Content Management and Search Engine Optimization

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Conference Brain »If your brain is already full, then look for these: »There will be five of them

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Agenda »Introductions »Search Engine Marketing 101 »The Role of Content Management »Brief Case Study »Resources »Q&A

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 About non-linear creations inc. »Founded in 1995 »NLC is an e-business integrator that delivers online success to our clients »More than 800 completed projects »Offices in Toronto and Ottawa »60 + full-time specialists »Privately held company, profitable & stable TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 What We Do

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Our Clients

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Search Marketing 101

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Questions for the Room »How many of your are engaged in search engine marketing today? »How many people feel comfortable with terms like SEO, SEM, search topography? »Who has a CMS implementation: Being planned? In progress? Recently completed?

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 What is Search Marketing? »What are we talking about here? Getting ‘found’ in the search engines Ensuring your stakeholders find you when they need you Improving your search engine ‘visibility’ »How is this accomplished? Through “Search Engine Marketing”! »SEM, SEO, PPC – aren’t they all the same? Heck, NO! (See right) Definitions SEM: Search Engine Marketing A generic term that encompasses both SEO and PPC. SEO: Search Engine Optimization Optimizing a website for the free (organic) search listings PPC: Pay-Per-Click Buying your way into the sponsored (paid) search listings

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 What Is Search Marketing? pay per click organic results

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 The Role of CMS in Search Engine Optimization

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Search Topography »How do people search? »AOL released data in late 2006: 20,000,000 search queries 650,000 searchers Collected over 3 months »Unfortunately, the data they thought was anonymous, wasn’t.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 The Topography of Search “Health” “Health Care Georgia” “Health Care No Insurance Clemont Georgia leg”   

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Ranking Higher »The $ million question – How do I get Google to rank my page number one? »Factors we believe influence rank: Site-wide factors On-page factors Negative factors Off-site factors

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 The Role of CMS »On-page factors Factors that vary with each page on the site, such as the title of the page. »Site-wide factors Issues that can be addressed for the entire site, such as the creation of a site map. »Negative factors A wide variety of issues can lead to search engines reducing the ranking of a page – these range from unreliable site uptime to the inappropriate use of redirects. »Off-site factors Search engines are increasingly relying on factors such as the number of external sites linking to a page and behaviour of visitors on a given site to determine rankings.

OTTAWA: TORONTO: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 VISIT US AT: Embed These Tactics »There are a lot of factors that influence search engine rankings »Our whitepaper discusses 22 elements » »I’ll talk about five today

OTTAWA: TORONTO: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 VISIT US AT: Title Tags »SEO Best Practice: Unique, keyword rich title tags are single most important on page factor. »CMS Best Practice: Enforce unique title tags Use Major Heading on page as the Title tag Build a plug in that forces author to choose three target terms and adds these to title.

OTTAWA: TORONTO: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 VISIT US AT: Reduce Code Clutter / Validate Code »SEO Best Practices: Reduce code search spider sees Validate XHTML »CMS Best Practice: Move code off page using cascading style sheets (CSS) Enforce CSS based design; prohibit modification of this design If using javascript, ensure code is incorporated into the site as an “include” file rather than in the body of the page Enforce at the template level »Homeland Security Index Page: »US Citizenship and Immigration

OTTAWA: TORONTO: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 VISIT US AT: Use the ALT Attribute »SEO Best Practice: Search engine spiders cannot read images. They can parse and process alt tags (short text description) associated with an image. »CMS Best Practice: Incorporate instructions into the CMS interface Make it mandatory

OTTAWA: TORONTO: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 VISIT US AT: Avoid long, ugly URLs »SEO Best Practice: Avoid multiple parameters in dynamic URLs Use real words in the URL Where appropriate, incorporate targeted search terms »CMS Best Practice: Select a CMS that generates static URLs; or Explore options publishing dynamic pages with static URLs Require authors to create URLs – not the CMS » menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a 7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=02729c7755cb 9010VgnVCM f3d6a1RCRD& vgnextchannel=02729c7755cb9010Vg nVCM f3d6a1RCRDhttp:// menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a 7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=02729c7755cb 9010VgnVCM f3d6a1RCRD& vgnextchannel=02729c7755cb9010Vg nVCM f3d6a1RCRD » forstudents/k-4/home/index.html

OTTAWA: TORONTO: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 VISIT US AT: Automatically Create XML Sitemaps »SEO Best Practice: Sitemaps.org specifies XML structure for search spider friendly maps Publish and update XML map »CMS Best Practice: Select a CMS that automatically generates a Sitemaps.org-compliant search map; or Develop a plug-in or CMS extension to generate the map; or Use Google Mini or GSA Inside the Sitemaps.org Protocol monthly 0.8

OTTAWA: TORONTO: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 VISIT US AT: What to Do, When Before you Select a CMS»Engage SEO expertise when defining RFP requirements »Benchmark current traffic from search engines When You Deploy the CMS»Embed SEO best practices in CMS templates »Incorporate SEO information in author training »Create a 301-redirect strategy for key pages being moved Post CMS Deployment» Monitor policy compliance » Track traffic against benchmarks

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Very Quick Case Study »NLC redeployed an existing site in a content managed environment »Employed many best practices, including those discussed here »Reindexing of content by search engines took one week to six months depending on the engine »Results after one year are clear

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Monthly visits up 700%

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Page Views per Visit up 32%

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Topic Driven Visits Skyrocketed

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Resources / Q&A »Our Guide to SEO and CMS »SEOMOZ.org Search Engine Ranking Factors V2 »Sitemaps Protocol »The NLC Blog Questions? (and, ideally, answers?)

Tuesday, August 18, 2015 Contact Info »There’s always someone who counts the Stars Randy Woods EVP, co-founder