Seo and-web-content-management-gilbane-ecm-conference-2009-full

Gilbane Conference 2009San Francisco

Gilbane Conference 2009San Francisco

Page 1 of 57 6/4/2009http://www.oshyn.com

San Francisco

Optimizing Your SEO Within Your Web Content

Management Strategy

San Francisco

Optimizing Your SEO Within Your Web Content

Management Strategy

June 3, 2009

Christian Burne

Gaurav Bhatt

June 3, 2009

Christian Burne

Gaurav Bhatt

Agenda

� About Oshyn

� SEO Basics

� What is making SEO difficult?

� SEO / SMO Do’s and Don’ts

� How can CMS help?

Page 2 of 57 6/4/2009http://www.oshyn.com [email protected]

� Web 2.0 considerations

� SEO Pitfalls, Keys to Success, Implementation Gameplan

� Conclusions

Oshyn is an Enterprise Technology Agency

We’ve earned our reputation by helping some of the

world's most recognizable brands realize theirbusiness goals through the creation and delivery of

innovative business solutions for the web, mobiledevices and enterprise technology platforms.

• Enterprise Technology Experts

About Oshyn


• Enterprise Technology Experts

• Incorporated in 2001

• Offices in Los Angeles, Baltimore and Quito

• Staff of 75+ full time people

• 100% growth year over year

Agenda

� About Oshyn

� SEO Basics







� Conclusions

Basics

� What is SEO

� Why is SEO important?

� What is CMS?

� How do Search Engines work?


Basics – What is SEO?

� Process of optimizing a web site to improve the volume and

quality of traffic to the site

� Factors how search engines work and what people search for

� An art and a science


� A key component of any internet marketing campaign

Basics – Why is it Important?

� Essential to achieving the best possible site ranking

� Drives traffic to your site

� More traffic = more revenue

� Maximize ROI for Web projects


Basics – What is a CMS?

An application that allows a non-technical individual to create, edit,

manage and publish content to the web in an organized manner

Content management systems help businesses to:

� Reduce time-to-market for new content

� Minimize the cost of site management and maintenance


� Minimize the cost of site management and maintenance

� Optimize sites for search engines

Basics – How do search engines work?












Agenda

� About Oshyn

� SEO Basics







� Conclusions

What is making SEO difficult?

• Search algorithms are a black box

• Frequent changes in Search algorithms make them

unpredictable

• Too much competition for commonly used keywords

• More and more websites with quality content and authority

• Inclusion of Social Media aspect to SEO makes it more

competitive


competitive

• Ever expanding webiverse is making it difficult to optimize

number of inbound links

• Embedding links to your site from unwanted site

• UGC and Social Media can affect keyword density on a page,

thereby affecting SEO

Agenda

� About Oshyn

� SEO Basics







� Conclusions

SEO Do’s

Do’s

� Titles, Keywords & Descriptions

� Manage Link Backs

� Thoughtful URLs (Friendly URLs)� Publish to a Flat directory

� Optimize Information Architecture� Sitemaps and Robots.txt

Do’s

� Site “Freshness”

� 301 Redirect for content URL

changes� Clean, Standards Compliant Code

� Accessibility Compliance� Progressive Enhancement for RIA


� Sitemaps and Robots.txt

� Create Web 2.0 Alternatives

� Enforce Short URLs (max 5 words per URL)

� Dashes are better than underscores (word1-word2)

� Use descriptive Anchor text within

content� Use <h1> <h2> tags often

� Progressive Enhancement for RIA features

� Locate Server geographically “close” to spider

� Use subdomains for Microsites� Request and Response

Compression� Use “nofollow” for links posted by

UGC� Run Link checker tools to ensure

no unwanted sites link back to your site

SEO Don’ts

Don’ts

� Home page redirects

� Keyword Gimmicks

� Broken Links

� JavaScript Navigation

� Duplicate Content

Don’ts

� Cloaking

� Cluttered URLs

� Use Splash Pages

� Have bad words on your site

� Duplicate Titles


� Duplicate Content� Generalize Meta information

� Duplicate Titles

� Session variables in the URL

SEO Value added activities

� Pay for link backs

� Directories – Yahoo and Google categories

� RSS Feeds

� Social Bookmarking on sites like Digg, Reddit, Twitter,

Facebook, del.icio.us, Stumble Upon, propeller, Google

groups, Yahoo groups, myspace.com, Yahoo buzz.


groups, Yahoo groups, myspace.com, Yahoo buzz.

How does Social Media affect SEO

** Inbound links are a major component of site ranking

Positive Factors

• Can help spread the brand name

• Reaching out to more customers means better chances for two-way conversion

• Can result in substantial number of quality, relevant inbound links


• Can result in substantial number of quality, relevant inbound links• Can help figure out relevant keywords that help attract new customers

Negative factors:• Beware of the number of shortened URLs that you and others use. It

might undermine anchor text benefit of a link• Negative comments posted on popular sites can hamper SEO efforts

** Know when they “nofollow” or not. Choose the right Social Bookmarking sites to facilitate.

*** Use Link Checker tools from major search engines to monitor who is linking to your site

Agenda

� About Oshyn

� SEO Basics







� Conclusions

How can CMS help?

� Titles, Keywords & Descriptions� Make them required, put them through workflow

� Manage sitemap.xml & robots.txt� Automated

� Site Freshness� Reminders for Editors, Auto and scheduled deployment of content

� Templating


� Templating� Good IA

� Enforce W3C compliant HTML code via templates

� Accessibility compliance

� Link Management� URL Aliasing and good URL structure� Broken Links

� Localization & Duplication

� Moderated UGC

� Response Compression

How can CMS help? – Titles, Keywords & Descriptions

� Make these fields mandatory

� Auto-generate to include prefix or suffix

� Help you repeat parts or all of keywords and descriptions

� Ability to enforce using unique meta information for each page

� Manage a more structured taxonomy of keywords

� Fields can be required and secured


� Field length can be enforced (85 chars is max recommended best

practice for Page title)


How can CMS help? – Sitemap.xml & Robots.txt

� Automatically generate these files

� Ensure there are no duplicates

� Identify page priorities and update info


How can CMS help? – Site Freshness

� Reduce time-to-market for content

� Easier updates enables frequent updates

� Put editing power in the hands of users

� Publish on demand

� Manage real-time alerts

� Use Feeds and dynamic applications to automate site


� Use Feeds and dynamic applications to automate site

freshness

How can CMS help? – Good IA & Templating

� Page IA easily changed using templating

� Managed navigation hierarchy

� Templating enforces page design and enforces good HTML

structure

� Code optimization can be done in one place to reduce code

clutter


clutter

How can CMS help? – Accessibility

� Can make “alt” attributes required or can use the filename if user

doesn’t provide

� Can ensure compliance with HTML or XHTML standards by providing

tools as part of workflow

� Template-based presentation enables unobtrusive scripting

techniques

� Can facilitate progressive enhancement by reusing the same content


� Can facilitate progressive enhancement by reusing the same content

in alternate view

How can CMS help?

Enforce W3C Compliant Code

� Prohibit content editors to make direct changes to HTML code

� Validate templates and code changes prior to deployment

� Some CMS solutions have Compliance Management Tools

that ensures compliance before content goes live


Link Management� Automatically report broken links

� Report on which pages have most “internal” links so you can

maximize important pages

� No redirect links required which reduce SE Ranking

� Redirect links CAN be done to maintain old URLs

How can CMS help? – Good URL structure

� Allow user to create FriendlyURL that is not tied to file system

structures

� Allow keywords to be put in the URL structure

� Folder structure can be very flat and customized

� No session IDs or other Query String in the URL

� Can easily change over time


� Can easily change over time

� Use the “Grandmother Test”

How can CMS help? – Good URL structure

priority


priority

How can CMS help? –Localization & Duplication

� Tells you where the content is used to make sure it’s not duplicated

� Allows you to manage multiple locales correctly to optimize SE

ranking� Manage from the US and publish to UK and Spain for local spidering


How can CMS help? – Moderated UGC


How can CMS help? – Moderated UGC

� CMS can enable user generated content: Forums, Wikis,

Blogs, etc.

� Use the CMS Workflow to moderate and make sure

� Proper titles, keywords and descriptions are there

� Offensive content is blocked or censored

� CMS can enable social bookmarking and embedding for UGC


� CMS can enable social bookmarking and embedding for UGC� Make sure you run Link checker tools frequently to ensure no

unwanted sites are linking back to you

� Look for CMS that has UGC tools embedded in it OR find a

UGC platform that allows you to moderate content

How can CMS help? – Response Compression

� Centrally manage response compression


Agenda

� About Oshyn

� SEO Basics







� Conclusions

Web 2.0 Considerations

� AJAX

� Flash

� Silverlight

� JavaScript

� 3rd Party Plugins


RIA/Web 2.0 Considerations

Problem Solution

Flash & Silverlight �Flash is not indexed by most search engines�Content from external files not part of page

�Use progressive enhancement

AJAX & JavaScript �Dynamically loaded content is not indexed �Progressive Enhancement


AJAX & JavaScript �Dynamically loaded content is not indexed �Progressive Enhancement�Replace link URLs with dynamic actions after load

3rd Party Plugins Tools like: Blogger, WordPress, YouTube, Digg, Reddit�Can be links to outsourced sites�Can be DHTML iFrames�Not much control over the HTML they output

�Use with caution�Make sure that content isn’t IMPORTANT to your SEO

Agenda

� About Oshyn

� SEO Basics







� Conclusions

SEO Pitfalls with a CMS

� URLs can sometimes can be long and contain query strings

� Duplication of content can be bad

� Repurposing code can sometimes cause cluttered HTML

� Allowing multiple editors to enter content on different parts of a single

page makes it more difficult to optimize for SEO

� Make sure there is step in the workflow to review content by an SEO

expert


expert� Proper Title, Meta-Keywords and Description

� For keyword density in the content� Opportunities to drive links to your content

Keys to Success

� Be Intentional� Know going in that it is important and get buyoff from stakeholders

� Know how to define success� How will success be measured: Additional Traffic? Click-throughs? Purchases?

� Have a Strategy (BEFORE you build)� It impacts your Visual Design, IA, Content Development, Templating, Business

Rules


Rules

� Get an Expert� Either hire one or have someone research

� Know the tactics

� Bring together� Business Decision Makers� SEO Strategist

� SMO Strategist� Technology / Developers

� Analytic Providers

SEO/SMO

Biz Decision Makers

SEO Strategist

SMO Strategist

Tech/Dev

Analytics &

Reports

When To Think About SEO

Development

URL Structure

Tools for Editors

W3C/Accessibility Compliant Templates

Wait for SEs to index

Measure Success


Content Editing/Creation

Content Loading

Strategy Design Testing Launch

Define Success Criteria

Keyword Strategy

SMO Strategy Keyword Dense Content

No “Don’ts” in content

Does it Work

Functionally?

Agenda

� About Oshyn

� SEO Basics







� Conclusions

Conclusions

� SEO is critically important for some businesses

� There are simple and complex things that can be done

� A CMS can give you many more tools and capabilities to boost your

site’s Search Engine Rankings and increase your bottom line


Wrap-up / Questions ?Wrap-up / Questions ?

Page 46 of 57 6/4/2009http://www.oshyn.com

Christian BurneChristian Burne [email protected]@oshyn.com

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