Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Details

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Details are built-in tools in the Page Editor that help to better your search engine rankings. They are located on the Search Engines (SEO) tab in the Page Editor. They can be broken down into these subsections:

Search-Friendly URL

The URL will automatically be created once you create the page. It will populate from the Page Title you assign it when creating a new page.
If the Page Title (displays internally only) doesn't accurately account to what you would like your URL to be, you may change it.
Make it accurately reflect your page content. The shorter the better, and be sure to separate each word with a hyphen (-).
Once a change is made, it will automatically save the original URL as an Alias.

Aliases

An Alias is a previous incarnation of the same page, just with an different URL.
The reason aliases are automatically created, is because established web pages already have presence within search engines, and a name change would disrupt this URL link in search engine results. For instance, if your web page URL changed from "www.examplewebsite.com/my-page" to "www.examplewebsite.com/joes-page", it would automatically associate the latter (new URL) with the former (old URL). This is very beneficial, as it will basically redirect the old URL to the new URL, avoiding a broken link.
Search engines periodically "crawl" websites, taking in information from the code and interpreting it in their own manner to determine search engine ranking. A previous page that has been established within search engines, but has changed URLs without saving the alias will be interpreted as a broken link since, technically, the URL no longer exists. That is why it is recommended to allow the auto-save aliases feature to work.
Creating a new alias is generally something done when creating a new website with us using either the same, or a different domain (web address). It is used for the same reason as mentioned above, but instead of it being a changed URL on this website, it is the same (or a similar page) coming from a different website, even though it may have the same address (ex. www.examplewebsite.com).
To create a new alias, click on the 0 within This Page Also Has 0 Aliases.
Click Add Alias
Enter the URL AFTER the first forward slash (/) of the domain name into the field. For example, "www.examplewebsite.com/my-page", just enter "my-page".
Click Save.

Canonical

A Canonical URL is just an alternate page of same, or similar content that this page should redirect to from a search engine.
For instance, if you had an about us page, but included the same content within a company page along with mission, values, etc., you can setup a canonical URL for the about us page. From the search engine, the about page would automatically direct to the company page.
To create this, select the drop-down next to Canonical, and select Use Alternative URL.
Enter in, or find the page to direct to via the Page Picker (overlapping red & white rectangles). For more information on linking, follow the process shown in this article: Menu Links

Search Optimization Details

The input you provide here are all generated into META tags, which are then placed within the HTML code of your website. These are the most effective of the user accessible SEO tools and will help improve your SEO rankings.

To customize each of the following, simply click the drop-down menu next to each and select Custom...

Title

The title is what displays in the top of your web browser. It not only shows up during web browsing, but will also be the tag when bookmarked or added to the favorites list.
Every page should be given a title. A good method to follow, is to use the company name first, separated by a dash (-) or divider (|) (generally shares the backslash (\) key above the Enter/Return key on your keyboard) then the page title. For example: My Company | Contact Us.
Out of all of your SEO details, the title is what is relied on most heavily by search engines. By inserting the page name along with the company/organization name, it is helping search engines to locate your page and its content to so it can display in relative search queries. In addition, it also helps the branding of your website by having its name displayed in the tag, as this is what shows up as the text link on a search engine results page.

Keywords

Keywords or phrases are text people would enter into a search engine to find a website related to that search.
When coming up with keywords, think in terms of what a potential customer/client would search for when trying to find your business. You can be general, and specific. For example: A car dealership may want to include generic phrases like "New cars" or "Used cars". You can also be specific and mention the city or township the dealership is located, or what manufacturer vehicles you sell.
These are not a necessity for every page, but if you choose to do so, use the generic keywords or phrases in addition to specific ones relative to the page in particular.
Shoot for 5-10 keywords or phrases per page, separating each with a comma (,).

Description

The description can be a sentence or two describing the website page.
It can be as simple as copying a line directly from the content of that page or just having a default description with the company values or mission statement.

For more information regarding SEO and SEO packages, call us at 716-829-7373 and ask to speak with our SEO staff.