Good Cms For Easy Seo Options

[saschaeh]

When building a CMS and starting out a site you obviously try make it as robust and manageable as possible for all the unforeseen changes laying ahead. Now when the site needs to be SEO compliant there are some extra things that we need to take into consideration.

Today I was planning out a site. While plotting out the URL rewrites, dynamic meta and title attributes i thought about the pages that i could not dynamically populated with Meta and title tags.

I know with one of my personal site managing all the Meta and titles on my static pages can be a real drag.

So it occurred to me that if I was building a CMS for these static pages you should add an additional two fields: Page_Title and Meta_Description. They could default to the home page meta and title tags content but be editable in the CMS per page.

(Dynamic i mean News, Blogs etc... something that changes often. Static i mean the primary links on your site.)

This is a small thing that isnt rocket science but could help a lot later on in our or clients efforts as we fine tune the SEO direction.

Any other small tips like this that you do with your CMS (or anything else) when developing a site?

[Autocrat]

I use Dynamic Data alot with my CMS/F - as it lets me add new input/output/behaviours without even touching the code (unless I want to alter how it looks/behaves etc.).

So easy and damned handy, I don't know how others manage without such a thing (also good for last minute alterations... instead of a text box, make it a select list or that ).


technically, I treat my CSM/F sites the same way I did the static stuff years ago... plan, plan and plan (oh and a few "research" in there as well).

[saschaeh]

Yhea thats it... well are there any other sort of tit bits like i mentioned when you planning your CMS or anything?

Can you control your URL Rewrites with CMS, for example?

[bwelford]

Hate to chip in, but with Wordpress using the All-In-One-SEOpack plug-in you can do all of this.

[saschaeh]

Great thanks ill actually look for that - but i guess im asking for new systems that do not involve Wordpress.

[Autocrat]

Xaraya will give you a colelction of strong modules and a big selection of API's to work with so that you can customise/tweak as you want.
Dynamic data is one of the core modules, and lets you easily expand jsut about any module content wise (for jsut about any form of content including inputs, files, images, editors etc.).

All you have to do is plan what you want, then tick boxes


Xar is not the only one like it though... several other more robust systems have simialr to Dynamic data for easy expansion, and you are not limited to what others produce - you simply decide to add a field, then go and add a tag in the template file (for some like Xar, it's automated unless you want to do something special).


Go and look around at some of the bigger CMS/CMF that are out there.
It takes some time and effort to filter though them 9and several installs)... but eventually you'll find one or two that are flexible enough to suit your needs, easy enough for you to use... and you'll never look back

[A.N.Onym]

Well, practically any well developed CMS can get you going.

However, the main thing in on-page SEO is also the quality of the template and that is irrelevant to a CMS. For example:
- title structure (default WP needs a SEO title plugin, for example)
- the use of hx tags (images or not, whether h1 is used as page title)
- top, secondary and internal navigation (text or not)

all depend on the template.

Another great share of SEO comes from your own skills on how you build your website and structure and internlink your pages.

CMSs are just an easy way to make sure everything is right, though. They create links from other structurally-related pages that you otherwise would have to create yourself (a painful job in itself).

My preferred CMS is Drupal, but not because of SEO (you'll still need install a couple of modules, tweak robots.txt and find a good theme), but because is allows me to build any site I want without heavy-duty PHP skills.

[Autocrat]

Going to disagree a little there.

I'm yet to see a CMS that comes with NorFollow options for links.
I've yet to see one that automatically builds an XML sitemap, and gives you the option to include/exclude pages/content from that file/page.
I've never seen one that comes with noindex, nofollow, noydir etc. for a robots tag.
I've only seen a few that come with "user friendly" urls out of the box (alot require additional modules/plugins/code).

In short, from what I've seen/used, a lot of the "little basics" don't come with CMS's... you either have to get a plugin/module for them (sometimes more than one!), or make them yourself.

To my mind, the better CMS/F's have natural functions that let you do that sort of thing for yourself, with ease.
(Obviously not just for SEO.) You are not reliant on someone else building a little module/plugin to do it... you have the power to do it yourself, in a matter of minute... and if/when things change, you can simlpy go and alter things a little by yourself.


I agree that the there is alot of on-site/on-page stuff that can be done in the tempaltes... but again, I've seen quite a few systems that require you to learn php or asp to really get the best out of them (I've seen some where the Title and the Content are seperate files, others where you have to have numerous if/else statements as a single file is used for all content - very confusing).
So again, different CMS'F handle it different ways, and I believe some are better than others.


At the end of the day, you have to decide what you want to build, and whether you have the skills to force a CMS to do what you want (be it SEO or a unusual content type, adding in AJAX/JSON functionality ontop of standard behaviours etc.
The more open and flexible the CMS, the better to my mind - though I do understand the logic behind using something less powerful for bbasic sites (such as using a CMS for a 10 page site - okay, you could simply use 10 static files and some JS calls to load in an editor like tinymCE or FCKEditor). But to my mind, it means as and wehen the client wants more, it's there, at the click of a button (so to speak)... no need to faff around hunting for new modules, or having to spend a week or too coding something new.


Flexibility, power, ease of use and ease of implementation.
THose, to my mind, are the marks of a good CMS/F.

[A.N.Onym]

Eh, I did say "a well developed CMS". There are only a few of them (maybe the top CMSs of 2007/2008). I have had Drupal in my mind all the way, while writing the post, too.

I doubt any CMS comes with all the built in plugins you need. You need to actively seek plugins/modules that will help you get what you want. I haven't researched the Drupal modules specifically for nofollow, but I suspect there is one. Or it can be easily developed for a reasonable sum of money by a professional [Drupal] developer.

As usual, if you need something specific and the CMS doesn't provide it, well, you then really need to hire someone. That's what happens everytime you innovate, anyway, so there's nothing so unexpected about it.

This post has been edited by A.N.Onym: Apr 3 2008, 06:21 AM

[saschaeh]

Well i dont use open source CMS i generally just build my own. So i was asking from that perspective.

What things should we include when building our own CMS for SEO?
Or for those on Open Source CMS - what modules to build in from the outset.

Little tips that I picked up - things like that.

[A.N.Onym]

There are plenty of things, really. Even if we divide things to do for designers, visitors and publishers, there will be still plenty to implement in each category.

For me, the main things are:
- ease of use and expansion
- speed and scalability
- plenty of little things that make a site owner and visitors happy

Without the first two points, starting from the little things seems inefficient to me.

If you want to note the little things, just create a site on your CMS and start working on it. I am sure as your CMS grows, people will tell you what they need most.

Or you can check the list of modules for Drupal 6.0 right now (will have to register to be able to filter). Only the important ones have been ported to the new version. If there are plenty, wait for Drupal 7.0 and do the same

This post has been edited by A.N.Onym: Apr 3 2008, 09:19 PM

[Autocrat]

Well, for SEO specifically, jsut run through the list of things you can alter that (may) make a difference.

The obvious/start ones would be;
Friendly URL (to get the Keywords in)
<title> (again the KWs)
Page Title (H1?)

From there, you may get things like;
M-Keywords
M-Description (you may want to beable to add multiple descriptions)
Meta Robots (Index/Follow etc.)
XML Sitemap (tick for yes etc.)
Meta-Date (last editred/created etc. Can be used in the XML SM and on the page copy)
XML SM Priority (Doesn't seem to do much, but may be worth including)
Visitor Sitemap inclussion

Plus, if you have "list/sumamry" pages, do you combine the keywords and permit such pages to be indexed?
(for example, a category page for handbags... do you permit the SE's to index that page... and if so... do you use the Keywords and Descripton for that page, or do you pull in the keywords and descriptions for the items and put them in the category page?)


Then there are numerous "prefences" that you may want to cater for...
Do you automatically add the "page Title" in the <title>... or use a seperate input?
If you do, does it go at the beginning or what?
Do you include the SiteName in the <title> or not bother?
Do you check the Page options whilst the menu is created (it is dynamic?) and nofollwo the links to noindex pages?
Do you permit them to select certain bots to block and others to permit, or do it accross the board?


You could include several little scripts that will parse through the page and show keyword density for numerous single/double/triple etc word strings (alternatively, provide links to some of the more useful sites that perform those tasks so they can easily check the contents themselves)?
Same sort of thing for Links to the page/site... you could include a script, or link to a pagethat will check for them etc.


Plus there is always the question of "just how much do you give them"?
I know it's a harsh question... but if you are using a "stock" CMS, and you decide to do a few budget jobs... do you give them the full value... or cut back a little?
If so, how will you do it?
Can you easily turn off those extra options?


Additional thoughts would be to include a "how to link to this page" bit of code...
And you can supply the exact words you want people to use to link to the page?


Lots you "could" do... but only you can decide if you want to.