The Smell Test.

CMS is the backbone of a website and can have a huge impact on the results of any Internet marketing campaign. A slow and / or [to Act] CMS can be a cumbersome load on the web site administrator, therefore, as a result could slow the growth of web content, evolution and readers end up frustrated by long periods of load, which often brings results result in the loss of traffic and loss of income.Conversely, if you use a quick and easy CMS can reduce the administrative burden that keeps the website, actually accelerate the growth and evolution of content, while providing readers with quick loading of pages, ultimately resulting in high web traffic and the maximum retention of readers. 

Via: <http://mercadee.com/sistema-de-gestion-de-contenidos/&gt;

True enough, but my site, like this quote is powered by WordPress:

A wide range of content management systems available for web content publishers today, and some of the best are free. At the time of writing (October 2011) the best CMS for almost any case is WordPress. Free, fast, very efficient and very easy to use, WordPress just makes your life easier! Written in PHP and MYSQL, WordPress is built entirely on open source technology. It is not perfect for each case, but is perfect for most. This website is powered by WordPress. 

And my CMS almost let this link go undetected by me. This link isn’t spam, but obviously sent by a friend.

A friend would give me a Search Engine Friendly URL, such as my CMS does, instead of an unfriendly one like: http://zenpundit.com/?p=10300.

Built in SEO

Perhaps the most important feature of WordPress and MediaWiki both is that they are search engine optimizers from the moment they are taken out of the box. WordPress, a developer only needs to activate the search engine friendly URLs and configure to your liking. Other content management systems like Joomla 1.5, the application have friendly URLs has been the worst nightmare for developers. WordPress and MediaWiki have implemented this feature effortlessly. 

So not only, like Howard Rheingold says in his book Net Smart, do you need your “Crap Detector” on, you also need to know when something smells OK.  It took me awhile to apply the “smell” test, to this link, but I, like any SEO, should think that the time spent conducting a Smell Test, was a time well worth it.

8 thoughts on “The Smell Test.

  1. Comment cross-posted from Zenpundit:

    Hi Larry:

    There are benefits and drawbacks to both “search engine friendly” and “unfriendly” URLs. I’ve been thinking lately how glad I am that our URLs are simply post numbers (zenpundit.com/?p=####) rather than post titles (zenpundit.com/2012/06/29/William_Lind_on_the_Taliban’s_Operational_Art), because I like the ability to edit my post titles in my overall editing process (which is often many layers deep), and the supposedly “friendly” date_and_title_with_all_the_word_spaces_underlined system makes that more difficult, since I have to edit not only the title itself but also the URL with its pesky underlines each time.

    On the other hand, I can see that if search engines base their results heavily on post titles and not on the contents, the system I like for ease of editing may be less than helpful in terms of SEO.

    I’ll go with whatever Zen provides…

  2. As you can see (if this actually works) I have changed my post title, but the address is still the same, and all Google (and any other interested parties) are interested in are words, not content.
    I mean, my “rename”, content wise, is pretty much the same. Perhaps if the conclusion of your post is completely different than when you started, the words wouldn’t be quite right, but I am looking for accuracy here, not precision.
    On the other hand, all change cost, so I would go with what works, before I experimented with something else.

  3. And now the CMS is, once again, keeping track of the post by it’s most recent name. Converted back to Original Name

    So one strategy, to Optimization, might be to ke[y]ep changing the title of a key post, with a key word, until you find your key audience (see the keynection here). I don’t mean to spam it; keep it simpler than that. Just every so often change a few key words, in the title of one of your key posts. As a meme you know what those key words and posts are.

    Or I should say, if you are a meme, you know what those key words are (because they are yours), or make them up, and compose a key post instead of Optimizing.

    And it is easy for a SEO to know the key words. Key words are linked words. So if you don’t have a picture of the people you are linked to, on the front page of your blog, you have lost your strategic advantage in changing key words in your title. Without the key meaning spelled out explicitly in the connection you make, there is no key meaning in your words.

    • My key pictures, from top to bottom are location, connection, and security. The same key words I used in the blog I set up for my wife, as a trustee, to sell her mother’s house.

      It could be that location, connections and security are the key words that people use when looking for a home.

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