There will be occasions when you would need to make changes to the website to suit the business needs and do it very quickly. The only way is to do it by yourself without depending on web developers for which you have to build your website on a suitable Content Management System (CMS). A CMS enables you to be on your own in supporting the website needs for business. It enables you to monitor and control a marketing campaign to make it more efficient. Most importantly, it supports SEO by allowing automated compliance with the best practices for conducting business online. Therefore, powering your website with a CMS and a database at the backend is a fundamental requirement today.
Despite knowing that the CMS must be SEO friendly, you should also know what parameters to look for in the CMS. Read on to find out about the ideal features that any CMS should have to support affordable SEO packages.
Support for on-page SEO
On-page optimization features are one of the principal characteristics of a CMS that determine SEO-friendliness. It helps search engines index content and takes into consideration not only the visible text but also whatever remains concealed in the programming codes and provides the ability to control text. The control extends from the Meta information to navigation text and includes the on-page text too.
- Meta Information – Title tags are most important to search engines, and for enhancing search engine friendliness your CMS should limit the number of characters in title tags. A similar limit in character used for meta description makes your SEO efforts more fruitful. Placing keywords in the content is an essential requirement, and the CMS should facilitate its indexing.
- Navigation text–The main and sub navigation text is usually built on HTML, and the CMS should support updating the content. Besides having a sitemap to facilitate navigation, provision for customizing the text for each page of the map is necessary.
- On page text – The CMS should allow creating friendly URLs by exercising control on the content and must have the feature of building breadcrumbs automatically. The ability to add ALT tags to images help search engines understand image better, and the CMS should allow for ALT tags.
Technical SEO
Your CMS needs to be able to handle the technical parts of SEO. Even if you get noticed by search engines, your site needs to be optimized correctly.
Website optimization
From facilitating site search to controlling duplicate content and from supporting the page speed, compression and rich schemata data to XML sitemaps facilitation, the CMS must do it all very well.
The CMS should have an integrated site search that acts fast so that users get an excellent experience. Guiding search engines in archiving category or sections that have similar content is the task of CMS so that search engines do not consider these as duplicate content. The CMS design should be smart and sleek with well-written codes that can load fast so that it supports the page to maintain its high speed necessary for earning high ranks in search results. It should also support image optimization.
Ability to optimize codes by compressing it for facilitating speedy page loading is a feature that the CMS should have. The CMS should allow the addition of coding to the website so that you can display the physical location of the business by showing its coordinates. It is beneficial for local searches.
Above all, the CMS should support you in updating and managing XML sitemaps that behave like a table of contents for search engines.
Website access control
- The CMS should enable you to tell search engines about the content you wish to offer for indexing and content that you want to exclude from indexing.
- It must have the provision for 301 redirects so that viewers automatically reach a new page that you might have created by deleting an old page.
- The CMS must have the feature of updating copyright text annually, and it should allow building tools for checking broken links and provide a report for broken links, both internal and external.
- If the CMS can check W3 compliance that ensures the website displays on all kinds of browsers and operating systems with equal ease and it gives confidence to users about satisfactory viewing.
Social media integration
As search engines are attaching more importance to social signals, the CMS should accommodate social signal buttons on the website that encourage sharing. It should also be capable of including integrated social feeds and even have features for creating events and blog calendars that help to boost the visibility to search engines. The latter helps to impress search engines and viewers with the freshness of content. Support for RSS feeds is another feature that enhances SEO prospects.
User experience
Websites have to be mobile friendly because the maximum number of online searches originate from mobile devices and search engines like websites that display and function well on small screens. Responsive website design ensures that the website looks and performs correctly on the small screens of mobile devices and the CMS should adequately support the layout. Even if you have any dedicated app and sites for mobile devices, it should receive the same kind of support from the CMS.
Analytics
SEO marketers have to depend on data derived from the campaign to understand user behavior, their experience and the outcome of the campaign. You have to use analytical tools like Google Analytics to extract data, collate and analyze it. It would require the addition of codes and tags to use the analytical tools that the CMS should accommodate with ease. You can use data tools for tracking traffic flow and user behavior on the website. Similarly, you can use testing tools and qualitative tools that encourage experimentation and provide insight into the user experience. The CMS should support all.
Before deciding on a CMS, you need to identify and evaluate its SEO-friendly features to judge its suitability for your needs!
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