SEO Friendly CMS Software Features
Is your CMS Software SEO Friendly?
Where your website appears within the listings on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing organic (free) search results is important, especially for non-profits. At the very least, it should be easy for advocates to find your website when searching your organization's name. Moreover, the ability for your website to list on the first page of search results for popular search terms makes a sizable difference in the amount visitor traffic for your website. Showing up on the top of Google search results for "Boston shelter," if you are a shelter in Boston will increase your organizations exposure to willing donors, potential volunteers, and further spread the word around helping those in need of your services connect with you.
Here is something you may or may not have considered until now... your content management system (the software that allows you to add content and update the content on your website) either helps or hinders how prominently your website appears in search engines such as Google.
You don't have complete control over the exact placement your web site shows up in search engines, but you have more power than you may think. The process of tweaking your website to enhance your search engine placement is search engine optimization (SEO).
When it comes to editable features to improve search engine optimization, not all CMS software is equal. While some CMS software makes search engine optimization (SEO) an easy extension of adding content to your website, other less friendly-SEO content management systems make even the most common attributes of search engine optimization difficult, and even counter act the majority of your efforts.
Having said this, here are a few things to consider when choosing SEO Friendly CMS software, or things you may want to review about your current content management system.
One of the most important things to consider the ability for your content management software to present URL that is readable by humans. A very common issue when it comes to SEO and CMS software, is URLs are created by default as long strings of symbols and characters that do not identify what the actual content on a website page is referencing.
You want to have the ability to name your website URLs with your organization’s domain name, followed by popular a brief keyword or two that one would use to search for content matching you’re your website page is presenting each page. And, you also want your URLs to remain permanent, and not change over time.
Another important feature of content management software that is necessary to benefit search engine optimization is the ability to customize the Metadata on the backend of each website page. Metadata refers to the page title, description, and keywords, which are significant for improving website SEO, and are often visible in search engine results.
Look for content management features that will allow you to customize on-page SEO attributes separately for each page.
While there are many CMS features important to helping your search engine optimization efforts, one more important one worth mentioning here is the need to identify who your visitors are, where they are coming from, and what keywords they are using to find your website. Many analytics tools provide this information such as Google Analytics, however to add them to your website require pasting custom code into every page on your site. You will want to make sure your CMS template allows you to paste in the necessary code to track your search optimization efforts.
The content management software you use can help or hinder your website’s placement in search engine results. By considering these features above, you can gauge whether your CMS is SEO friendly or a creating search hurdles for your website. 