You’ve spent a lot of resources designing and building your website so that it offers your visitors an exceptional online experience that provides unique and valuable content. Now, how do you maximize the reach of that content through SEO? Are you doing everything you can to optimize your content?
The answer lies within your search engine optimization (SEO) approach. The Sitecore CMS offers functionality that helps make your site content more visible to search engines if employed correctly. While many of these features must be customized and implemented by a professional engineer, they can significantly improve the overall performance of your website. Here are six ways to optimize your content using Sitecore:
Don’t Bury Important Content within Your Hierarchy
As search engine spiders crawl your website, they crawl your content hierarchy (or Information Architecture), which is outlined in Sitecore’s content tree. The deeper content lies from your homepage means more clicks for your users and the more difficult it is for search engine bots to find, both of which most often enter through the homepage. Bring priority content front and center by linking it from the homepage or top-level sections through call-outs or other editable areas within the main areas of the site. If you need to keep important content in a deeper level, consider using the “URL Aliasing” functionality in Sitecore to shorten the URL. For example, you can alias the URL as www.domain.com/deepercontent.aspx while still keeping your content item in the deeper level. Limiting the directory paths in the URL strong help maintain a clean, keyword-targeted URL for SEO.
Implement an XML Sitemap
An XML Sitemap allows you to prioritize the pages of your website and ensure they are spidered. Sitecore can automatically create an updated version of your Sitemap, which will allow search engine robots to find the new content on your website.
Use Custom Redirect Modules
If you make changes to your website (e.g. delete, alias, or move a page), then 301/302 redirects should be implemented in order to prevent users and search engines from reaching a broken page and instead point them to the correct location. Also, the 301 permanent redirect prompts search engine algorithms to pass all external link credibility, so nine out of ten times, a 301 should be used. Redirect pages right from Sitecore using a custom redirect module.
Enable Search Engine Robots
Use the “Robots” field typically found in the “Tagging” section of Sitecore to enable the search engine robots if you want them to find relevant content on your website. When you want search engines to index a page and follow the links, then simply choose “INDEX-FOLLOW.” If you don’t want search engines to index or follow the links, then choose “NOINDEX-NOFOLLOW.”
Choose Specific Meta Tags
In the “Tagging” section of Sitecore, you will also find the Meta Keywords and Meta description fields. Include the page’s target keyword phrase in your Meta Description and list out relevant keyword phrases in the Meta Keywords field. Typically, the page title will be inserted as the Meta Title, so it’s important to incorporate the page’s primary keyword phrase a the beginning of the title. You can use the Google Keyword Tool to research target keyword phrases. Keep the keywords consistent throughout the Meta tags, content, titles and headings for the best results.
Leverage the OMS
The Sitecore Online Marketing Suite (OMS) provides users with advanced online marketing capabilities such as web analytics that can measure content performance. Marketers are able to send personalized content to users through the OMS based on their browsing behavior, which will add to their user experience and increase the likelihood that they link to the site in the end. Having all of this functionality in one place is an incredible asset to many organizations – saving time and money.
Maximizing Visibility
Staying competitive online is crucial if you want prospective customers to find your website. Leveraging Sitecore’s features and functionality for your on-site SEO efforts puts you ahead of most of the competition right away. If you have any questions regarding these SEO tactics, don’t hesitate to contact one of our SEO consultants.