FLUiD CMS handles most of what is needed for achieving a good search engine ranking (like properly formed HTML code and content stored in a format that Google’s crawlers can access).  But since your Web site is unique there are a few things that you need to do yourself if you want the best rank possible. The following 10 steps will get you started with search engine optimizing your Web site with FLUiD CMS.

Determine your keywords     Try to identify the specific words and phrases that people would use when they search for your Web site or for your product.  Be specific: you want to attract targeted visitors.  There’s some good advice on keyword selection at www.searchenginestrategies.biz/choosingkeywords.htm , and a tool for creating keyword alternatives at http://adwords.google.com/select/.

Enter your keywords     In the FLUiD CMS Workspace, open your Content Files one at a time and select the Options tab in the Editing Pane. Scroll down to the Search Engine Optimization section and enter your keywords in the Meta Keywords field. If possible, the keywords for a Content File should be relevant to that particular File, as opposed to copying the same keywords for each Content File.

Enter the Web Page Title     The title that appears at the top of the browser is very important—it should contain some general keywords about the whole site as well as some keywords that are specific to that Web page.  To add a Web page Title, go to your Design Files and select the General Settings tab.  Enter a general Title with some keywords, and probably your company name, into the Web Page Title Prefix field.  This controls the first part of your Title.  Now go to your individual Content Files and select the Options tab.  Scroll down the Search Engine Optimization section and fill in the Web Page Title field with the second part of the Title, describing that particular Web page.  If you leave this field blank the system will use the Content File name or the Folder name.  For example, the FeedStream Web site’s “Clients” section has the following Web page Title (in the blue bar across the top): The first part, up to the comma, comes from the Design File. The second part, “Clients”, comes from the name of the Clients Folder. You can use a comma, a space, or a hyphen to separate the parts.

The Web Page Title is found in the bar above the browser menu

Write good content     Make sure that the text throughout your Web site is relevant to, and loaded with, your keywords and keyword phrases.  Be careful not to sacrifice readability.

Enter a Description     In the FLUiD CMS workspace, open your Content Files one at a time and select the Options tab in the Editing Pane. Scroll down to the Search Engine Optimization section and enter a summary of the File in the Meta Description field. Again, this description should have your keywords in it.

Work on a good linking strategy     Add new links to other Web sites that are relevant to your Web site, and try to get other relevant sites to link to you.  The search engines assign a popularity ranking to your site, so what you really want is for large Web sites, who are themselves well ranked and who are relevant to your Web page, to link to you.  This means that when you issue a press release make sure that you include a link back to your Web site.  You can see who links to you by going to Google.com and typing in (using our Web site for example) link:www.feedstream.com

Keep your content fresh     Add new images and text frequently, as well as new outbound links.  The search engines, and your visitors, prefer fresh content.

Watch for dead links   FLUiD CMS manages your internal links, but if you’re adding external static links the system cannot control them.  So make sure that the places you are linking to still exist; the crawlers will penalize your site for dead links.

Don’t cheat     There is a temptation to try to jam your site with keywords, or to join link farm Web sites that link to you from hundreds of bogus sites.  Avoid these tricks—the Google crawler will eventually detect them and your site may get excluded as a result.

Double-check your work     You can make sure that everything came out the way you wanted by looking at the Web page Title in your browser, as well as the code behind your FLUiD CMS-created Web pages.  To do this, go to your Web page using Internet Explorer, then from the main menu choose View>Source.  Look for the META tags called ‘keywords’ and ‘description’.

These 10 steps should get you a long way towards a solid Google ranking. For more information on how FLUiD CMS is used for Search Engine Optimization, go to the SEO section of the FeedStream site, at www.feedstream.com/fcontent/resources/whitepapers/fluid_cms_is_seo.asp

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Download this Report

FLUiD CMS Ten Steps to SEO (PDF)

FLUiD CMS Ten Steps to SEO  (DOC)

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