Content is King, But is CMS a King Killer?

Everyone understands that ‘Content is King’ on the web today. All the talk is about how the Engines only want to rate web sites which contain interesting information and this of course means in part at least the ‘words on the pages’. This information should also be seen to be changing on a regular basis.

A Vote for the CMS Then?

This would seem to be a vote for making it easy for website owners to add and amend their own content. This has of course been made easier by the huge growth in content management systems, these being available even on the cheapest of website hosting packages. Some of course are better than others and some are easier to use, however, there are real issues when it comes to the area of Search Engine Optimisation.

SEO Issues - Speed of Loading

There may be many more than the two I am going to cover below, but these are the two most important in my view. The first concerns the structure of the site itself, the way in which the pages are put together in HTML terms. Not all Content Management Systems (CMS) are bad of course, but if the pages load slowly because they have to make lots of ‘calls’ to the Web Server to ‘collect’ parts of the page itself, like css scripts, or files containing javascript code then the page will load slowly. This could well cause the site to be ‘downgraded’ by Google (this engine penalises web sites which loads slowly as it believes that they lessen the experience of web users) and that in turn can affect its chances of getting a good ranking.

Keyword Density

However, the biggest issue is that the web site owners can make any change they want to their sites text. Whilst this sounds like a good idea, making such changes can play havoc with a carefully optimised site. Areas like keyword density can be thrown out of the desired range (2% to 4%), whilst the all important heading text can be changed so much that the pages of the site no longer SHOUT the words they need to. If this happens, a page that had been enjoying a good ranking before it was changed by the owner could well drop down the rankings and even off them. If rankings are important (not all site owners are bothered) then you can see that allowing users the ability to change their own content might not be as good an idea as it first seems.

Headers SHOUT Keywords - Do you really want to Confuse the Listening Engines?

Problems are made even worse when the CMS has been set up to allow users to add headings whenever they want. Often these headings have been set up to use one of the old fashioned ‘header tags’ H1, H2 etc, which means that often the unknowing user ends up with a page full of header tags (which just ends up confusing things). Things can get even crazier when these headings end up in the wrong order, H1’s after H2’s and H3’s instead of before them, as this really makes thing messy!

The CMS & SEO Solution

Of course there is a way around the problem, first the CMS needs to be built in the right way, that is to minimise complexity and thus page load times. Secondly and more importantly the website owner needs to be made fully aware of how to use the CMS in the first place. This will allow them to make the changes they need whilst maintaining the ‘Optimisation’ of the pages.

So all you Web Designer chaps and lasses out there, please have a think about how you can help your customers, they'll love you for it in the end...