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05.18.09 Achieving Individualization Of Blog Content Pages  By Ben Kemp 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 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 are; 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, its the single most important on-site page SEO element! Page Headings are usually space-constrained, and in systems where the Heading automatically become 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, its used verbatim in the search engine results pages (SERPs). 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 ca neither 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! Continue reading this article. About the Author: Ben Kemp is the author of "The SEO Guy's Blog" : SEO comments, hints on successful web site design for effective search engine optimisation. Plus, life as a Road Warrior... living in The Land of Smiles! How it feels to be an alien, living in Thailand, immersed in a new culture and language. |
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