Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization

Tips for SEO friendly webpages:

• A "crawler" is used by search engines to determine which websites to display in the search results and then rank them by their relevance to the search terms.
• Crawlers are programed to look at specific features within a website and report back to the search engine which websites are the most relevant. Some features crawlers look at include the page title, page description, heading tags and hyperlink names.

• Key terms should be used in the Title and Headings. Think about what words users would choose to find the webpage and try to include those key terms in your main heading and title(s).
• Titles of 35 characters are ideal and should no more than 70 total.

• Be sure to include the key terms into the copy at least once. Ensure the most important information stays "above the fold" (the part seen without scrolling down) and is between 150-500 words per webpage.

• Ensure any vital content is available outside iFrames and similar formats. Although those formats can be crawled, it is given low importance and low rankings.

• Sharing your content can increase SEO. For example, if a webpage was created in Kentico for an event, you can post the URL of that event webpage to your unit's social media accounts; if your content is on various webpages, it can move up in the search engine result rankings.
• Kentico can now share blog posts to certain social media platforms. Share link visible at the bottom of the blog post.

Elements & Guidelines

Element	Guidelines
Page title (Heading H1)	<h1>Most Important</h1>
Headings (H2-H5)	All headings should be related to the heading 1 <h2>Main Section(s) of Page, Very Important</h2> <h3>Sub Sections, Important </h3> <h4>helps </h4>           <h5>helps </h5>
Page descriptions (Metadata)	Full sentence structure with call to action encouraging click. No more than 170 characters total and avoid ampersands (&).
Images	Include key terms in file names and alternate text
URL Levels	No more than 4 levels deep (best practice) & Kentico only displays 4 levels including the top level directory name.
Crawling Traps	Input forms (anything behind a login won't get crawled) Frames (ex: iFrame)