When CMS Met SEO - Using the Power of Content Management Systems
Search Engine Optimization revolves around providing useful,
unique content on your website and making sure that search
engines can find and understand it easily. 'Organic SEO' as it
is called, puts emphasis on optimizing hundreds of keyword rich
content pages as 'spider-bait' for search engines, with Google
being the most popular target.
While organic SEO in itself boils down to a few simple
techniques and a lot of hard work, the most tedious of those is
always adding and managing content. If you're a webmaster lost
in a world of dead links, missing pages, distorted images and a
site structure that beats any maze, you're not alone. Such is
the nightmare that many Dreamveawer-and-Notepad type of
webmasters hide.
What is CMS?
CMS, or Content Management Systems, is a great alternative to
using manual WYSIWYG HTML editors, website builders, and all the
others kinds of expensive website tools in the market. CMS
applied solely to the purpose of creating and managing websites
are also knows as Web Management Systems. A short excerpt from
StepTwo.com on the definitions of CMS:
"A content management system (CMS) supports the creation,
management, distribution, publishing, and discovery of corporate
information. It covers the complete lifecycle of the pages on
your site, from providing simple tools to create the content,
through to publishing, and finally to archiving. It also
provides the ability to manage the structure of the site, the
appearance of the published pages, and the navigation provided
to the users."
Advantages Of Using CMS for Your Website
Here are a few often overlooked advantages of using CMS for your
web project, from a search engine marketing point of view:
1) Easily Create, Publish and Manage Content
With page editors that resemble a word processor program, adding
content with a CMS interface is simple and fun. Most CMS
software also allows you to change the location of your content
pages and links easily, while the back end processes takes care
of updating the links throughout your site.
Done manually, reorganizing a website's content, particularly a
large one, can cause a webmaster some pretty restless nights.
CMS also allows the website owner to outsource content remotely
from willing contributors. With built in access level
hierarchies, users can register as Authors and start submitting
articles and news. This is then automatically sent to the next
in line, the Manager, and on to the Editor and finally the
Publisher or Administrator, and then it can be automatically
published on the front page as new content.
And SEO specialists know that search engines love new content,
above everything else.
2) Create a Solid Website Structure
While search engine spiders can maneuver your website like a
human being can't, they too are fond of websites with good
structures and easy-to-find content. Most CMS software can
automatically create menus and navigation from categories that
you set. Once you create a new category or subcategory, you can
instantly publish it on all your pages, with the click of a
button.
According to popular SEO wisdom, search engines spiders do not
index pages more than 3-4 levels deep on your website structure.
In response to this, some CMS software also allows you to put
all your content on the first level, for example
"http://www.yoursite.com/article236.html'. However, using the
CMS' control panel, you will still be able to see all content
within their respective folders and subcategories.
3) Search Engine Friendly Capabilities
This is perhaps the most significant development in Content
Management Systems. As more businesspeople and SEO begin to dig
deep into CMS, the need for spider-friendly pages has taken
center stage. Recent advancements have enabled CMS users to
install modules (sometimes already built in) to make it
appealing to search engines. The latest CMS software can create
keyword rich pages, titles, meta tags and even anchor text.
That, coupled with advanced search engine spiders being able to
go deep into databases to index pages, is set to turn Content
Management Systems into the next big organic SEO tool. In fact,
search engine friendly CMS even makes organic SEO specialists,
sad to say, sort of 'obsolete'.
Make CMS Work for Your Web Business
Most content management systems are available for free, or at a
minimum costs, under the GNU General Public License
(http://www.gnu.org/). While there are literally hundreds of
available CMS out in the market, these websites are a good guide
for choosing a right one for your website or internet business:
CMS Comparison: http://www.cmsmatrix.org
Try Out Various CMS: http://www.opensourcecms.com/
Searchn Engine Friendly CMS: http://pss.sfidreamteam.com
