Search Engine Marketing

What should I look for in a content management system?

A content management system enables the site owner or administrator to modify the content of individual web pages, and also add new content with the minimum of effort. A good CMS removes the need for any technical knowledge of web coding and enables a site owner to keep the website growing and fresh with new content.


When considering a content management system, there are many factors to consider, but from an SEO viewpoint, we advise you to look for two primary features:


1.    The creation of web-friendly URLS

2.    The ability to have unique metadata on every page


Regarding the first, content management systems name pages as they are created in the system, and automate the navigation of the site to be able to access these pages online. Some do this by using only numerical references, so the new page may be called 324.php for example, which is not a good name in terms of search engine visibility. To illustrate, when linking to that page the full URL may be www.examplesite.com/articles/article.php?item=324. In order for the URLs to be search engine friendly, the system needs to create distinct pages that exist on the server (i.e. not simply content loaded into a page from a database) and called something meaningful. For example: www.examplesite.com/articles/content-management-systems.php


Regarding the second, a good content management system will give you the option to have unique metadata for each page. If the CMS locks the metadata down to be the same for every single page on the site, this will have a detrimental impact on its long term performance, and remove one of the major benefits that adding new detailed pages of content can provide.

Tags: metadata CMS URL