If you weren’t able to attend our recent webinar on CMS (Content Management Systems) and their relation with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you missed an informative session on a hot topic. Hosted by Becki Dilworth and Brian Bolton, we spent an hour drilling into the important issues. For years now, businesses have understood the importance of search engines and how SEO can drive prospects to their websites. But with websites having a shelf life of one to two years, businesses often perform redesigns. Along with redesigns come new web development vendors and new Content Management Systems.

Beware of the CMS SEO black hole

You’ll want to pay close attention to how CMS migrations can affect your SEO. Your website’s content has been instrumental in driving in visitors from search engines. Porting over to a new CMS will undoubtedly improve your internal efficiency and align with business goals, but what is it doing to your rankings?

7 Important CMS takeaways to sustain SEO

We’ve covered a couple important CMS/SEO factors previously, and our webinar expanded on these and more. This is by no means “the list that ends all over lists”…because there never can be one. Search engine algorithms are constantly evolving to return the most relevant results to the users.

1) Editable page titles and metadata

Does your current or new CMS give you control to edit your page titles and meta data? If you do not create custom titles and metadata, will the CMS intelligently populate these based on the page’s content? While meta keywords are extinct, meta descriptions are still important – they appear in search results.

2) SEO-Friendly URL stems

How about URLs? Will the CMS create relevant, sensible URLs? http://acme.com/products/red-oven-mitts is sensible for the user and the search engines. http://acme.com/products/prodID43.aspx?number=PC311456 is not.

3) Web Analytics

Know what search phases are working for you. This helps identify opportunities to drive a higher quality and quantity of traffic.

4) HTML and XML Sitemaps

Sitemaps assist search engines in understanding the depth of your website along with when it’s updated and what sections are most important. HTML sitemaps also assist the engines along with the user as a navigational tool.

5) 301 Permanent Redirect Automation

Definitely one of the most important issues. If your new CMS gives your webpages new URLs, they’ll need to properly redirected to retain search engine ranking “weight”.

6) Editable Page Headings

Certain areas on your webpages are given a bit more weight by engines. One popular area is page headings. Make sure you can edit these.

7) Landing Page creation

Remember why you got a CMS. Create new content based on opportunities identified through analytics.

How did your redesign go?

Did you recently migrate to a new CMS and have SEO issues? What were they? Share a comment below with your experience.