately name your image files, and
include keywords relevant to the page. WordPress allows you to
upload media and retain the original files names even when
auto-generating thumbnail images etc.
6: Image ALT Tags: Accurately describe your images using the
Image ALT tag, and include keywords/phrases relevant to the
page. WordPress Add Media tools allow you to add ALT text and
captions, enabling inclusion of additional relevant text
content. Used wisely, without spamming, it's another useful
element.
7: Anchor Text: The words you use to link to other pages /
sections of the site. WordPress Link Editor allows full control
of anchor Text links, including the ability to specify
"Hyperlink Title" which essentially works like Image ALT text -
the title of the link pops up when the mouse pointer hovers over
the link... Again, used wisely, its another useful SEO element.
8: CSS Dropdown Menus: Many of the new, highly professional
WordPress CMS Themes utilise CSS dropdown menus, which is
extremely important in aiding search engines to locate and index
internal pages. This also facilitates Google's ability to pass
Page Rank throughout the internal page structure!
9: Google SiteMaps: Another delightful WordPress plugin is the
automatic Google Sitemap Generator! Once installed and
configured, every new page, post or edit of a page or post
automatically updates the sitemap.xml page!
10: RSS Feeds: WordPress RSS feeds are easily extended by
installation of an onsite Feedburner email subscription service,
where your posts and pages are automatically distributed to
subscribers by email. Moreover, your Feedburner account and site
feed gives your site a pipeline directly into the Google index!
I regularly see WordPress posts that make it into Google Alerts
distribution in less than 4 hours!
So, on that basis I'm happy to accord WordPress 10 out of 10
for SEO functionality. Couple that with more than 3,000 available
plugins to extend the core functionality, the thousands of
available design templates or themes, the ease-of-use factor,
robust software, ease of installation etc, and I think we've
got a winning CMS formula.
About The Author
Ben Kemp has more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry,
including 15 years as a free-lance IT consultant. He is one of
Australasia's longest serving
website seo practitioners, with clients throughout NZ,
Australia, Thailand, UK & USA. He specialises in implementing
CMS websites
