• Being 'search engine friendly' is all about ensuring your site is built in such a way as to make it attractive to search engines like Google.
• A URL is an address for a website and includes the domain name and everything that follows. An example of a search engine friendly URL is: http://www.thewebshowroom.com.au/blog.

As you move through a website (as a user) you are sending information back to the server about what it is that you want to see with each click you perform. This is often done by calling up a new URL. Traditionally, on websites that are database driven, the URL contains a series of characters and numbers that make no sense to the user but a lot of sense to the computer powering the website. An example of this sort of URL might be: http://www.domainaname.com/index.php?pageID=1234&SIF=abcd. This is considered a search engine unfriendly URL.

Pages with complex URLs (such as the one above) may not be indexed in search engines as effectively as pages with simple URLs like http://www.domainaname.com/welcome-to-my-site.

An equally concerning issue is the lost opportunity for your search engine ranking if your site uses the non search engine friendly URLs. When Google visits a page they weigh up a lot of factors when first determining what the page is really about and secondly how heavily they will weight it in their search results. One of the factors they assess is based on the actual words used in the URL. This includes the domain name as well as everything that follows. Search engine friendly URLs give you a great opportunity to get your keywords right in front of Google and hopefully positively impact on your ranking.

Any quality content management system (like The Web Showroom) will allow you to create search engine friendly URLs. Click around our site some more and you will see that all our URLs contain keywords rather than random letters and numbers. All our client sites enjoy this same functionality. Make sure any website development company you are considering using can do the same.

It is simply vital in these days of increasing competition that your website runs on an SEO friendly CMS. A CMS with SEO friendly features will empower you to control the content of your website, and do so in a way that is preferred by search engines like Google and Yahoo. The fact that you found this page so high on your favourite search engine proves that our SEO friendly CMS works, and also that interested users will find your website if you create rich content on an SEO Friendly CMS!

Here at The Web Showroom we have built what we believe to be one of the most SEO Friendly CMS products available on the market. Best yet, it has been developed from the ground up to assist Australian businesses take control of their search engine rankings.

SEO Friendly Features

Here are some key features that illustrate why our CMS is so SEO Friendly:

Search Engine Friendly URL's

• Keywords can be placed into the URL of each page on your website. 

Header Tags

• You can easily designate heading levels. Google pays particular attention to these. 

Individual Page Titles

• This is likely the number one thing you can do to rank well in Google.

Internal Linking

• Easily link your keyword rich pages to each other. Google loves this!

Meta Description and Keywords Per Page

• You control the meta descriptions and keywords on each page. 

Search Engine Friendly Navigation

• We don't rely on flash or 100% JavaScript navigation allowing your secondary pages to be found easily.

Alt Tags on Images

• This allows search engines to read the images on your website.

Ongoing Audits

• Google regularly changes the way it ranks websites. We will ensure your website remains Google friendly.

Site Map (Visitors)

• We create a site map for humans to read which adds to the search engine friendliness of your website navigation.

Flash Minimisation

• Our designers are skilled in using Flash. However we don't let it erode your overall search engine friendliness.

Site Map (XML)

• All of our sites include a Google friendly XML site map. This allows Google to know when you have updated your pages and content.

Content Updates

• Keep your content fresh and search engine friendly using our CMS.

Search Engine Submission

• By default, your website is submitted to Google, Yahoo! and other important search engines. 

SEO Relationships

• Our close relationship with the leading minds in the Australian search engine industry keeps us up to date. 

E-commerce Feed to Google

• If you use our E-commerce system all of your products are automatically updated and sent to Google via an XML feed. 

Business Blogging with RSS

• Using RSS you can syndicate your content effortlessly throughout the internet.

Do you want an SEO Friendly CMS?

If you want to have an obligation free chat about how The Web Showroom could assist you with an SEO Friendly CMS we would love to hear from you. Leave your details on this page or give us a call on 1800 981 442.

Every website has a mission. Something it needs to achieve above all else. Even if your website mission is not formally understood, or often discussed, it still exists. Generally, your website mission is the measure by which you will decide whether your website is a success or a failure.

What do I mean by a website mission? Well, let's say you run a service based business and you have already built a website or are planning to do so. There will be something you intend it to achieve for your business. Chances are your website mission is to "produce qualified leads for my business".

A website mission can be anything, but for most Australian businesses it will fall into one of the following categories:

• Generating leads
• Generating online sales (i.e. making sales from the website itself
• Generating offline sales (i.e. generating sales that are completed offline)
• Providing customer service
• Building reputation / trust
• Distributing information

This is not an exhaustive list - but you get the picture. Your website mission might even include more than one of these items. Seems pretty obvious right? But why is this important to you? And how can you use this concept to your advantage?

You should only include items on your website that will increase the chance of you fulfilling your mission. Even more importantly you must stay away from those items that will actively work against you.

For example, let's say you are building a website where the mission is to distribute information to a group of busy professionals. Your developer comes up with a breathtaking flash movie people will view before they reach your homepage. It will make you look really cool and may impress some of your more artistic users. However, you have to ask, will it assist people in getting the information they are coming to your site for? Most likely it will not. Will it frustrate some people when using your site? I should think so. What should you say to your enthusiastic developer? Not for me thanks.

It is never too late to develop a website mission. If you already have a website I urge you to spend some time thinking about how your website can best serve your business. With this information in hand you should review your website and analyse each and every feature, function and design element. Which of these are working for you? Which are simply filling space? Which are actively working against you? What sort of results is your website delivering to your business? Is it as successful as you need it to be? If not where could it be more closely aligned with its mission? Is there something missing from your website?

What is your website mission? What has helped you to achieve it? What has stopped you? Are you, and everyone else working on your website, on the same page - are you even reading from the same book?

• Tennis Camps
• Tennis Lessons
• Tennis Coaches
• Tennis Court Hire
• Tennis Equipment

If you were to lump all of these areas onto one page you would be diluting the search engine effectiveness for all of the terms. Gone are the days of a 1 page "brochureware" website to cover your entire business. Using the tennis example you would create dedicated pages that carried exclusive content on each page for the keyword being targeted on that page. For example on the ‘Tennis Lessons' page you would use all of the tips covered throughout the rest of this section to create a page with a high ratio of the words ‘tennis lessons' appearing on it. Do not sell yourself short; take the time to create individual pages with relevant content for your important keywords. Users will be rewarded with more relevant content and will be more likely to contact you.

Google Organic are the results that Google returns based on what it deems the most relevant websites for a given search term. There are 10 organic returns on each page of a search return and they appear on the left hand side of the page, possibly underneath a ‘Sponsored Links' box. For your website to appear in this space you will first have to be indexed by Google. You can submit your website to Google via the Submit your site page or wait for Google to follow a link to your website from an already indexed website. All new customers of The Web Showroom will have had their website submitted to Google for inclusion in this area. The way Google ranks websites on a given search term is a complex mystery and relates to an algorithm that Google is constantly adapting to keep up with changes in internet technology. You should be patient as it can take weeks before your website is listed in Google and months before it starts to appear on specific keywords. This newsletter regularly covers techniques that you can do to improve your rankings in this space.

The second and less mystifying way to appear on the first page of Google is via the pay-per click (PPC) program called Google AdWords. This is an advertising program that Google operates whereby advertisers are able to pay to have small ads relating to their website appear on certain search queries. These ads appear in a small box above the organic listings and also down the right hand side of a Google results page. The way websites are ranked in this space is based on an algorithm of how much an advertiser is willing to pay per click and how often Google users actually click on an advertisers ad. This is Google's way of balancing the amount an advertiser is willing to pay, but also ensuring that the ads are relevant to a searcher's experience.

A conversion describes those times that you get website visitors to do what you want them to do. For different sites this can mean different things: generating a lead, making a sale, having someone download an e-book or getting the phone ringing. Conversion marketing (or conversion optimisation) refers to the vital practice of reviewing and evolving a website so that the number of conversions received per 100 visitors continues to increase.

You should enter the keywords for any product or service into Google and review the top paid (pay per click) and free (organic) search results. Those websites on the first couple of page have all done something right in Google's eyes to get top billing. However, you should visit their actual websites and judge how well constructed they are when it comes to 'converting' site visitors. Chances are many of them are going to be terrible.

How effective is your site in making your visitors do what you want them to do? What sorts of steps can you take to increase your conversion rate? Stay tuned for more posts in this area.

• Requesting links to your website from the websites of friends and associates
• Finding businesses that share a similar customer demographic to you (but are not your competitors) and exchange links with them.
• Avoiding links from ‘bad neighbourhoods'. If it sounds too good to be true, it will be. Promises of 1000's of inward links for $99USD will not deliver a good Google ranking, maybe the opposite. There are no short-cuts here, just hard work.
• Don't link to 'bad neighbourhoods'.

Remember - Google isn't silly. If you think you have stumbled onto a way to trick them they will probably already know about it. Your website listing may be adversely affected.

Meta descriptions and keywords are no longer all that important in terms of actual search engine rankings. However, the Description allocated to a page is often used by Google when showing a page in its search results.

When you are creating your pages, you should display the most important keywords of the page in H1 text, the areas of secondary importance in H2 text and then the regular body text as normal text. You should be able to do this in any good content management system.

WARNING: Do not abuse this. Google is not easily fooled and if you make the entire text H1 then it will all be deemed unimportant. H1 text should really explain the contents of a page, not be a device to deceive users to visit your website. I would suggest that text flagged as H1 should be limited to 1-10 words per page.

View some sites that are powered on our hosted CMS in our portfolio.

What is a hosted CMS?

A hosted CMS is a content management system that a service provider licenses to customers for use as a "service on demand." For example, we host the software on our web servers on behalf of you, the customer. In this arrangement, you pay a small monthly fee for this service instead of buying the software and arranging all the supplementary services required.

Click here to view the pricing for all of our packages.

What are the benefits of having a hosted CMS?

Basically it's all about cost efficiency. With a shift to hosted software solutions, you can save thousands of dollars in not needing to configure hosting environments. As the service provider we are responsible for the upkeep of the server hardware and operating system.

Convenience is another benefit of having a hosted CMS service. There is no need for you to find specialists like web designers and web developers that will help update your website. Our system does all the "hard work" for you.

Website owners that don't have the necessary personnel or technical know-how in updating a website also need a reliable hosted CMS. This means that you can edit the website easily without becoming involved in the technicalities.

Why you should have a hosted CMS from us?

We believe that our hosted CMS solution is one of the best in the Australian market today. It has been specially developed to assist Australian businesses in taking control of their website content management. Our system allows you to fully manage your website and boost business profitability. The content management system is bundled with user-friendly features that include:

• Unlimited Pages
• WYSIWYG editor - just like using a basic text editor such as Microsoft Word
• Integration with Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools and Google AdWords
• Integration with Australian-centric areas such as Australia Post and major Australian banks
• E-Commerce
• Email Marketing
• Secure Pages
• Image Galleries
• Polls, News and Links

Let's get started with hosted CMS!

Pick up the phone and give us a call, or leave your details on this page. Our friendly Team, composed of professional web designers, will answer your queries about our hosted CMS.