You may have heard about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for some time now. You may have even seen companies selling services that supposedly increase your site's search rankings. It sounds like a black box, or a dark art, but really, SEO involves some very simple practices, that if applied consistently, will help your site show up on search results more often.
When we made WebTree, SEO was never far from our thoughts. That's why one of the features that WebTree has is automatic URL slug creation.
The name itself derives from journalistic jargon related to a story's title. But in the web-world, it relates to a page's title. See, Google and other search engines weight very strongly the words they find in a URL to a page. They figure a link like http://www.awpny.com/pages/contact will very likely point to a Contact page. Since URLs don't change often, it's not easy (or wise) to try to fool search engines with fake link titles.
WebTree automatically creates URL slugs from the Title field in your add content form. It will strip out any non-regular character, and make spaces into dashes. So, with a page with the title of "Descriptive Page Title" will make a page URL that looks like this in WebTree:
http://your-awesome-site.com/content/view/descriptive-page-title.html
Instead of this:
http://your-awesome-site.com/view.php?pageid=7&type=content
Search engines loves those URLs. Users love those URLs.
A few caveats. The first time you save your page, you lock in your Slug. Why is this? Well, if you ever decide to change the page title (which you can still do), you don't want the URL to change too. Search engines hate broken links, users hate broken links, I hate broken links.
This means that before you save your page for the first time, take a minute and think about what you want the page title to convey.
1. Make it descriptive without being wordy. This title also appears in the page title of the web browser, and will get displayed in a search results listing. However, search engines only look at the first few dozen characters in this title, so get to the point.
2. Make it Pop. People will be scanning this title potentially thousands of times a day within search result listings, and you want it to stand out from its neighbors. It should be memorable, and it should make people want to see what this page is all about.
3. Make it Relevant. Try to reinforce some of the keywords used in your page only if they are relevant. If you toss in random words without context search engines will, at minimum, ignore you, and at worst, penalize your site. Don't overload on the keywords though, say each one once.
Slugging and page titles are only one of the many search engine optimizations WebTree does for you. It makes updating your website easy, even fun. It's so easy to enter content and keep your site fresh, you forget that WebTree is working hard underneath the surface, keeping your site in top shape, ready for the spotlight. You can learn more about WebTree™ Content Management System and what it can do for your site. You can also talk to us directly to set up a free demonstration or consultation.