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Choosing the Wrong Content Management System Can Kill Your SEO!

Is your web site built with Content Management System (CMS) software? The answer is most likely Yes, if:

• Your web site has a shopping cart system for selling products.
• Your web site allows users to log in or search for content
• You can make changes to your web site through a control panel.
• Your web site has a blog and you can update the blog yourself.

As today’s web sites are becoming increasingly complicated in functionality, more and more web design companies are relying CMS software to build and design their web sites. This gives rise to a serious problem that is costing businesses billions of dollars every year because the web design companies often use the wrong CMS software that are not friendly to search engine optimization.

When it comes to CMS, there are hundreds to choose from. Over 90% CMS software were built 10 or 15 years ago, when search engine optimization was at its infancy. Many of these CMS software are poorly maintained or rarely updated. Using such an outdated CMS to build your brand-new web site often results in a web site that is impossible to optimize for top search engine rankings.

What Your Web Design Company Doesn’t Want You to Know

You had hired a web design company that promised to deliver everything you wanted. You assumed that your web site would be built with the latest, greatest technologies and would meet the latest search engine standards. Unfortunately, many business owners have learned the hard way that their assumption was wrong. Your web design company does NOT want you to know:

• They are clueless about SEO. Web design and SEO are two different trades even though they do not appear so. A web designer doesn’t have the expertise for SEO. All web designers and web design companies focus on delivering visually appealing web sites, but too often at the cost of search engine optimization. When choosing the CMS for your web site, they either don’t even include SEO on the priority list, or they have no idea how the choice of the CMS can affect a site’s Google rankings.
• They want to get you hooked. Many web design companies use their own proprietary CMS software to build web sites that can’t be changed, modified or maintained by a third-party company. So, you are stuck with your web design company for the lifetime of your web site. It can be extremely expensive if you choose to switch to another web company because it often requires a complete site rebuild. You may call such a practice by your web design company unethical, but these web design companies call it “job security”.
• Getting the latest technologies is expensive for your web design company. All CMS software are very complicated to learn and use. It is a common practice for a web design firm or a designer to learn one CMS, then stick to it for years or even decades, not matter how obsolete the CMS becomes. Most web design companies and designers simply don’t have the time or resource to learn the newest and greatest CMS software. As a result, they design your web site with no SEO capability.

Which CMS Should You Choose for Search Engine Optimization?

If search engine optimization is a big part of your marketing plan, choosing the right CMS can mean the difference between No. 1 rankings and no rankings at all. Currently, there are 3 FREE CMS software that are packed with search engine optimization tools.

• Joomla – It is widely used for small to midsized web sites. This software has many SEO functionalities built in. It can be used for a wide range of web sites including e-commerce sites.
• WordPress – It is commonly used for small business web sites. You can build web sites with extremely clean codes that make the web pages fast to download. It has the most complete SEO features among all CMS software.
• Drupal – It is the most powerful CMS on the market. Drupal can build web sites as sophisticated as YouTube or FaceBook. Its SEO capability is superb. However, it is rather complicated to use and support.

These 3 CMS software have a large user base and are well supported. You will never be stuck with one web company as there are many web design companies in the Minneapolis St. Paul area that can build and maintain these types of web sites.

Which CMS Should You Avoid?

It is not uncommon for business owners to find out that their brand-new web sites need to be completely rebuilt from scratch because of the lack of SEO capability. To avoid such a costly mistake, it is best to talk with an SEO expert before your web design company starts building your web site. In general, avoid these types of CMS software:

• ColdFusion-based CMS – If your web links end with “.cmf”, you are using the wrong CMS. ColdFusion was popular over 5 years ago. Fewer companies are using this type of CMS and fewer web developers know how to support them. None of them has any SEO functions built in. If you are going to build a new web site or redesign your current site, stay away from ColdFustion.
• Java Server-base CMS – If your web links end with “.jsp”, you could be using a CMS that is not easily supported. From web hosting to web page coding, this type of CMS is very costly to build and maintain. Because this type of CMS is so obsolete, none of them has any SEO capability.
• ASP.NET or ASP – If you web links end with “.aspx or .asp”, you are likely using a specially built CMS system. Maintaining and upgrading such a system is often very expensive. Some of such CMS software have good SEO capability, while others don’t. You may want to consult with a reputable SEO firm before going forward with your web design company’s choice.

CMS SEO Experts – Minneapolis St. Paul, Minnesota

Optimizing CMS-based web sites requires special skills. Each Content Management System is unique in its design, features, functions and SEO capability. Some CMS software come with search engine optimization features, but others require third-party SEO plug-ins. Our search engine optimization experts have extensive experience in optimizing CMS web sites. We specialize in design CMS web sites and optimizing them for top Google rankings. More than half of our client web sites are built with WordPress and Joomla. Speak with our CMS SEO experts regarding your web site and we will give you a free search optimization analysis of your web site.