A sophisticated content management system can not only help you update your Web content but also play a key part in actively improving your search engine rankings. Your content management system should have features and functionality that are search-engine friendly. This helps your team make website changes faster and easier, minimizing the risk of human error. Your team can then focus on developing relevant content and providing the best online experience for users. In this whitepaper we will discuss: -SEO friendly features -RIA and SEO -Response Compression -Use of AJAX and Flash -Implementation pitfalls To download the complete white paper please visit: http://www.oshyn.com/landingpages/seo-best-practices-within-a-content-management-system

1. Content Management
Systems Deliver SEO
June, 2009
Authors: Glenn Korban, Director of Technology
Ken Hofeling, Senior Consultant
A sophisticated content management system can not only help
you update your Web content but also play a key part in actively
improving your search engine rankings. Your content
management system should have features and functionality that
are search-engine friendly. This helps your team make website
changes faster and easier, minimizing the risk of human error.
Your team can then focus on developing relevant content and
providing the best online experience for users.

2. Content Management
Systems Deliver SEO
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 4
1.0 Content Management Systems deliver SEO 5
2.0 SEO-Friendly Features of CMS 6
2.1 Ease of Site Updates 6
2.2 Publish Sitemaps and Robots.txt Files 6
2.2.1 Sitemaps 6
2.2.2 Robots.txt files 6
2.3 Content Manage Keywords and Page Titles 7
2.4 Link Management 7
2.5 Publish Multiple Versions of Content 8
2.6 Use Workflows to Moderate User-generated Content 8
2.7 Efficient Information Architecture changes 10
2.8 Response Compression 10
3.0 RIA and SEO: Bridging the Gap 12
3.1 AJAX 12
3.1.1 Challenge 12
3.1.2 Solution 12
3.1.3 How can your CMS help? 13
3.2 Flash 13
3.2.1 Challenge 13
3.2.2 Solution 13
3.2.3 How can your CMS help? 14
4.0 Implement Your CMS Carefully: SEO Pitfalls to Watch For 15
4.1 Pitfall: Creation of duplicate content 15
4.1.1 Solution 15

3. 4.2 Pitfall: Long, parameter-filled URLs 16
4.2.1 Solution 16
4.3 Pitfall: Out of control code 16
4.3.1 Solution 16
5.0 Conclusions 17
About Oshyn 18
About Glenn Korban 18
About Ken Hofeling 18

4. Executive Summary
Technology and business needs change quickly, and your website must adapt
quickly to incorporate these changes. This can seem overwhelming, as you
don’t want to overhaul your site each time a new technological requirement is
released or each time your corporate strategy changes.
A sophisticated content management system can not only help you update
your Web content but also play a key part in actively improving your search
engine rankings. Your content management system should have features and
functionality that are search-engine friendly. This helps your team make
website changes faster and easier, minimizing the risk of human error. Your
team can then focus on developing relevant content and providing the best
online experience for users.
However, buyers must beware of common pitfalls when reviewing different
content management systems. Some content management systems can
actually produce more problems for SEO such as duplicate content, long
URLs, and non-compliant code.
This whitepaper details the SEO-friendly features that a content management
system should possess, how content management systems can work with
emerging Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), and how to avoid the pitfalls of
some content management systems.
Search engine optimization is a critical component in a strong web presence
and deploying the right content management system can make SEO a
competitive advantage for your company.

5. 1.0 Content Management Systems deliver SEO
In recent years, placement in search results has skyrocketed to be one of the
top priorities for Web site owners. The term Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
has emerged as the industry of managing site content and presentation to
maximize search result placement. More recently, the emergence of Rich
Internet Applications (RIAs) has created a new set of challenges for both
search engines indexing the Web and for Web authors who want their site to
be highly ranked in search results.
Fortunately for Web authors, using a Content Management Systems (CMS)
can greatly enhance a site’s SEO by providing simple solutions to both
traditional and RIA challenges. In fact, many of the same features that make a
CMS so compelling in the first place are the same features that help simplify
SEO.
We’ll explore how a smart implementation of your CMS and the ongoing use of
its powerful features can help maximize search placement and resolve RIA
challenges.

6. 2.0 SEO-Friendly Features of CMS
The same types of automated features used to effectively publish and maintain
your site can be leveraged to help your SEO efforts:
publishing sitemaps and robots.txt files
managing keywords, page titles and links
moderating user generated content
publishing multiple versions of content
managing information architecture and
quickly and efficiently updating your site
2.1 Ease of Site Updates
Search engines absolutely love seasoned sites that are updated frequently.
This shows that the website is a vibrant, contributing member of the Web
community and is consequently ranked higher than sites that have stale
content.
The major selling point of Content Management Systems is that they enable
frequent site updates while avoiding the IT bottleneck. This is a win-win
situation for all parties. Content providers have an easy-to-use tool for quick
updates, and IT staff can focus on other higher priority projects instead of
making site updates. The ease of updating your site is truly the foundation for
using the CMS to run a successful SEO program.
2.2 Publish Sitemaps and Robots.txt Files
2.2.1 Sitemaps
Having a sitemap published for your site is critical to getting your site read by
the search engines. A comprehensive sitemap ensures that search engine
spiders can find and index each page on the site by following a single link.
Best practices suggest restricting the number of links on any one page to
fewer than 100. This may require the creation of a series of hierarchical
sitemaps to provide spiders with quick access to all site content.
To make this process easier, many CMS packages have integrated tools to
publish and maintain sitemaps accurately and efficiently.
2.2.2 Robots.txt files
Robots.txt files are designed to block the path to parts of your site you do not
want the spiders to crawl and to communicate with the search engines that
you’re not deliberately delivering redundant content. A common application for
a robots.txt file is if your site has the need for a lot of Flash and Web 2.0
functionality that the search engines do not like. Using a robots.txt file makes it
possible to create both a Flash version and an HTML version of your site while
not violating the redundant content rule with the search engines. The