Ektron – SEO Friendly CMS For Your Website

Companies jump for joy at the promise of a Content Management System (CMS): They can update their site without hiring a web developer! They can publish quickly and easily! The internet is theirs for the taking! A few months later they are stomping their feet with rage. What do you mean our new site is driving away search engines? Why can not I edit my title tags? The salesman said it was SEO-ready!!!

Here are some selection criteria that will help you pick a content management system that is ready for search engine optimization. A good content management system:

Leaves Your Code Alone

Any content management system you look at must be capable of generating standards-compliant code. If the sales person tells you “oh, sure, we are standards-compliant” without hesitation, roll your eyes and say “Sure you are. Can you show me a standards-compliant site using your sytem?”

If they can not, move along. A good CMS will leave your code alone, instead of adding a bunch of additional crap.

Lets You Edit Title And Description Tags, Independent Of Article Titles And Description

This is the most common mistake I see in CMS selection and implementation. Make sure you purchase a CMS that will allow you to do this, and you hire a developer with the brains to implement it.

Lets You Create Your Own Filenames And Directory Structure

Search engines do not demand so-called ‘search engine friendly’ URLs any more. You do not have to have a page address like this:

http://www.xyz.com/consulting/

It could just as easily be:

http://www.xyz.com/index.aspx?this=that&pageid=2

But man, it sure helps if you can provide sensible, understandable folder and page names. They are easier for other folks to link to, so they promote links; they are easier to remember; and yes, keywords in the URL still help with SEO.

So make sure your Ektron CMS lets you do that kind of custom naming.

Lets You Move Stuff Around

A really great Ektron CMS will let you move pages and sections around without a lot of fuss. If you have a page about turnips that is in the ‘Roots’ section right now, but you want to move it to ‘Disgusting’, you ought to be able to do that with a minimum of fuss. This is not always possible. Nor is it always a good idea. But it is nice to have this available if and when you need it.

Makes Changes Easy

SEO is all about lots of little changes. How long does it take to, say, edit the heading tag on one page?

Assuming you have a fast computer and internet connection, and you know your way around cut-and-paste and such, it should not take more than 2 minutes from start to published. 5 minutes might be all right. A half hour is not. More than an hour means you will likely lose your mind at some point and end up wandering the streets of your home town muttering curses under your breath.

Supports Analytics

The fact that I still have to mention this one makes me sad. But there are still a few systems out there that claim to have ‘integrated analytics’. What that really means is “our system is so convoluted it’ll take a team of developers 2 weeks to set up Google Analytics”

How Can You Be So Sure?

If you are not technical, how can you be sure a CMS will be SEO-ready? Well, you cannot always.

Selecting a CMS is a major decision for your organization, whether your 300 people or 3. No matter how much or little you pay for it, it will affect your ability to market yourself online for years to come. Go find a geek. Preferably a friendly one. Preferably an internet marketing geek. Hire them for a few hours of their time. It will cost you, at most, $1000. Ask them to review your site and the systems you’re looking at. This is how you can make most use of Ektron CMS for your website.